Castle Mordengard Session 7
Start Date: 6/1/25
End Date: 6/8/25
Members of the expedition: Thorndike Stromulus, Village Priest; Frank Furter, Warrior; Trombly Escargot, Veteran; Lyra Falsehood, Seer; Leslie Meow, Conjurer
Summary
June 1st: The party spent some time exploring Lower Slark. At a storefront marked Lay of The Land (Geographer), they purchased an updated map of the region, complete with rumored locations of several smaller dungeons. They also paid a visit to Lay of The Land (House of Pleasure), but (due to Lower Slark's proximity to the Conservative & Theocratic bandit HQs) the price of even a salacious ankle viewing was too exorbitant for the cash-strapped adventurers.
(It's quite a bad map, but I threw it together last-minute while making brunch).
After some deliberation, they chose to venture South toward a site marked on the map as "metal doors", near another possible dungeon recently reported by a young whelk herder. Toward the end of the day they got lost and accidentally ventured into the mountains, but were able to correct course.
June 2nd: The party arrived at a pair of metal doors set into a mountainside. By poking around in a small stone cairn, Frank found a rolled-up note with the words "Zark" & "Zorp". Lyra cast Read Languages to translate them as "Open" & "Close", the commands necessary to operate the voice-activated doors. Inside, slow, deep, ragged breathing was heard behind a second pair of doors on the other end of a 10' x 10' vestibule. Lyra boldly yelled "Zark" while the others debated. The doors slid open, revealing an emaciated Red Dragon. It commanded them to stand aside, and in exchange for its freedom requested only one adventurer as a meal (it had not eaten in several decades). The party proffered their mule, and the trapped & addled wyrm seemingly either did not know or care that its meal was not precisely as ordered. It then crawled out the doors and took flight.
In the dragon's chamber, the party discovered a trove of 3,000 besants. Sans mule, they took a maximal load of 1,927 besants and carted the remainder into the vestibule. Overnight, voices were heard in what formerly was the Dragon's prison, but the inner doors remained shut.
On June 3rd, the adventurers made haste toward Lower Slark. As they rounded a mountainous promontory, smoke could be seen in the distance. Traumatized refugees confirmed that the town had been razed by a red dragon.
June 4th: The party helped Lady Desiree Fitzcarraldo with the disaster relief efforts, and agreed to petition the Proboscidean Princes in Dustweir for aid & to assemble an expedition to hunt the dragon.
June 5th: The party followed the road toward Dustweir. At the crossroads of the Dustweir & Smovaq roads, 8 Theocratic Bandits (disguised in the signature bowties of Conservative Bandits) attempted to shake them down but were neutralized by a Sleep spell, then promptly murdered. Later that night, a Carbuncle Drome came sniffing around for their rations but was driven off.
June 6th: The party encountered the Stele of 3Jane II & three scholars transcribing her 18th discourse. Following a brief & antagonistic interaction, they walked through the arid hills of Calcium Canyon & camped on a rise overlooking Dustweir.
June 7th: Upon arriving at Dustweir, the party was charged a 5% tariff. The remainder of the day was spent shopping. Trombly & Thorndike outfitted themselves in suits of plate armor. Leslie purchased an Orb. Lyra purchased some bottles of mead. Trombly consulted with a barrister regarding the legal ramifications of inadvertently releasing dangerous beasts into the wild. Thorndike visited the Cathedral of the Divine Mother. A high-yield savings account was opened with the Concavitan National Bank, under Lyra's name.
At the palace district, Lady Fitzcarraldo's plea was submitted to the Hypostasis of Omnisicient Masks. He was unimpressed with the lack of clear information on the dragon's size, hue, & whereabouts, but did agree to waive some municipal debts owed by Lower Slark.
Foes Encountered: 1 Red Dragon, 1 Carbuncle Drome, 8 Theocratic Bandits (8 killed)
Treasure Recovered: 1,927 besants from the dragon's hoard, 136 from the bandits, 1000 from selling bandit armor.
GM Notes
I hadn't placed much content in this part of the map, so the night before I went through my folder of downloaded dungeons and placed Temple of the Forgotten God & Outpost of Stone & Silver by Eldritch Fields & Aberrant Reflections by Directsun, along with a smattering of one-off POIs I had written for my Antarctia Jam entries. I'm usually a bit of a purist about running stuff I've written myself, but it was kind of liberating to be able to just rely on something pre-written. The Eldritch Fields dungeons are particularly great -- both fit on one page, are written for OD&D (afaik), have a great pulpy sensibility, and are minimalist enough to be easily slotted into a variety of possible milieus (no over-written lore backgrounds). I wish they had explored enough rooms for a proper playtest report, but hopefully they'll find their way back.
I probably shouldn't have let the party get away with just feeding the dragon a mule, but I rolled an 11 on the reaction roll when it was proffered. I figured that if I was a Red Dragon trapped in a 40' x 60' room for decades, I'd want to book it out of there ASAP. And at only 5 HD (per the key. half usual HD), the party actually posed something of a threat, though the breath attacks would have done serious damage.
The party is also leveling up quite quickly. I've re-introduced dividing XP by number in party, but . Thorndike is now a Vicar (Cleric 4), Leslie is a mere 500 xp from Theurgist (Magic-user 4), both Trombly & Frank are now Swordsmen (Fighter 3). Given that some of the early sessions were duds as far as XP, I'm ok with this, but I do feel like I'm proably too nice/generous too much of the time and should correct for it slightly.
Finally, I ran this session over brunch hosted at my house, with waffles & mimosas -- this was in many ways nicer than when everyone is tired on a Friday or Saturday night.
