The Sinister Secret of Zenopus' Tower –The Adventure

I recently formatted all my notes into a PDF format suitable for use at your table. This is 100% a fan-made conversion of existing work with bits of my own creation sprinkled throughout. I make no copyright claims to any of the source material. I worked it all up for my home campaign, but the originals remain popular adventures to this day. If someone wants to use my work as inspiration for their own versions, feel free.

A special shout-out to Zach Howard at Zenopus Archives. His enthusiasm for the Sample Dungeon in Holmes Basic, and his own homebrew expansion of it, inspired me to develop this adventure location for my players and include it in this adaptation. Be sure to visit his site to see the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave in its original glory.

>>The Sinister Secret of Zenopus' Tower for Labyrinth Lord

>>The Sinister Secret of Zenopus' Tower for OSRIC/AD&D

>>The Adventure Maps

>>Things to Do in Town Handout 

_____ 

Thus far in my campaign, the players have mostly cleared the manor house and explored much of the estate grounds. They fought pirates in the manor basement and discovered the fate of the missing alchemist. After a tragic expedition into the naga's lair below the bluff, they delved for a bit on the dungeon level (via the garden entrance).

Most recently, they found a boat pilot willing to take them into one of the sea caves. There, they battled a giant octopus, fought some more pirates, freed Lemunda the Lovely from captivity, and found a tunnel entrance into the bluff. They also noted a flooded tunnel to the east, accessible via a shallow shelf at low tide. At first, they thought to go north, further into the sea cave level where they assumed pirates would be waiting. Instead, they decided to take the opportunity of low tide to venture east.

They soon entered a side cavern divided in halves by a rushing river of fresh water that emptied into the sea cave nearby. The cave was protected by a giant crab, hidden beneath the sand, which got the drop on the party but failed to hit with its pincers. Upon defeating the crab, the party found a long stairway leading up to the dungeon level, where they entered a room with a sundial, a strange bronze mask, and a riddle. Figuring out the riddle, they caused the mask to speak and offer an answer to a single question. They asked about the "Philosopher's Stone" they found in the alchemist's secret cellar chamber in the manor, but the mask made no reference to the party's stone, speaking only of what the "legends" say about such an item.

Leaving this room, they next came into a crypt chamber with a dirt floor and smashed-open coffins. Within, a pair of ghouls dressed in finery feasted on the bloody entrails of one of the thaumaturgist's unfortunate goons. Horrified, the party attacked, but within moments two of their party had succumbed to the undead's paralyzing touch. Things looked grim for a moment, but after a flurry of well-placed blows, both ghouls lay dead.

Searching the various coffins and burial niches turned up a small fortune in gems, jewelry, and old coins. In one of the niches, the party found a tunnel that had been clawed to the surface, the exit of which the party had already discovered previously while exploring the garden cemetery. Dragging their paralyzed comrades out of the hole, the group returned to town, but from their discussions it sounds like they want to keep exploring the dungeon level and will return via the cemetery (they have more questions for the mask).

The Temple of Oblivion – Part 3: The Temple Ruins

<< Part 1

<< Part 2

The campaign began in 2016 as an ad hoc test of Roll20 and an introduction to 5th edition D&D for one of my long-time gaming friends. I never intended it to be a full-on campaign, but more people joined the "playtest" and before I knew it, we were gaming online every week. The party ballooned at one point to 7 players plus 3 NPCs, but by the end, after a series of interpersonal conflicts/meltdowns between some of the players (and, in one instance, between myself and one of the players), the group had shrunk to 3 PCs plus 3 NPC followers. 

Most of the first half of the campaign was fairly free-wheeling, with several different, mostly unrelated adventures. By the second half, however, the party had discovered an evil idol with a curse, and became the quarry of a trio of mind flayers who were after the idol. The curse prevented the party from simply throwing the idol away (it reappeared among their belongings the next day), and also served as a psychic "homing beacon" for the mind flayers as they pursued the party.

