Caves of Chaos: Heading West!

 Session 7 was played on 9/19

Io the thief
Theiss of Gond, cleric

After returning to the keep, the party brings the bodies of their fallen to the chapel for last rites before burial. The head priestess Kestra is impressed by their dedication.

After resting for the night, they pay Kask and Gyg for another day, and hire Burnore, Brymore, and Yar, and trek west from the keep along the Old King Way, traveling for a full day, mostly along the edge of the light woods to the north. They pass some isolated farmsteads, a tiny hamlet, before arriving at a walled river village.

After talking with the gate guards they're allowed in, and directed to the tavern. Talking with the locals they hear about the goings on, including owlbear attacks, dragon sightings, bandits way laying smaller caravans, including a caravan they were expecting this past week. It should have passed the keep not too long ago.

Kask knows the caravan they're talking about. It left the keep the same day the one he was a part of arrived.

The next morning the party departed the the walked village and heads back to the keep, keeping an eye out for the bandits. Their sharper lookout paid off, as they spotted a break in the woods big enough for a single wagon to pass through, and wagon wheel tracks heading along it.

Io sneaks parallel to the path in the woods, and spots 2 bandits in tree stands keeping a watch. Unfortunately one spots her, and she runs for it.

Rejoining the party they all book it down the path back to the keep, and after taking to the guards at the gate gain an audience with the castellan to tell him about the camp. He wants to hire them to take care of the bandits, and offers 15gp per bandit captured or killed.

Gains:
Losses:
Kills:

Caves of Chaos: Sticky Sweet and Rotting Flesh

Session 6 was played on 9/12

Io the thief
Gizzard Wannabe the Wizard
Theiss of Gond, cleric
Tiptoe the thief
Boots the ranger
Amnyuthist the halfling

The party hires Garwood and Kask and head back to the swamp, aiming to finish off the lizarmen mound. On the way, they meet a dozen warriors headed to the keep. They’d just come from the mound, and report that they’ve looted and burned it. The 2 groups continue on their way.

Deciding that a trip to the swamp is a wasted trip if they don’t do anything, they begin to stomp around, hoping to turn something up. Something, in this case ends up being a giant bee. They follow it at a distance to the hive inside the trunk of a massive dead tree. Not wanting to try to fight them, the party has Wannabe put them to sleep. Io then squeezes into the hive and collects some of the honey. Tiptoe follows and collects a little, but a bee makes its way out from deeper in the hive and attacks. Tiptoe is hurt, but runs for it.

They make it back to the Keep, soggy, but with some honey that Wannabe thinks has some magical healing properties.

The next day they hire Gyg and Vlad and head to the caves, and explore the goblin caves… finding them empty?!? Well, almost empty. 4 dead goblins rise up and attack the party. Vlad and Garwood don’t survive the encounter. They take the bodies, and bring them back to the keep.

Gains: healing honey
Losses: Garood, Vlad
Kills: 4 goblin zombies, 1 giant bee

Caves of Chaos: Swampwalk

 Session 4 was played on 8/29

Venus the Halfling
Io the thief
Gizzard the Wizard
Theiss the cleric
Gloin the Dwarf

Checking the tavern, they find 5 caravan guards interested in going for an adventure. Especially for a gold piece a day each! Rather than return to the caves, the party decides to explore the swamp and look for the lizardman encampment. Venus the halfling scouts ahead. Wandering for many soggy hours, they deal with numerous bug bites, and spot a variety of wildlife before they see signs of the lizardmen.

Eventually they do find the lizardmen mound, and in the heat and humidity of the late afternoon the lizardmen guards are sluggish and don’t spot the party. Gizzard uses his sleep spell to ensure that they can approach the mound unbothered. They quickly dispatch the sleeping lizardmen, and then fight the ones from inside the mound that try to come out to get the party. Sadly for the lizardmen, because of the narrowness of the mound’s entrance, they aren’t able to mass against the party effectively and after a couple more deaths, they just close up the entrance till the party goes away.

