A-d-n-wanna-be Episode 3: Law And Lawless(But not that Lawless)

Sad Company earns its name in this session of a-d-n-wanna-be.


The Concept:

AD&Wannabe is an attempt at incorporating everything I loved and adored about AD&D 2E into a 5E game. This is not an easy thing to do, as anyone who has played 5E can tell you, but I think the way I have done it works pretty well. In 5E the rate at which a character can recover from a rigorous adventure is just too rapid for my liking and as such I’ve messed around with the rest system and the way that hit die are used. I’ve also incorporated the massive damage and lingering injuries systems along with some tweaks to them.

These changes bring combat to a new level of deadly and coupling that with the players wanting a truly dangerous game, I’ve elevated all of my combat encounter well out of the range of the deadly tier for them. E.x. A Bulette is worth 1,800 xp and the parties deadly xp budget was a scant 1,600 at the time but I tossed it at them anyway. This resulted in a very near fatal encounter for a couple of the group but heightened the sense of danger for the rest of the adventure.

The campaign itself outside the rules changes lends itself to this type of game as it takes place in a world where monsters have been extinct for thousands of years. The story takes places in a corner of the world where monsters and natural disasters are beginning to plague it, bringing the players together in what is culminating in a current-apocalypse scenario where nobody knows what's going on but it’s pretty apparent that the world is ending.

-Craw, The GM

The Party

Tug(Hey that's me), the Dwarf Barbarian, Guin, the Human Gunslinger, Alarric, the Human Rogue, and Glar, the Half-Elf Cleric.

The Session

We rejoin our Sad Company boys right on the heels of the last session. After finding the 4 people who were still alive from the Bulette attack(The players know it was a Bulete, but as monsters don't exist here the characters do not), the party helps all of the people out of the immediate danger area. Though they are certain the troubles in the mine have ceased, they also didn't think monsters were real, so it's best to be safe than to be sorry.

After the rough day, everyone tends to their personal business and heads to bed. When they wake in the morning they are informed by the foreman of the mine that they have found a new type of ore in the mine, but it's not just gold, oh no, it's better than gold.

After making their way up top, the foreman tells them that this ore they have discovered is Mithril, and after the clever cleric uses his magic to analyze the mine, discovers that the mine is absolutely full of it. Tug, being a dwarf, knows of Mithril. He also knows that it's basically the subject of legend and no one has managed to successfully mine Mithril in hundreds of hundreds of years. Possibly even larger. He tells the party that, as valuable as Mithril is, the miners are going to be very, very rich.

The party is immediately excited by such a prospect and Alarric goes to work on trying to mine some. Unfortunately, he finds that his roguish strength isn't quite where he needed it to be, and the mithril is incredibly hard to mine. So he didn't get much done. Glar on the other hand had discovered that, in one of the tunnels the monster dug through, was filled with mithril ore, recently rubble-ized and easy for the taking. The party then set out to do two things: Acquire as much of this Mithril ore as they possibly could, and also remove the lower jaw from the Bulette so they could use it as an improvised mining device, since this creature could literally slice directly through stone, and apparently even Mithril.

The foreman is and was grateful to the party. They were the only ones to arrive to assist the mine, helped remove rubble from the recent cave ins, improved efficiency of the mine, and even saved the town from certain death. But he's also not stupid. So when the party asked if they could have unfettered access to this large sum of Mithril, the foreman proposed that they could take as much Mithril as they personally could acquire, however much that could be.

An easy proposition, the party thought. And so work began on pulling the large, oh-so-large amount of Mithril ore rubble inside one of the monster tunnels. The massive pile was just sitting there for the taking, so they didn't have to do much heavy lifting. They bring up Rodney D. Onkey and a cart, and start working.

After some time, the party manages to completely fill the cart with Mithril Ore. As much as 1900 pounds. So they decided now that the trouble in the mine has been taken care of, and they've also got this super cool lower monster jaw that can pretty much slice through stone like it's nothing, they would return back to Lilyport and see what they can do about refining their treasure. They cover the cart, and head out. Tug purchases a horse, named Jeremy, and a cart as well.

They make it back home with no real issues. Earlier in the week Guin had mused of some sort of messaging system that utilized towers and some sort of light, like fire, to send messages across a wide distance so people could deliver their emergencies to the surrounding towns faster than traveling on horse. Now that the party were sitting on a very large treasure trove of, well, treasure, so they didn't know just how much money could possibly be made. Maybe Guin's ideas of creating Morse Code could be made reality.

But as for now, they need to smelt this shit. So they go find the Blacksmith that lives next door to Guin, as he is a tinker after all. He is very interested and agrees to help, though he's unsure how to actually go about this. Mithril is practically legend at this point, and no one has successfully refined it in a very, very long time. So Tug goes out to send a message to his old dwarven Blacksmith friend, Yank, and hope that he can send back some helpful information to improve this puny human's weak human forge the way only a dwarf can.

After some trial and error, they managed to make a Mithril crucible. Proving that it can be done, they excitedly get ready for round two. And after a week, Tug receives a letter that Yank is not only going to help out, but he is actually going to come to Lilyport and see what he can do.

Some miscellaneous things happen during the refining process. Tug speaks to the mayor to understand just how much authority he had in the city, and finds that he's officially allowed to arrest people. It will be an important aspect of his character, being able to dish out law and order. He also discusses the relationship between Rosemountain and Sweetfields, the city it actually belongs to. The mayor, Bale, says that Sweetfields are upset with Rosemountain for moving away from the farmlands and setting up shop as a mining community, which is why they refused to send help. Interestingly, he also mentions that any materials found in Rosemountain belong to Sweetfields. Which put Tug in a funny situation as his party just took 1900 pounds of unimaginably rare and expensive materials from Rosemountain.