The mind flayers already possessed one of the idols after the players missed an opportunity to retrieve it, and were actively using it to summon other aberrations from their alien realm. Working through their human proxies—the Cult of Khoss—the mind flayers harried the party across my campaign world, with the PCs barely staying one step ahead of their pursuers. 

The party discovered the hidden location of a third idol (of three needed to open a dimensional portal), but a moment of carelessness caused one player's NPC follower to fall into the clutches of the cultists, who sussed out the idol's location and secretly implanted the NPC with an intellect devourer (a fact the party never discovered until it was too late). The compromised NPC was allowed to be "rescued," and he rejoined the party as an unwitting and unaware mole.

The party raced the cultists to find the third idol, but failed. As part of that failure—to the players' utter horror—the intellect devourer burst from the NPC's skull, killing him instantly. (Regrettably, this was one of my finest DM moments as the NPC was popular with the players and his grisly death really caught everyone off guard). The loss was even more painful because one of the players had innocently put the NPC in a position to be captured in the first place.

Having gained sufficient levels to take on the enemy, imbued with a burning desire for revenge, and gifted with some inside knowledge from rebel cultists seeking release from their thralldom to the mind flayers, the party decided to end their constant harassment by attacking the source.

Thusly, they came to these ruins and made their way through the secret entrance to the temple complex. Originally, these ruins were intended to be the setting for several low-to-mid-level dungeons, including parts of the Caverns of Thracia, but the party didn't glom on to the site early in the campaign, so I repurposed it for the high-level conclusion instead. The climactic battle would take place within the Temple of Oblivion, where the party would confront the mind flayers who needed all three idols to open the dimensional portal and bring through their elder brain master.

By this point, we were all feeling a bit fatigued. We were more than 110 sessions in when the party made it through the secret entrance shrines, and I was definitely ready to wrap up the campaign and move on to something new. So, I presented the players with a choice of entrances into the pyramidal complex via one of the two smaller pyramids. I then roughed out two gantlet-style point-crawls, rather than developing full-on dungeon levels that might have taken the players another 15–20 sessions (or more) to get through. 

One pyramid was already opened by the mind flayers and full of their thralls. This was a route that was "cleared," but difficult to sneak through without getting noticed. The other pyramid was still sealed and could be opened with the idol the party possessed, but it would require them to overcome the monsters and perils present in the point-crawl dungeon.

They chose to navigate the unopened pyramid (the Temple of Death), so I designed a dozen or so encounters and a path with several detours so as to not make it a completely linear experience. Success in certain areas made it possible to avoid other encounters, whereas failure took them down side-paths that ate up valuable time and resources. The players were aware that the mind flayers' plans were underway, and that the longer the party took to resolve this situation, the more difficult the path forward would become.

I'm not going to post the full point-crawl write-up like I did with the secret entrance shrines, as I'm not terribly proud of using this method, but bits of it were good and I am fairly happy with the encounter design work. I will, however, post a summary of the point-crawl below the cut for those interested in what occurred.

The following is the map and general key for the temple ruins. I'm also including links to a full-sized "clean" version of the map, as well as a version with an isometric grid. I'm extremely proud of this map and regret that I was only able to use it for a short period at the end of the campaign. I hope to repurpose it for a future site, but hopefully it will inspire others to make something of it as well. 

I built it as an homage to one of my fave AD&D modules: I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, as well as the superlative Caverns of Thracia by Jaquays (which I renamed as The Caverns of Eternal Night). In the beginning, I wasn't certain what would go in the Halls of the Ancient Ones, but when I retooled the map for the high-level group, I determined that it would be the extended lair for a nasty beholder, another holdover aberrant god of the ancestors of the hillmen who once lived here. It also fit the eye motif well, which was kind of a happy accident.

