Experience Points for Session 3

I plan to post a recap of the previous two sessions sometime next week, but in the meantime, I wanted to give you the experience point total for last night's successful adventure. Each character receives 1,276 experience points. This includes experience points for the treasure that you found.

I did not include the 10,000 silver pieces you discovered in my tally. The total weight of those silver pieces is 1,000 pounds, so it will take a few trips back and forth from the river to the barrow to get them all into your boats, which will, in turn, require a few extra checks for wandering monsters, etc. We'll play that out next session, at which point you can add the additional experience to your total.

Thank you all for a very enjoyable night of gaming!

Stavelot, Session 1

May 1-2, 372 AL*

It was an unusually diverse group of adventurers who met on the long journey from Neuss to Stavelot: Grok, a half-orc fighter; Whren Briarwhysper, a gnome thief; Ardyth Lau, a half-elf ranger; Ulfgar, a dwarven cleric; Nevin, a human illusionist, and his half-brother Gorn, a half-orc fighter; and Seraphina Hilltopple, a halfling thief. After eight long days of travel up the rutted and desolate Forest Road with a long caravan of merchants, and eight nights of sharing a campfire and speculating on what adventures lay ahead, the party finally reached Stavelot, a small, walled town in the northwest corner of Thuringia, at the edge of the great northern wilderness.

The party spent the first day exploring the town and inquiring about opportunities for adventure. Bull, the massive, jovial barkeep at the Broken Lantern, pointed the characters to an ancient barrow just north of town, easily reached by riverboat. A ruined village sat at the edge of the river, Bull said, and an old road led inland from the village to the barrow. A party had left to explore that barrow the previous summer, Bull told the characters, but it had never returned. The decision was not difficult; the party left the Broken Lantern for the Fishermen's Guild, where they could see about hiring a boat.

The Fishermen's Guild, a modest wooden building at the edge of a cluster of huts along the river bank, is run by a gaunt, consumptive man named Gunthar. Though Gunthar seemed a trifle annoyed with Grok, who loudly claimed to dislike fishermen because of their fishy smell, he agreed to help the party hire passage on a boat the following morning. The day was still young, so the characters first visited the alchemist, Besso, where they bought several healing potions, a useful stash that Seraphina supplemented with an additional vial that she pilfered when Besso was distracted. Whren also attempted to lift a potion, but was not so lucky; Besso caught her in the act, forced her to return it to the shelf, and threw her out of his shop, but fortunately, did not alert the town guard. After their business with the alchemist was done, the party visited the Church of Saint Hildegard, where they met Father Bartko, a cleric of Abbas Dei, and saw the sacred shroud in which the saint was supposedly buried. After exploring the town a bit more, the party returned to the Broken Lantern where they let a room and went to sleep.

True to his word, Gunthar had arranged passage on a large riverboat captained by a wiry man named Catfish. After three hours of steady rowing, the boat rounded a curve in the river and approached what turned out to be a headless statue of a man with a raised sword, sunken waist deep in the shallows and leaning downriver. After stepping ashore and entering the thick, towering trees, the characters were able to make out the overgrown foundations of what was once a village. The only structure still standing was a roofless stone building overrun with vines and dusted with spruce needles. After a bit of searching, the party located the road, its cobbles buried beneath the duff, and began to walk inland.

Just as the party left the village, the characters heard a commotion in the woods, and were suddenly confronted by a giant toad, which seemed bent on attacking them. The archers in the party managed to put several arrows into the creature before it came close enough to attack, which caused it to lose heart. As it turned to flee, a few more well-placed arrows dropped it.

After topping the river valley and walking a short distance further, the party reached the barrow, which appeared to be little more than a steep, conical hill covered with trees. As the party explored the flanks of the hill, searching for an entrance, an arrow streaked through the trees and struck Grok. The party was under attack by goblins, which appeared in the woods at the crest of the hill and scampered downward through the forest. Once again, the archers - Seraphina, Whren, and Ardyth - proved their worth by dropping several goblins before they reached the party. Once the two parties did engage, the melee did not last long. After several more goblins fell, and the goblin leader surrendered to Ulfgar's "Command" spell, the rest attempted to flee, but were cut down as they scrambled off. Only the leader escaped, running into the woods away from the barrow.

At the top of the barrow, the party discovered a small hole in the ground at the base of a large tree. They descended into the hill, and discovered what appeared to have been the goblins' lair. After collecting some trinkets and treasure, the party tore down a crude barricade that the goblins had constructed of branches and stones to protect themselves from whatever dwelled below, and found themselves in a labyrinth a small rooms and passageways. The earthen walls were thickly entwined with roots from the trees above; standing along the walls, tangled within the root mat, were dozens of human skeletons.

After the party had descended through another pit to the second level, their torches caught a glint of reddish light along one of the walls, and they discovered that one of the skeletons was wearing what looked to be an expensive ruby necklace. When Grok tried to pull that necklace, however, he vanished in a flash of light, and found himself alone in another part of the barrow. The walls were honeycombed with alcoves; in each alcove, he could see a set of skeletal feet. A strange, red light glowed through the only exit. Suddenly, the feet began moving, and skeletons began crawling from the alcoves. Grok immediately fled into the room with the light.

Meanwhile, the party pushed on, hoping to find Grok somewhere ahead. They avoided a series of spear traps in a long hallway - shafts of light shone across the hall, and if one were broken, the trap would trigger - and found what appeared to be the body of an unlucky adventurer who had not been quite so careful about avoiding the light. The characters pushed on into the next room, where they heard commotion ahead: grunts, curses, and the sound of crunching bones.

It was Grok. With a cunning he had not displayed in the Fishermen's Guild, he had placed himself in the narrow exit of the room he had appeared in, and was thus able to limit the skeletons' attacks to one at a time. He took a nasty hit, and retreated to the next exit. After several rounds, the party was able to reach him, and together they vanquished the rest of the skeletons.

The red glow, it turned out, was given off by a staff that was lying on the floor, a dismembered hand still clinging to it. The rest of its previous owner's body was scattered about the room, along with some shreds of robe and a pointy hat. The staff was carved of dark wood; at the top, a skeletal hand gripped a red stone, which glowed with a magical light.

A crude earthen staircase led down from the room with the dismembered mage. The party followed them downward, and soon discovered the rest of the previous adventuring party. As the characters approached, the dead adventurers stirred, rose, and attacked, the evil aura of the barrow having turned them into zombies. The party defeated the zombies, but found itself exhausted and hurting afterwards. The characters decided to retreat to the goblins' lair at the top of the barrow, reassemble the barricade, and rest until the next day.

With that, the session ended. 95 experience points per character (includes treasure).

* AL stands for "After the Battle of Lentia", at which Saint Hildegard and a group of her followers gave their lives to hold off a horde of bugbears and hobgoblins while the refugees from the northern city of Lentia found refuge further south, in the present day Middle Realms.

Opening Session

Our first session will be Saturday, January 8th, beginning at 7 PM, at my house. At the beginning of the evening, we will roll up characters; I have developed a character sheet that I will provide copies of, so there is no need to bring your own. The campaign will begin in the town of Stavelot, which is located in the northeast corner of Thuringia, on the Merdret River (please click on "Map of the Middle Realms" above). I plan to publish a post with some background information sometime before the 8th, so look for that over the next week.

If you would like your own copy of the Labyrinth Lord rules, you can download a free PDF version from Goblinoid Games. The "Advanced Edition Companion" contains the 1st Edition AD&D classes, so you may find that more useful than the Core Rules. You can also order print copies through Lulu.

See you all on the 8th!