Rift City Campaign - Chapter 45 April 2021

 

Background
A nostalgic dungeon delving game using the Moldvay Basic D&D rules which we have now been playing for over three years. It is an open table format game with who ever turns up heading into the dungeon making progress somewhat difficult as we keep going through the same rooms.  With death are retirement the regular party has changed somewhat since last I had enough time for blogging the game sessions.  The game is currently socially distanced being playing using Discord.

We found a treasure map and have been exploring a ruined fortress looking for loot and monsters to slay.

"In the Rift there is the Fortress of Skile, two towers with a gatehouse between. Beneath the eastern tower, a stair leads down to a crypt where lies the Fabled Hoard of Riha the Bejeweled. Gems without count and fabulous jewellery are there, adorning the bones of the last of the Sorcerer-Queens. From the tower, take the staircase, and at the landing, turn west. Foul things lurk in the darkness of the eastern stair. In the Deeps, we came to a great room with six corners, but this was a false chamber – we never found the real burial chamber beyond." 

You can read Chaper 44 on the DM's blog where we fought against gangs of Lycanthrope. 

Chapter 45

Having spent a day searching the city for magic weapons our mercenary company had to settle for buying a few silver daggers and swapping items around to get the most people possible able to fight more Lycanthropes.  Four figures returned to the ruins.  They were -

• Berg the Dwarven Warrior
• Halvor Templar of Yrt
• Inarra the artillery Wizard
• Kate (short for Bob) the Halfing.

We struggled to find the Ogres lair and stumbled upon a group of hell hounds guarding the passageway.  With a stench of sulfur the party were clawed and burned by fiery breath.  Halvor called upon his god for aid and turned a bundle of sticks into snakes that were quickly able to poison the demonic beasts.

Snakes last for an hour so we now had eight extra companions as we continued into the ruins.  The next room has rodents of unusual size but they too failed poison saves before managing to kill a single snake! 

We eventually found the Ogres lair where we had rescued the prisoners and opening the trapdoor descended the stairs.  We thought we might finally have found the location shown on the treasure map but the passageways below did not quite match up with the drawing we had.  

Continuing on we found a room with several peasants and more giant rats.  Thinking these were Lycanthropes our artillery opened the fight with a fireball and those few that survived quickly died to magical and silver blades.  Searching the room Berg ate some cheese she found and instantly felt sick.  Everyone was struggling to not wretch while in the room.  Behind one door was more rodents.  Berg tried to throw a goblin head grenade at them but her aim was so poor she dropped it on her own foot!  Fortunately this one did not erupt in a burst of dragonfire.  Kate tried to open the second door but got sick just by touching it so we all gave up and left.

Staggering back through the ruins above we were ambushed by another party of adventurers.  These rogues had initiative and opened up with a magic missile spell and a crossbow bolt.  We responded with Fireball, Hold Person and followed up with Web and sharp blades to hack them to pieces. They had a couple of thousand gold worth of coin and jewelry as well as the best haul of magic items we had ever seen. 19 items including 4 weapons; 3 shields; a wand; 2 rings; 2 cloaks; also some armour and potions.  Making a fair distribution of this lot was difficult.

One of the weapons was a two-handed sword which we traded to Gibbet the Thief who had been too busy buying property in town to come out adventuring.  

Game notes

While it had only been a day in game it was a month for the players and no one call recall if we needed to turn left or right and we also could not find the map in discord history causing us to stumble around the same empty rooms again! An advantage of Moldvay rules, unlike Mentzer, is Thieves can use two handed weapons.  In fact Gibbit is the only character in the regular party that can since Wizards, Dwarves, Halflings and Clerics cannot use them.

Sticks to snakes has a 50% chance of getting poisonous snakes and has so far worked 100% of the castings!  Our luck is bound to change soon.  Save or Die poison saves have taken out a Giant; two warbands of Ogres and now the Hellhounds.  Pit Vipers always winning initiative is great and turned what looked like another TPK into an easy victory.

Image Credits
Dividing the Treasure by Larry Elmore