The Temple Ruins

>> Full-size "clean" version (no grid)

>> Isometric grid version (scale = 20x20-ft. squares)

Adapting the Borderlands

After purchasing arms and equipment with their shares from the escort job, the party heads out the Keep gate under the watchful eye of the guards on the wall. Though it was only mid-morning, the heat was already unbearable. Returning to the spot along the north road where the other caravan was ambushed, the party discovers that Keep soldiers have already recovered the bodies of the slain merchant and his laborers. The charred skeleton of the wagon still sits off to the side of the path as vultures pick over the carcasses of the dead draft horses. 

No sign of the bodies of the goblin bandits is found, but after locating the gangs' tracks, the party follows their trail westward, off the caravan path and into the rugged wilderness. The ground becomes loose and uneven. Ledges, gullies, and cul-de-sacs make moving in a straight line all but impossible. Fortunately, the ranger's guidance helps the party make decent progress despite the treacherous terrain, and soon they enter a wide pass between a cluster of jagged hillocks to the north and an imposing ridgeline to the south. 

The southern ridges rise like the walls of an impenetrable fortress. Their serrated cliffs conceal numerous shadowy clefts and dark folds, and as the party moves through the pass, they sense eyes watching them. A tense hour later, they emerge from the pass into a stretch of broken ground that slopes gently west and then disappears into the golden savanna of the Horse Plains stretching out before them.

The tracks turn south along this fractured border, skirting the edge of the Badlands and leading the party farther away from the Keep. They have already consumed much of their water, and still have to get back to the Keep before nightfall or be forced to sleep outside without proper camping gear. Just as the party decides to turn back, however, the air fills suddenly with the angry buzz of goblin arrows... 

__________

I love wilderness areas. 

The characters in my campaigns must travel in-game to wherever they want to go, with all that such journeys entail. I always design an exterior component to my adventures, and the party typically has to find the dungeon before they can start exploring it. My players don't often like or appreciate this aspect of my campaigns, but I don't care; I do it for me. I owe this minor obsession to B2 ( and T1 and X1 to lesser extents).

The B2 wilderness area isn't even all that conducive for exploration and adventure. Any of the encounters can easily trash a group of 1st-levels. Most of the encounters are gated by an imposing river, whereas an easy-to-follow trail takes characters right up to the dungeon (the main event). The dungeon itself is so close to the Keep, it defies logic that the Castellan wouldn't immediately send his troops to wipe out the evil camp forming right on his doorstep.

But even with these gentle flaws, B2's concept of a dungeon existing within a wilderness teeming with encounters is ur-D&D for me. I don't consider a dungeon "complete" until I know something about the territory around it (and what lives there). 

When I set out to adapt B2, I knew I wanted to greatly expand the wilderness area but still use as much of the source material as I could. To prepare, I read through the original text carefully to pull out all the fun little details that Gary hides in his module-writing—details that are easy to miss if you just skim the write-up. As expected, I found quite a few things I did not remember.

No-Artpunk Contest: Bergummo's Tower

Happy to report that I received a positive review for my adventure, Bergummo's Tower, in Prince of Nothing's "No-Artpunk 2" contest. The competition looks pretty stiff, so I'm not sure of my chances for being selected, but I'm grateful to have received a passing grade and moved on to the final round.

Here's Prince's review, as well as a list of the other entries.

Here are my playtest reports from the first time I ran it (sessions which led to a few changes in order to make things work that weren't). I wrote the adventure as an intro to 5e but in an OSR-style. The contest rules stipulated, however, that the adventure must be written in an old-school system, so I converted it to OSRIC.

Here is the OSRIC version if anyone would like to download it for themselves. I don't have the 5e version ready yet, but I'll format it and post it here soon.

Notable Personalities and Characters (NPCs)

The following morning, the party assembles outside the Tavern, taking note of a group of peasant lackeys milling about a large wooden sign, tacked up with numerous notices. The lackeys press the party for work, offering to tote gear or hold torches. Most of the party members ignore the lackeys to examine the notices.

Eager to sculpt a reputation for himself, Ban pulls a half-dozen lackeys aside and gives each of them a silver bit, which they eagerly accept. He then instructs each one to begin spreading a carefully-crafted rumor about a visiting raconteur named Ban Barlowe—famous across the land for his access to King Manfred's court, his reputation as a rakish rascal, and for his romantic (and sometimes adulterous) affairs.

