Bradley Keep - Session 7

Bradley Keep is the name of my Labyrinth Lord sandbox campaign. The goal is to highlight some of the best that the OSR community has to offer.

Date: Saturday April 28, 2012

Keegan - Glaven Fiser (Human Magic User); Manfred the Oaf (Human Fighter)

Leslie - Grenver (Dwarf)

Brad - Leif (Human Fighter); Feardill (Elf)

Jim - Crymena (Human Cleric); Niktu Florenglade (Elf)

Josh - Fasrip (Human Thief; Tipton the Poor (Human Thief)

NPC - Tony (Torchbearer), Jaarko, Dom, Henrick, Timo, Matty (Men at Arms)

Regular readers will notice some unfamiliar names in the party list. I ran this game as part of the All State Gaming Retreat last weekend. I'd like to give a more detailed report, but it's been a week since the game. Unfortunately, my computer has been wracked by Windows problems, and I just got around to updating today (next step, go back through RPG Now and download a bunch of stuff I lost. I was being lazy about backing up my hard drive for the past couple weeks...).

The group hit the Stonehell Dungeon. Glaven, Leif, Crymena, and Fasrip, plus most of the NPCs were taken down by various undead. They talked with a kobold work crew and learned some secrets of Stonehell. They talked with a giant statue head and spun the Wheel of Fortune. By the end of the session, they had mapped out most of the Hell's Antechamber and part of the Quiet Halls. 

I'll make another post about the All State Gaming Retreat soon. Got another game in about 30 minutes I should be preparing for right now.

Bradley Keep - Session 6

Bradley Keep is the name of my Labyrinth Lord sandbox campaign. The goal is to highlight some of the best that the OSR community has to offer.

Date: Sunday April 15, 2012

Adventurers:

• Corolla Clayfoot - Halfling Fighter (Dan)
• Jaffa the Blade - Human Thief (Dan)
• Gork - Half Orc Fighter (Allen)
• Carl "Suicide Machine" Weathers - Human Magic User (Allen)
• Crimmin Thorndodger - Dwarf Fighter (Tim)
• Slynthe Vorhees - Human Cleric (Tim)
• Fin, Tylde, Crump, & Snape - Men at Arms (NPC)

Regular player Dave was unable to make it to the game this week. Since he was the only one to survive the blood-bath last session, I decided to run a side quest - Modnar's Cellar from Stonehell Supplement 2. Next game we'll pick up with him recruiting some new guys to finish the Shadowbrook Manor job.

Since we were missing the crux of the current story arc, I tossed this bone at the players -- They were recruited by the Keep guard to track down a bandit. I reward of 250 gp for his return or 100 gp for his corpse. Some information regarding his whereabouts was provided, in addition to 4 men-at-arms from the guard. The players took the job and headed towards the ruins.

Arriving there without incident, the group of ten quickly descended into the labyrinth. Tylde slipped on some slime on the steps, tumbled to the ground and made one hell of a racket. Wandering monster check - hit. A pair of skeletons lumber down the hall. Slynthe succeeds in turning them, so the party starts investigating. 

Heading down the eastern hallway, they find a statue of a wizard with a glowing stone in the chest. Not sure what to make of it, they had back down to the first room then continue west. They come across a room filled with rats and trash. No bandit, they the follow the hall to the south. After navigating the corridors for a bit, they come to a room guarded by a hungry albino ape. It charges the heroes, but misses with both claws. A pair of critical hits by Crimmin and Gork take it down. In the next room, Jaffa notices a pit trap in the floor. To be safe, they set off the trap, and again make a heck of a racket. No wandering monsters this time, although it does alert the two bugbears in the next room. The party crashes through the door, the bugbears launch themselves from the shadows and get the drop on the party. Tylde is run through by a spear, but the rest of the party makes quick work of the beasts (due to some lousy rolls on my part and good rolls by them). They snag the chest of electrum and move on.

They listen at the next room and hear a group of kobolds conversing about what they should do. In my mind, kobolds sort of sound like Beavis. "Dude...I don't think it's the bugbears." "Dude...who else would be out there?" "Dude...there are like, too many of them or something..." Instead of engaging, the party spikes the door from the outside. Thinking that someone is knocking, the kobolds call out, "Dude...we don't want any. Like go away or something." The players giggle about their cruel trick and move on.

They stumble into a low gravity training room, a library with a nasty crab spider, and a pile of refuse crawling with giant centipedes. Some lucking rolls and everyone is still standing. The thief managed to snag a new suit of +1 leather armor off a corpse and the magic user found an old spell book. 