Checking over the corpses, they find one was wearing a heavy gold chain around it’s neck. They take it and head back toward the keep. On the way they spot 7 skeletons marching through the muck toward them. Theiss holds up her holy symbol and sends the skeletons running back into the swamp.

Gains: gold chain
Losses Kril the man at arms
Kills: 6 lizardmen

Caves of Chaos: Goblin Guards

 Session 3 was played on 8/22

Dramatis Personae:
Io the Thief
Wannabe Gizzard the Wizard
Tiptoe the Thief
Venus the Halfling

Starting in the tavern, feeling flush from the wyvern’s treasure, the party hires the 3 caravan guards who are between jobs, and willing to follow the party off to the caves. Norwood, Barin, and Harmyr are hopeful that the adventurer’s luck continues.

Taking the Old King’s Road, they head to the box canyon and to the goblin cave on the southern side. Almost immediately they’re confronted with 6 goblin guards. The fighting is chaotic, and the party begins to back track almost immediately after Norwood drops. Things are looking better as they get back to the cave mouth and half the goblins are down, but then Barin takes a nasty hit and drops. The remaining goblins suffer a string of bad luck and drop right after Barin goes down. Harmyr and the thieves grab the bodies of Norwood and Barin and start making for the exit of the canyon.

Their escape is interrupted when 6 more goblins come out of the cave, and start tossing spears and loosing arrows at the party. They drop the bodies of their fallen and book it back to the road.

The party makes it back to the keep, and has a somber dinner. Their spirits are lifted by a visiting priest who joins them for some lively conversation. His acolytes are less jovial, having taken a vow of silence. In the end the priest excuses himself, as he needs to converse with the castilian. It isn’t until after he’s left the tavern that the barkeep informs the party that the priest left them to pay his bill. If nothing else, they do hear a rumor about some lost magical armor hidden on one of the southern caves.

Gains:
Losses Norwood, Barin
Kills: 6 goblin guards

DM Notes: So many 1s were rolled on both sides…. SO MANY!!

Caves of Chaos: Donkeys & Dragons

Session 2 was played on 6/12/24

Dramatis Personae:
Glyn the Dwarf
Berm the Fighter
Thorin Oakenshield the Dwarf
Io the Thief
Wannabe Gizzard the Wizard
Lighter the Fighter
Fraud the Dwarf
Trina the Elf
Tiptoe the Thief
Poppy the Barbarian

Sighting of a dragon in the nearby hills got everyone at the Keep talking. Several smaller caravans and lone wagons have gone missing nearby. The speculation is that it might be lairing at the old abandoned watchtower. Our bold adventurers decide not only to go face this dragon, but to bring along every able bodied individual in the tavern willing to go with them. For extra gold they managed to convince 4 caravan guards to take their day off and spend it dragon hunting! 2 specialists (thieves) and an elf also tag along. The party also bought a donkey and half a dozen chickens. I thought the donkey was to help them bring the dragon’s treasure back, but I was wrong.

Heading up into the wooded hills north of the Keep, the party kept a lookout for the dragon. They spotted the watchtower and approached carefully. Sending the sneaky ones ahead to scout, the rest keep watch on both the tower and the sky…

The thieves make it to the base of the ruined tower without attracting the notice of the dragon… Easy to do since it wasn’t home! One thief climbed a nearby tree to get a look at the top of the tower, and built on it was clearly a nest. The ruined tower was easy to climb, and the thieves scaled it and began to dig around in the nest. The rest of the party went to the base of the tower to collect whatever the thieves could toss down. A few of the hirelings kept the donkey and some chickens nearby, but away from the base of the tower.

As the thieves started tossing all the gold and gems they could find over the edge of the tower, the rest of the party scrambled to pick it up and bag it. They were working fast, and managed to find a decent haul before the dragons roar echoed across the hillside. The thieves ducked down, trying to keep out of sight. Under the trees, the hirelings with the animals started making a ruckus to get the dragon’s attention, and set the donkey to run. The dragon roared and chased after the animal, and as soon as it had passed the adventurers and their meatshields, they all took off running in the opposite direction away from where the donkey and dragon ran. As they ran, they could hear the scream of the donkey end abruptly.  