Once inside the Tavern, the party discusses a plan and arrive at a consensus to return to the site of the caravan ambush and try to find and follow the bandits' tracks back to their hideout. There might be more loot there to recover, and now that they know they can take ears for money, maybe they can find some more gobbos to kill.

First, they need to purchase equipment and decide to head to the Provisioner's shop to gear up. Smitty wants better armor, so he heads straightaway to the Smithy. He enters the smoky interior through a pair of wooden doors that stand wide open. The forge sits in the center of the open room, with the heat and smoke venting through a hole in the ceiling. The walls are hung with various tools and weapons, and there, in one corner, hangs a suit of chain mail on a stand.

The blacksmith, a burly, black-bearded man, looks up from the spear he sharpens and says, "Howdy! Can I help ya?" Smitty introduces himself and expresses interest in the chain mail. The smith grins broadly and offers a grimy handshake, "Come on in...they call me 'Iron Dan'!"

 __________

In the original B2 Keep on the Borderlands, Gary Gygax didn't name the non-player characters (NPCs) who inhabit the Keep so as to help a DM adapt the module to their own campaign. He wrote each NPC in fairly broad strokes, but injected a ton of flavor and personality into each brief description.

For my Badlands campaign, I wanted to hew as closely to the original as possible, with an understanding that it's possible some of my players will figure out that this campaign is B2 in disguise, which might render some of the conflict and treachery in the module less effective. As a result, some of the NPC details from B2 are modified from the original text.

It's also possible my players may become, or are already aware of this blog, in which case I am revealing many important campaign details they are not meant to know. If this is any of my Monday night Roll20 guys, please stop reading now...

Hooks and Threads

When the party arrives at Irongate Keep, they are first questioned outside the walls by a sentry, who asks each character their name and business in the keep. Here, the merchants who hired the party as escorts sign the documents confirming their service and explain that the party members can receive the balance of their payment at the Guildhouse in the keep's village.

Passing through the curtain wall, the four party members—Smitty, a human fighter; Ban, a human bard; Thero, a wood elf ranger; and Thoin, a dwarf cleric—enter the courtyard under the gaze of several soldiers up on the parapets. They form a short queue as other keep visitors ahead of them speak with the Master-of-Stores. While they wait, a stern-eyed Sergeant-of-the-Gate strolls over with a pair of guards and converses briefly with the party. He makes some small talk and then stresses, in no uncertain terms, that the Castellan brooks no mischief or law-breaking. The Sergeant doesn't seem to give the same attention to the other peasants and merchants in line.

Soon enough, the Master-of-Stores comes over and asks each character if they have any valuables to declare for sale within the keep. Most answer "no," but Ban explains that the party recovered some trade goods from an ambushed caravan that they would like to turn in for a reward. As several lackeys take the goods into the warehouse, the Master-of-Stores speaks briefly with the party's previous employers who confirm the story. He then gives Ban a receipt for the bundle of goods and instructs him to take it to the Guildhouse. 

Ban shows him the bronze sigil taken off the hobgoblin bandit's body. The Master takes the pendant and pockets it, telling Ban that he will take care of it and "not to trouble himself over the matter." He barks at one of the young lackeys, ordering the lad to escort the party to the Guildhouse at once, and then he shuffles off to attend to other keep visitors.

They head up the ramp into the village proper, observing groups of commoners—mostly women and children—gathered outside a row of apartments, performing daily tasks: cooking, scrubbing laundry, gossiping, etc. Ban flirts with several of the maidens as he passes by, causing the girls to giggle and laugh, and the older ladies to cluck disapprovingly. The few male villagers present pause their labors to glare at the fancypants bard.

Smitty glances inside a nearby blacksmith's shop and sees the smith hard at work at his anvil, assisted by two able apprentices. He is reminded of his youth as a smith's apprentice and makes a note to come back later. At the top of the ramp, the party's escort rounds a corner by the Provisioner's shop and brings them to a prominent building—the Guildhouse. Next to the door, a wooden placard displays the merchant guild's sigil: three golden coins forming a triangle.