The group enters a room to find a lone, unlocked chest. It was sitting on a carpet in the center of the room. A little leery, but not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouse, the thief approaches, checks for traps on the chest, and not finding any, opens the lid. Lifting the lid sets off a different trap -- an invisible net and pulley yank anyone on the carpet up to the ceiling. Since it was assumed that the other players were milling around in the room, I gave everyone besides the thief a save vs. paralyze to avoid being caught. Two of the guardsmen and Crimmin avoid the trap. At that point, the bandit saunters in saying, "Well what do we have here...." Then noticing the dwarf and the guardsmen, shouts "Oh SHIT!!" and takes off running. Crimmin takes advantage of his infravision while making chase and manages to catch up to the fleeing criminal, knocking him out with the flat of his sword, while the rest of the party takes to cutting themselves out of the net.

"Suicide Machine" wants to check out a couple of the other rooms on the way out. He finds a well that appears to be filled with quicksilver. Around the mouth of the well are some eldritch runes. He rips the Read Magic spell out of the newly found spell book, casts the spell (I have a house rule that spells in books can be used as scrolls, but the process destroys it), and discovers that swimming the well can impart some benefit on the character. In the end, Grok, "Suicide Machine", Corolla, and Jaffa swim the well. Everyone besides Corolla managed to increase one of their attributes (who lost a couple points of constitution).

The party lead the criminal back to town, collected their reward, and headed to the tavern to spend some of their hard earned loot.

Bradley Keep - Session 5

Bradley Keep is the name of my Labyrinth Lord sandbox campaign. The goal is to highlight some of the best that the OSR community has to offer.

Date: Sunday April 8, 2012

Adventurers:

• Linus the Courageous - Human Fighter (Dan)
• The Artless Dodger - Human Thief & Savran - Elf Fighter (Allen) w/ retainer Reldoon
• Graelyn Thorn - Elf Magic User/Cleric (Dave) w/ Talbot George
• Samantha the Butcher - Human Magic User (Brad) w/Rottweiler Marsha & retainer Balik
• Bargar - Torch Bearer (NPC)

The previous game left the characters standing around in the main corridor of Shadowbrook Manor. They continued exploring. Graelyn Thorn was still under the effects of the True Seeing from consuming the absinthe in the previous game, which gave away a lot of the nasty tricks left in the house. I wasn't sure how to referee some of those situations, since the house is chocked full of player-screw-over items and rooms. Since the chances of the character actually getting the benefits of the absinthe was so slim, I pretty much gave everything away, if he asked. 

While clearing out the remainder of the ground floor, they took care of a room full of shadows and avoided a ghost trapped in a jar. One player correctly guessed that the shadows were tied to the candles and they took very little damage. While exploring the second floor, they discover a room with a corpse lying on a table and a brain in a jar in the corner. The module suggested that the brain would attempt to charm the party (like the spell) convincing them to fight to the death for it's amusement. Thinking they've had it easy to this point, I decided that the brain could cast against the entire group because I wasted to see what might happened. For better or worse, what happened is everyone...yes...EVERYONE, down to the dogs and retainers, failed their save. Eleven failed saves by one party. They seemed to be down with it, so we went PVP. The drunken Graelyn Thorn was the only one who survived the melee. The brain decided to make him a minion. Unfortunately, for the brain, Graelyn managed to save vs. the charm the following day, won the initiative and destroyed the vessel and brain.

Graelyn used his scroll of invisibility and high-tailed it back to the Keep, deciding to try and recruit a new group to back into the house, collect the stuff off of his old friends corpses, and finish the job on the house. 

At that point we decided to wrap. I've been sick for the past few days, so a few hours of DMing was more than enough for the day. The PC binder needs some restocking, so three of us hung out after the game and statted up some cannon fodder.

Wrestleworld Promo - Ladder Match

Wrestleworld is the brain child of Jason over at The Only Successful One. It is a D&D/Pro-Wrestling hybrid game.  Contact Jason via the blog, the ConstantCon announcement, or find him on G+ if you are interested. It's totally gonzo.

Thursday March 29, 2012 - Ladder Match

[Still drunk from their win over Smash O'Bloody  and The Pride of Boston, not to mention the copious amount of beer consumed, The Spoiler III and Caltrop Cal stumble up to Brother Solomon and his camera crew]