The party’s plan worked, and they’d made off with a good chunk of the wyvern’s (not a true dragon) treasure.

Gains: roughy 1500ep, 1500gp
Losses donkey and chickens
Kills:

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There was a minor interruption during the game, as a bat managed to get into the building and several players worked together to make sure the doors and windows were opened to let the poor creature escape.

The Caves of Chaos! Session 1

Back in June at a work retreat I ran a couple of evening sessions of B/X D&D for my coworkers. At the end of July we picked back up again, and I’ve been running a near weekly session since. At the time I’m writing this, we’ve played through 11 sessions. All of my players are novices, never having played an RPG before,

My introduction to them was that this is an old school game where death is pretty common if you’re stupid or unlucky, that success is measured by gold far more than by bodies, and that there is a literal war being fought by civilization and the forces of law against the agents of chaos, and while this battle is largely fought by beings like angels and demons, the efforts of mortals can shift the balance. That I would be starting the game on one of the borders between law and chaos, a Keep on the Borderlands. How they choose to play, and where they go in the world is entirely up to them. There is no plot line for them to follow, there is no story that they’re expected to adhere to, that I would be presenting them with NPCs, places, quest choices and that the tales that would be told of their adventures would depend on what actions they take, and the success or failure of those actions.

The first night there were over a dozen players and observers. The second was about half. Since then it ranges from 2-5 players, which isn’t bad given that we’re playing from 4:30-6pm on Thursday afternoons. I’m thrilled to be able to share this with my coworkers, and now I’m going to share their tales with you!

Session 1 was played on 6/10/24

Dramatis Personae:
Glyn the Dwarf
Berm the Fighter
Thorin Oakenshield the Dwarf
Io the Thief
Wannabe Gizzard the Wizard
Lighter the Fighter
Fraud the Dwarf
Trina the Elf
Tiptoe the Thief
Poppy the Barbarian

The party arrives at the Keep on the Borderland, and their first challenge is to get into the keep. The guards keeping watch question the party, logging their names and professions. They warn the self described “thieves” that antisocial behavior will not be tolerated within the walls of the keep, and to keep their noses clean. Also, maybe announcing to the town guard that you’re a thief is maybe not the best intro.

After getting some directions, they make their way to the inn and secure accommodations for the night, and then head to the tavern for food, drink, and rumors. They talk with a guard captain, learn about the Caves of Chaos, that there’s a local dragon that has been causing problems lately that they think is lairing up in the hills in an old ruined watch tower, and that there are both lizardmen in the swamps and bandits all around (10gp/bandit killed, 15gp for any brought back alive).

After lunch they explore the keep more, and try to visit the jeweler, but he doesn’t want to talk to them till they have something to sell, or enough cash to buy something, and isn’t letting them into his store.

The next morning they head out to the canyon. In a copse of trees the party hears someone. Wannabe tosses a vial of burning oil into the trees, and with an amazing stroke of luck manages to hit someone hiding in the brush! His screams echo in the canyon as he burns to death. A second human runs screaming from his burning friend and the party deeper into the canyon. THe party puts out the burning body and the brush that was starting to catch, and check the body, recovering a crude copper medallion inscribed with a 7 pointed star.

Heading up to one of the cave entrances on the north side of the canyon, and looking in see a wall of heads looking back. Within they hear someone speaking, though no one knows the language. Getting ready to head into the cave and turn east to the voices, they’re charged by 4 guards. The party manages to kill 2/4 in the initial assault. More orcs arrive from the other direction surprising the dwarf who was supposed to be keeping watch. The dwarf took 2 hits and dropped. Wannabe sleeps the still standing orcs to the west, while Poppy is cut down before Tiptoe and Berm cut down the last of the standing orcs.

The party quickly checks the pockets of the fallen orcs, grabs their fallen, and runs for the keep.

Gains: orc pocket change, copper medallion
Losses Poppy, Fraud
Kills: 8 orcs, 1 cultist