Inside, the Guildmaster takes possession of the recovered goods and listens intently to the party's report. He thanks them for the information and their good deed, and offers the party a reward of 150 guilders, which they gladly accept. After turning in the loaner gear from the caravan masters and their pay receipts, the Guildmaster also gives the party members their remaining wages for guarding the caravan: 150 guilders each. 

As journeyman artisans, Smitty and Thoin opt for the free accommodations at the Guildhouse. Ban and Thero decide to head for the Inn. They agree to convene at the Tavern in the morning to figure out their next steps...

____________________

At this point, the players are let loose to do what they want in the area. They each have the clothes on their back, a few personal items, and not-quite 250 guilders each to gear up and begin adventuring. In addition, Smitty gleaned some leather armor and a longsword from the hobgoblin, Ban has his dagger and a scimitar he grabbed from one of the goblins, Thero has a goblin scimitar along with his longbow and a few arrows, and Thoin has his hammer.

I'm running the campaign as a hexcrawl/sandbox with a loose background plot involving an evil cult of chaos gathering an army of humanoids to smash the keep and clear the way for an infiltration of southern Remedios. It will take some time for the cult's plan to achieve fruition, but the clock is ticking.

The Heroes of Brackleborn -- Game-Play Report (Sessions 9 and 10)

I took on a big writing project last week, so my work on the Deep Vaults has slowed to a crawl (although I completed my hazards table and am pretty happy with it...I will likely post that next). I’m getting jazzed about resuming my Wednesday night campaign, which is moving to Thursday nights every other week. Scheduling five adults for an entire evening on a regular basis is near-impossible, so I feel like we’ve really accomplished something. We’re also going to try to have at least one longer weekend game session each month. It warms my heart that the girls can’t wait to get back to slinging some dice.

After the last session’s light-hearted adventure (which I ended up naming “The Right Stuff”), I was ready to hit the players with a major shake-up to their reality. At this point in the campaign, we’d been playing a little over over three months and they got “the game.” Now it was time to show them what playing in a “campaign” was like.

To now, the setting’s background consisted mostly of rough bullet points, some of which I gave to the players at the start of the campaign—just some hooks to create points of recognition later. As I started prepping for this session, I added some details for the players to begin making choices. I knew they wanted to be closer to Emelia and her family, so I expanded on that portion of the setting for the players to explore.

I love to world-build, but whenever I start a new campaign, I immediately start looking for ways to subvert what I’ve presented and shake up the status quo. I’m not sure why I do that, but D&D needs dynamism, and the historical eras it emulates were certainly dynamic ones. Dungeons & Dragons could easily have been named Cash & Conflict, and both of those things come to the fore during these next  sessions.

This game-play report covers sessions 9 and 10, which occurred on 7/15 and 7/22, 2020.

Previously...

The girls lent a hand to the bakery moms, who needed help gathering ingredients for a feast to be held that night—an order commissioned by Lord Ferril, himself. Not only did doddering old Mr. Mulberry forget to place the order in a timely manner, as requested by the lord,but he also forgot to give the girls invitations to the feast, which is being held in their honor!

Despite the screw-ups, the heroes gathered the ingredients, the moms made the food, and everyone, along with Mr. Mulberry in tow, arrives at Brackleborn Keep on time.

The Heroes of Brackleborn -- Game-Play Report (Session 8)

My in-person Wednesday-night campaign is still on hiatus due to scheduling conflicts, but it looks like we'll be resuming the campaign in the next few weeks. One day, I'll be caught up with these gameplay reports. 

This particular session was super-fun and mostly spontaneous. The girls really latched on to Emelia, and they had some impressive role-playing moments with her and her father, Lord Ferril. I had decided to expand the party's involvement with the lord's affairs, since the girls seemed content to remain in the village and serve as its protectors.