Spoiler: What I tell ya, Solomon, what I tell you. Those Irish bastards were no match for the likes of us and the Galaxians...no match at all.
Cal: No match!!!
Spoiler: I gotta hand it to the booker at this here arena, though. A ladder match? That ain't The Spoiler's style. Where I come from, we fight with our feet on the ground. That's why I'm planning to take a week off and enjoy some rest and relaxation. I ain't climbing no damn ladder, ya see.
Cal: Yeah!! No ladder!
Spoiler: But ol' Cal here, he's got more guts than brains, so he's throwing his hat into the ring. He's gonna climb that ladder. He's gonna take that brief case. He's going to walk out of here with all that cash and the contract. I don't see any of these flunkies challenging him.
Cal: Damn them flunkies!!!
Spoiler: Ya see, this is a very special kind of match. The kind of match where you gotta be a little loose in the noggin'. Anybody willing to even enter the ring ain't right in my book. But that's where ol' Cal got the advantage. He's damn near lost his mind, but he can still fight. We've been training together these past couple weeks, and I taught him more than a thing or two. My ring sense, plus Cal's reckless nature are the perfect combination to take home that brief case. Now if you'll excuse us, we have a couple of things to go over before this thing gets under way.
Cal: [grins deviously then barks at the camera as the screen fades to black]. 

Wrestleword Session 2 - Play Report

Wrestleworld is the brain child of Jason over at The Only Successful One. It is a D&D/Pro-Wrestling hybrid game. I've joined on to try to it out via G+ Hangout game that meets on Thursday nights. This session featured Jason as GM and Greg Backus and me as the PCs. Contact Jason via the blog, the ConstantCon announcement, or find him on G+ if you are interested. It's totally gonzo. We're sort of developing it as we play, so there is a lot of room for input from new players. If you've ever fantasy booked your own Wrestlemania with your LJNs when you were a kid, this is the game for you.

Thursday March 15, 2012 - Saint Smashtrick's Day

Head Booker - Jason Kielbasa

Enhancement Talent:

• Mike Bolam 
• The Spoiler III - Classic American Brawler 
• Caltrop Cal - Scumbag Deathmatch Specialist 
• Greg Backus 
• Galaxian Alpha 
• Galaxian Beta 

Full of piss and vinegar, and still high off their defeat of the Freebards the previous week, The Spoiler and Cal stumble upon the Galaxians in the Wrestleworld Complex parking lot. Realizing the two don't speak a lick of English, they direct them towards the entrance to the arena. The arena is completely decked out in the colors of the Irish Flag, and the quartet prepare for a wild beating in the Irish Death Match promoted that evening.

Spoiler steps up to Brother Solomon and let's him know that the four of them are looking to take on ol' Smash O' Bloody and The Pride of Boston - The Fireman and Kelly O'Beaten. Spoiler is mostly concerned about Smash and informs Solomon that "The Pride" are nuthin' but a couple punks. They leave the entrance way and check out the first room, where they find a trio of combatants dressed in La Parka gear. These knuckleheads clearly aren't here to talk and a fight quickly breaks out. Cal is quickly impressed by the toughness of Galaxian Alpha. After the fight, Alpha takes a stroll down to the snack bar while the other three ransack the room.

Finding nothing, Alpha starts looking around for a potential weapon and comes across a janitorial closet. He grabs a mop and Cal pilfers a couple packets of VoBan Vomit Absorber. They head to the ring area. The Irish team is already in the ring. The two groups start jawing at each other. Eventually The Fireman launches himself through the ropes at the Galaxians, while the other two grab the Shillelaghs in the the corners.

During the confusion on the floor, Cal heads under the ring to try to sneak up on the opponents from behind. Spoiler and Beta attempt to run interference, while Alpha brawls with the Fireman on the floor. Under the ring, Cal discovers a Leprechaun. He offers him a trail ration and befriends the little guy. The Leprechaun gives him a magic kelly green bowler hat, which Cal wears throughout the match. Due to the distractions by the guys on the floor, Cal is able to sneak up on Kelly O'Beaten and attacks him from behind, disarming him. They start slugging it out as Spoiler attempts to enter the ring. He's beaten back by O' Bloody, but manages to disarm the guy. The Fireman knocks out Alpha, but is quickly downed by a Shillelagh between the eyes. O'Bloody and O'Beaten decide to double team Cal in the ring, giving Spoiler the opportunity to get involved. The Irishmen botch the double-team and to add insult, Cal steals O'Beaten's finisher, dropping him with The Drunken Irishman Yakuza Kick. O'Beaten is a tough mother, though, and stumbles back to his feet. Beta is dropped in the scrum and is unable to make it to his feet before he is counted out.

Cal, Alpha and Spoiler all take a minute to down a beer and regain some strength. Cal temporarily blinds O'Beaten with the VoBan, while Spoiler and Alpha go to work on O'Bloody. The 3 on 2 battle quickly turns in our hero's favor as the beat the living hell out of O'Beaten and O'Bloody. While the ref is counting them out, Cal invites his new friend out from under the ring. The Leprechaun delivers the tadpole splash from the top rope to ensure the victory. Beta, Spoiler, and Cal celebrate in the ring with their new buddy. As the match ends, the Shillelaghs and magical bowler cap disintegrate and the Irish themed decorations disappear, as the screen fades to black.