Glar speaks to the high cleric of the city and begins plans of building a church in Rosemountain. It's a bit unusual as Rosemountain does not fall within the Lilyport region, and has also not requested a church. So we'll see where that goes.  But they make process on that, and the high cleric sets out for Rosemountain to see what can be done.

Guin, at the behest of the blacksmith, settles down from working in the forge so they could both get back to work, as they have spent a great deal of time working with the Mithril.

Alarric, on the other hand, wanted to steal. And that's where the session ended. Everyone else could go, but the DM was going to do Alarric's thieving session solo so he could get his XP.

So after a quick break, Alarric managed to get his steal on. He made his way towards the rich district, putting on a disguise so he wouldn't be recognized by anyone. He found a house, waited until it was almost kinda dark, and went in. The front door, as he checked, was unlocked. Somehow he was able to roll incredibly high the entire way through, rolling 3 nat 19's in a row, making it a lot easier than it probably should have been. He managed to acquire some gloves, a nifty longbow, some sort of decorative daggers and a painting that he cut out of the frame. All in all, a great boon. He then immediately sprinted out of the house as non-stealthily as he could, not even bothering to close the door behind him.

But he made his way into the night completely unnoticed. He found his dealer, a shady guy near the docks who was willing to buy all of these items at a premium. And he did indeed make a premium, both in gold and XP, as he earns 4x the value of gold in experience points.

He decided to keep the bow for now, not sure if it was magical or not. But he liked it. So he headed back to Guin's place where everyone was settled around and playing cards. He asked Glar if he could use his magic to detect if the bow was magical or not, but Glar was suspicious of him. So he pressed the matter and asked where he got the bow. After avoiding the question for a while, Alarric admitted he had stolen the bow. Tug then immediately piped up that as an official member of authority in the city of Lilyport any acknowledgements of crime in his presence would be a bad idea. So Guin stepped up and put his exceptionally soft hands on Tug's also exceptionally soft ears, and the conversation continued.

Glar eventually caved in and used his magic to find out that the bow was indeed magical, but wouldn't tell Alarric what kind of magic it was. (It was divination magic) Also, by this point the DM realized he hadn't actually told us what kind of bow it was and made Alarric role for it. On a 2 it would be a longbow, which rogues aren't proficient in, and on a 1 it'd be a shortbow. Unfortunately he rolled a 2 and ended up not even able to use it, so he left the party once more into the night and sold it to the shady merchant.

He got a metric assload of gold and XP, and decided hey, he was going to celebrate his newfound wealth. So he took the party to The Mithril Spoon, and everyone was invited. Expensive drinks and food for all who wanted in, but the only thing the group needed was: Women. So they looked around the bar to find some. Upon being to roll four d4 minus one, they rolled a 0. So there were no women in the bar. All dudes in this celebration. So they all set out to find chicks for their super cool rich party.

Alarric first sat out to find the red light district and any hot promiscuous women that may linger, but upon rolling to see if Lilyport had a red light district, he once again rolled poorly. Which was surprising as Lilyport is a port town and with all of the sailors coming and going you could almost be certain of a whorehouse of some sort, but nope, none here.

Tug went to Andeen's house, and invited her to the bar. But unfortunately she was busy having a night in with her husband and declined. So Tug went back, feeling dejected once again. Alarric then went to the high cleric, whose notorious heart of stone and cold demeanor was enough to repel anyone. Upon approaching and giving the lamest catcall ever heard, she agreed to go with him and extended her hand. He said, okay, sure, and reached out to grab her. After rolling a wisdom saving throw and getting a 20(Not a natural 20 though) he felt a cold tingle up his spine. Chalking it up to the light of Pelor shinning over us all, he took the high cleric and headed back towards The Mithril Spoon.

Upon reaching the doors of The Mithril Spoon and about to get the party started, he once more had to make a wisdom saving throw, this time not doing so hot. For his efforts, he was banished to the shadow realm for one minute. For one entire minute he couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't feel. He was in a black void of nothingness. Before any chance of panic to set in though he was returned to the mortal realm and went into the bar, dejected as well.

Glar is abstinent.

Guin, being so attractive as he is, knew a couple of cuties to hit up and so he did. And out of all of them, he was only able to find one, but that one cutie was all it took. Standing before him was Lucy Lawless, marveled beauty and all, and she excitedly agreed to go to their party at The Mithril Spoon. Upon arriving, there sat Tug, Glar and Alaric in the bar, with no fine hunnies to be seen, dejectedly drinking their fine port, eating their expensive meals at the bar. Everyone else is enjoying their meals and drinks when in comes Guin, already super attracting, bringing in Lucy Lawless on his arm.

The party proceed to make it rain, drink fine port, and eat the night away all night until the wee hours of the morning, where they all wake up to see Lucy Lawless sitting on the bar, out cold.

After waking up and taking stock of the situation, that's where the session ended the second time. Somehow this session ended and then started up again after an hour but it was certainly a doozy. No one fought any cool monsters but they did get some XP and did probably bang Lucy Lawless, and that's a reward in its own right.

My name is Ryan. I like to play video games and Dungeons and Dragons and all kinds of other cool stuff. I also like to write. This is my website, it's nothing special, but I write about topics from time to time that probably make no sense. But if you think they do make sense, then hang around and check out some other articles. My friends call them "blogs" but goddamnit I've got a URL and everything, so they're "articles".

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