I planned a "heavy" session with an important event to shake up the status quo and give the heroes a chance to step up and become major players in the town, but I wanted to give them a bit of a breather first, while also lulling them into a false sense of security. I came up with the idea for this adventure a few hours before the session as a series of amusing skill challenges and a test of their general organizational and time management abilities. It was also a good way to introduce more of the village and its townsfolk to the players. 

This session occurred on 07/08/20 (and now feels like a lifetime ago).

Previously…

Inside the goblin cave, the heroes slew several goblins and their boss, a hobgoblin called Gurd. They rescued Emelia from his clutches and recovered some stolen supplies, including four of the six stolen barrels of dwarf ale. They hurried back to Brackleborn Keep to reunite Emelia with the grateful Lord and Lady Ferril.

The Heroes of Brackleborn -- Game-Play Report (Sessions 4-6)

My regular group only meets from 7-10-ish PM and we always have dinner along with it, so we often only get an hour or so of actual gameplay in and not a whole lot happens. I've condensed the next three gameplay reports into one post to save time and knock out several sessions to catch up to the present-day campaign (the following sessions occurred in May, 2020.)

Previously...

After the party came to the local lord’s attention, he tasked them with entering the Gloomy Forest and rescuing his daughter, Emelia, who has been kidnapped by bandits. The party accepted his mission and set off for the Gloomy Forest along the Gold Road where they encountered a trio of bandits accosting a local hunter. Making short work of the thugs, the party captured one and learned some info about the bandit leadership.

The Heroes of Brackleborn -- Game-Play Report (Session 3)

Previously...

The heroes entered a series of rat tunnels and confronted a “rat-man,” who managed to escape. After rescuing the innkeeper’s son, the party finds some loot as well as clues to a sinister plan, but they are left with more questions than answers.

Session Events

The party returns to the burned-out building to further investigate the clues. There, they suss out a plot to poison the town. The two sealed barrels in the cellar turn out to contain liquid poison — a LOT of it. There are four tunnel exits in the old cellar; the party knows that one leads to the cellar of the inn, while a second tunnel leads to a hidden exit in a culvert on the edge of town. Checking out the other two tunnels, the party follows the third one to a hole that opens deep in the shaft of the town well, just above the water line. The fourth tunnel forks in two directions: one heads toward the bakery and the other toward the keep. Both passages end abruptly, indicating that the tunneling was still in progress.

Bergummo's Tower Playtest - Session 6

 As they put their heads together about what to do next, the party members realize they never fully searched the plinth room, so they return through the green mist to do so. They already know there are two secret doors in this room, one of which was opened by turning the dials on the plinth. They opened the second secret door from the other side, after descending the pit in the red mist, melting the grate with green slime, and ascending a subtly-sloping corridor. 

Bergummo's Tower Playtest - Session 5

Vic pokes his head into the 15x20 room and shines his candle around. Rotting velvet curtains line all four walls, save for the north corner of the west wall where a brightly-colored tapestry hangs. With his hand crossbow, Vic fires arrows at the sapphire floating slowly around the tip of a 6-ft. iron pole set into the middle of the floor. He hits the grape-sized gemstone several times, but fails to dislodge it from its orbit. Undeterred, he finally hits it with enough force to knock the sapphire loose. Its glow subsides as the jewel falls to the stone floor. Luckily, it is not damaged.

Bergummo's Tower Playtest - Session 4

With the party still working out the enigma of the bronze buttons emblazoned with sigils of the four seasons, Cane suggests correlating the mist colors to the seasons (red = Summer; blue = Winter; yellow = Fall; green = Spring). Vic presses this combination of buttons, but it only summons a pair of cockatrices to the south platform. After a brief fight, the party kills the horrid creatures.

Bergummo's Tower - Playtest Session 3

The spiral staircase descends 30 ft. below the cellar to a large, unlit room (the dwarves estimate the party is now 40-50 ft. beneath the surface). As Saynard’s bullseye lantern scans across the walls, the light reveals an octagonal-shaped chamber of finely-laid, dressed stone, with a 15-ft. high vaulted ceiling. A thick layer of dust covers the floor. In the center of the room, from floor to ceiling, stands a wide stone “column” within which the spiral staircase winds back up to the cellar.