Tune in next week to discover the next opponents for these rough and tumble brawlers...

Wrestleworld Session 1 - Play Report

Wrestleworld is the brain child of Jason over at The Only Successful One. It is a  D&D/Pro-Wrestling hybrid game. I've joined on to try to it out via G+ Hangout game that meets on Thursday nights. The first session was just Jason and I, but we had a blast playing out the wrestling adventure.

Contact Jason via the blog, the ConstantCon announcement, or find him on G+ if you are interested. It's totally gonzo. We're sort of developing it as we play, so there is a lot of room for input from new players. If you've ever fantasy booked your own Wrestlemania with your LJNs when you were a kid, this is the game for you.

Thursday March 15, 2012

Head Booker - Jason Kielbasa
Enhancement Talent:

• The Spoiler III - Classic American Brawler
• Caltrop Cal - Scumbag Deathmatch Specialist
• Mazmorra Extraordinio - High Flying Luchador

The unlikely trio approach the worn down hockey arena, looking to prove themselves in the squared circle.

Inside the main doors, they find Brother Solomon, find broadcast interviewer Brother Solomon and proceed to cut a promo on the featured main event competition for the evening, The Freebards. The Spoiler knows their reputation, but assures Solomon that the three of them are prepared to step into the ring.

After searching around some corporate offices (and finding an "intelligent" catcher's chest protector named D'Lo), they stumble into the fighting arena. The stands are half filled with jeering kobold's, and the promised 50' scaffold looks to only be about 20' high. In the stands, they spy Vader-taur (Minotaur-Vader hybrid??), and deciding to test his mettle, The Spoiler calls him out. The kobolds go crazy as Vader-taur prepared to charge them. It's a brutal fight, but the three greenhorns are eventually able to drop the mutant. The big high spot of the match played out as follow -- Mazmorra climbs to the top of the bleachers and gets a running start. Spoiler sees him and goes for the power bomb on the Vader-taur (Minotaur-Vader hybrid??). Spoiler hits the crit, turning his Spoiler Bomb into a Super Spoiler bomb. Mazmorra takes off from the top of bleachers for a crazy plancha and hits. Spoiler manages a jumping power bomb that is spiked by Mazmorra's body as he descends from the rafters. They strip Vader-taur of any fancy looking gear and turn towards the scaffolding.

The boys taunt the Freebards at the top of the scaffolding a bit, but decide to grab some nachos before the main event. They also spend some gold to find out the properties of some of the loot on Vader-taur. The most amusing was the red & yellow headband that makes you feel "more American".  After stumbling through a few back rooms, they eventually come down the entrance ramp as their theme music blares through a couple of blown out speakers.

They quickly climb towards the rafters and start the clubbering on the old Freebards. The boys take a beating, but manage to take out the more experienced Freebards. Mazmorra took a nasty fall from the top of the scaffold, and it will likely be a while before we see him around the Wrestleworld Pavilion again. Cal and Spoiler claim their prize, a diamond encrusted belt, then head back to the snack bar to recover their stamina with a couple beers.

The Spoiler and Cal are set to take on Irish Brawler Smash O'Bloody and his crew this Thursday. Don't miss it!!!

Wrestleworld Promo for March 22, 2012

Spoiler III: I gotta hand it to you, Brother Solomon...those Freebards were some tough cookies. We're not talking Betty Crocker here.
Caltrop Cal: Yeaaaaah...Tough Cookies!
Spoiler: Those guys were the Otis Spunkmeyers of this here Wrestleworld...but, no, they weren't as tough as The Spoiler and ol' Caltrop over there. Not even close!
Cal: Yeah...not even close!
Spoiler: Looks like were set to take on that drunken bastard Smash O' Bloody in his signature match, The Irish Death Match.
Cal: I heard he ain't even Irish!!!
Spoiler: Now don't you say too much about ol' Smash, there Cal. He's a cagey vet and you could learn more than a thing or two from him in the squared circle. If that ain't enough, he's dragging them no-goods "The Pride of Boston." If that's what makes Boston proud, I'm glad I ain't from 'round them parts. Buncha no-good jerks if ya ask me.
Cal: Yeah...JERKS!
Spoiler: But the Spoiler, he's got a thing or two up his sleeve to handle those knuckle heads. And ol' Cal here, you don't even wanna know where he keeps his tricks. It ain't right, to be perfectly honest, but I know ol' Cal got the Spoilers back, and we're gonna take the heat to this crew.
Cal: [grins deviously then barks at the camera as the screen fades to black].