Arden Vul Commentary, Session 1
For the past few months I've been running Arden Vul for my group using Advanced OSE and the occasional reference to OSRIC. Every week I type up a little recap both for my players and for my own notes.
For the sake of contributing to the hobby, I'll be trying a little experiment here, of posting my session reports plus a "referee's commentary" of sorts in italics where I explain my rulings, reasoning, and random thoughts on running the campaign. There will ARDEN VUL SPOILERS in both the recap (obviously) but extra spoilers in my commentary, where I may reference things that the players did not know themselves.
Hopefully this is illuminating, or at least entertaining. If so, I have a nice backlog of session reports to work through. So, without further ado, our first session of Arden Vul.
The party arrives from Gosterwick at the base of the cliffs.
They briefly explore the ruined watchtower near the falls.
Some heavy foreshadowing of danger (freezing cold air around the trap door) kept them from fully exploring the basement of the tower. For the best!
They ascend, as slowly and carefully as possible, all tied together, the Long Stair.
There is a roll of 2d6 under Dexterity to not, just, immediately fall to your death here. I understand that with AD&D stats this is much less likely, but still! I both encouraged the players to find ways to fix up the stair, and also replaced the "fall to your death" consequence with a mishap table.
They explored a carved chamber about halfway up the stair, searched there fruitlessly for secret doors, and left a mark of Debellaton on the doorway.
Without a map to point to (this chamber was unmapped) it's hard to figure out where players want to search for secret doors. Of course, there were no secret doors here, but I let them waste time anyway. This difficulty of "Well what square ARE you searching?" led me to come up with a quicker procedure that is still mathematically equivalent to the normal rules.
They climbed further, and explored another carved chamber, thick with cobwebs, finding a dwarf skeleton. They looted a lifestone, a pair of seemingly magic boots, and two bottles with sparkling blue powder inside. Arn put on the boots. Gavril drew the symbol of Debellaton on the dwarven skull and left it outside the doorway.
Finding the body of a dwarf noble (identified by the lifestone) is great nonstandard treasure, by the way.
They finished their ascent, and proceeded along the road. They examined the obelisk there, and proceeded further north to a large forum. They grappled up to the upper windows of the Tower of Scrutiny, and looted the corpses there. Flink attempted, with a light spell, to shine off the mirrors of the eyes of the ibis head, but couldn't quite figure it out.
Gavril tried to climb down the supernaturally dark stairs, but fell. As he dangled from the rope, he heard shrill shrieks emanating form the darkness below him, and climbed out.
I went into this campaign wanting to de-emphasize attribute checks, but I did revert to a simple strength check for Gavril to hang onto the rope as he dropped down. I think this is the ideal use for attribute checks personally. Not a core mechanic by any means, but a simple thing to fall back on when there's no other mechanic.
The party left the Tower, and briefly explored the shining well and a nearby chimney coming out of the ground, but didn't commit to climbing down the distance of either of them.
The party climbed the Pyramid of Thoth, and after opening the hidden stairwell, Gavril attempted to pry out the Jade eyes of the statue of Thoth. He was instantly fried by lightning booming out of the open-mouthed baboon statues encircling the top of the pyramid.
A death that has gone down in legend for us. Not only was, in my mind, the danger telegraphed strongly (huge gems surrounded by statues of snarling baboons) they even were lucky enough to get a warning in one of their starting rumors about prying out the jade eyes! But I suppose the allure of treasure was too great (I really layed it on thick).
The party paid their respects, and traveled to the Sign of the Broken Head, an inn run by Kronos Kettle-belly and Estelle, and paid for the night.
The Party:
Flink Medingel, Illusionist 1
Polyphonic Pérotin, Bard 1
Arn GrÃmursson, Cleric of Tyr 1
Pebble Foresthead, Druid 1
Rest in Peace, Gavril Duskbreaker, Paladin 1, blasted apart by Thoth's lightning
Treasure: A small sculpture, of a barbarian head, made of fool's gold (35 copper pieces)
Experience: None
No experience, as they rested at the nearby inn instead of returning to town. Not that they would have gotten much XP. Although we're familiar with old-schoolish gaming, we were still getting used to both B/X and some of the more old-school nature of Arden Vul. Overall, a successful first session by my metrics.