Bergummo's Tower - Playtest Session 2

After hearing some movement downstairs (soft shuffling noises), Cane repositions himself, hiding behind some debris and taking a bead on the staircase doorway with his bow. Steeljaw drags Aerion’s and Saynard’s paralyzed forms over to the far wall, then hugs the wall next to the staircase doorway with his axe raised. Vic slides into the darkened bedchamber to the south and sets up an ambush. All three active party members now hear a gentle creaking as some creature carefully makes its way up the rickety stairs.

Bergummo's Tower - Playtest Session 1

I finally started my playtest sessions for an upcoming publishing attempt. I'm mostly checking the adventure for balance issues, but I'm also test-driving a few house rules and ideas I have for improving my regular game. 

We're playing 5e on Roll20 every Wednesday night, and I estimate the adventure will take 4-5 sessions to complete. I like 5e's core mechanic, for the most part, but I prefer OSR adventure design principles. Hopefully, this is a decent blend of those factors.

Five of my Tuesday-night players rolled up (2) characters -- one primary and one replacement in case the primary dies, although I am letting them swap out characters (if they desire to) whenever the party returns to base camp. 

I gave them this brief adventure synopsis and then started them right at the dungeon... 

Your party came into possession of a map with directions to the abandoned tower of a long dead-wizard. The tower stands deep in a nearby forest, and whispered rumors tell of fantastic treasures kept within, waiting for those brave or foolish enough to enter.

You and your comrades decided to form an expedition to investigate the rumors, and your party followed the map to the area. It was a long, arduous journey to reach the site, so returning to town for rest and resupply would not be an easy undertaking. Your party establishes a base camp several miles from the tower site, and half your expedition prepares to make the first foray: Aerion, dwarf paladin; Cane, wood elf monk; Saynard, human bard; Steeljaw, dwarf barbarian; and Vic, halfling rogue.

After a restful night, your party sets off shortly after dawn. After traveling through thick woods for two hours, you arrive at the spot marked on the map at 9:00 AM. There, you find a modest structure—a crumbling, three-story stone tower with a conical, shingled roof—standing in the middle of a forest clearing.

Thick, leafy vines shroud parts of the exterior wall. Brickwork has fallen away in places, leaving gaps in the tower wall. Part of the tower roof sags and patches of shingles are missing. Narrow, darkened windows stare into the surrounding forest. The front door is gone and the doorway stands wide open.

The entire area has a strange atmosphere about it, almost “humming” with unseen energy that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. As you approach the tower, the forest becomes noticeably quieter.

 Here is the session report...

The Heroes of Brackleborn -- Game-Play Report (Session 2)

04/08/20

Previously...

While relaxing in the Hogshead Inn, the heroes heard a scream from the cellar. The party leapt into action and killed three giant rats accosting the innkeeper's wife. The rats apparently dragged her young son Mortimer into a dark hole, newly-appeared in the floor.

The Heroes of Brackleborn -- Game-Play Report (Session 1)

A little over a year ago we started this campaign (just before my state locked down due to Covid). At the time, I wasn't expecting my four players -- all brand-new to D&D -- to play more than a session or two, so I didn't put a whole lot of effort into setting something up. We spent the first session rolling up characters, and by the time we were done, it was nearly time to stop for the night.

I started them in a new area of my campaign world, away from the campaign I run on Tuesday nights, and just made up some names. The girls also made up a few details about their character backgrounds, and I supplemented them with some on-the-spot motivations (which I expanded upon in the week between sessions, most of which is reflected in the write-up below).

I laid out a quick ad hoc scenario to let them experience combat. I had no idea where we were going and I had zero information for them other than what I was pulling out of my ass as we went along. Everyone seemed to have a really good time, though,  and when it was over, they all wanted to play a second session.

So, here we go..