Castle Mordengard Session 1
I recently returned to playing OD&D after a long hiatus. Since our usual Ref was having writer's block, I offered to co-campaign and threw together a gonzo megadungeon (Castle Mordengard) in a neighboring province (The Concavity). Characters can pass between the two realms by crossing a river. The following log is from the first session.
Start Date: 10/20/1024
End Date: 10/28/1024
Members of the expedition: Trombly Escargot, veteran; Thorndike Stromulus, adept; Elbow Throndike, medium; Oregano Stiltskin, veteran; Altruism Johnston, conjurer; Lyra Falsehood, medium; Leslie Meow, seer.
Summary
On the other side of the river, in the co-Ref's campaign, the players gathered in a small town called Lookout at an inn called the Semi-intelligent Eyeball, where the magistrate Gaze Meander handed them a Leaflet advertising Castle Mordengard as a promising source of adventure and treasure:
PUBLIC NOTICE: ADVENTURERS NEEDED
The PROBOSCIDEAN PRINCE-REGENTS of THE CONCAVITY are pleased to announce that CASTLE MORDENGARD, formerly the property of ARCHIBALD THE GRIM of HOUSE STERNENHOCH (whereabouts unknown) is open for exploratory and acquisitive expeditions following nineteen years of abandonment and decay.
Terms and Conditions
Per section 17-D of the Concavitan Catacomb Charter, materials recovered from unadministered tellurian labyrinths are considered the rightful property of the absconding party or parties, with the following exceptions:
- Green gems with a value in excess of 100besant
- Sheet music and recordings belonging the genres chamber music, tragic opera, outlaw country and free jazz
- Plums, cherries, and other stone fruit
- Stone religious idols smaller than 1' x 1' x 1'
- Materials pertaining to transcendental idealism or ANY attempt at grounding or demarcating legitimate metaphysical inquiry must be surrendered IMMEDIATELY to the proboscidean authorities.
Approved by the Regency Council on 9/22/1024
After wandering around town, speculating on the rational behind the leaflet's byzantine stipulations, and talking to locals such as Omniscience Joe and Ocularius Ranch, they made for the wooden bridge across the river and approached an impressive gatehouse.
(Here's where I stepped in as Ref.)
The party arrived at the gatehouse and got a brief geographic run-down from the guard. They exchanged some gold and silver for rhodium besants at an unfavorable rate and purchased two tourism brochures, noting that the date of Archibald the Grim’s disappearance differed between the brochure and the leaflet. A failure of Concavitan copy-editing or a sign of a deeper conspiracy?
The remainder of October 25th was spent traveling to Our Lady of the Perihelion, a monastery populated by Broadcast Brothers. The party decided to stay and had an extended conversation with Father Nigel in the garden. The reverend father described the Game and requested that any glass beads found in Castle Mordengard be brought to the monastery. He also alluded to tensions between bipeds and pachyderms following Archibald’s disappearance. After sundown, the party attended vesper hymns and spent the night on uncomfortable guest cots.
On October 26th, they traveled East toward Mitochondrion. Along the way, a mauve dragon flew by and demanded tribute for its hoard. Altruism offered up a small ring and Lyra supplied a silver cross.
On October 27th, the party arrived in Mitochondrion, a small bridge-town suspended across a massive fissure. They stopped by the local teahouse, evaluated the attractiveness of the patrons, and hired a local ruffian named Caspar Crust as an intern. Caspar in tow, they took the chairlift up the slopes of Mt. Mordengard.
Following Caspar’s suggestion, the adventurers chose a small door in the mountainside as their point of ingress. They found themselves in a vestibule where past adventurers had strung up death haiku between the columns. Availing themselves of the paper and pencils set out by the door, they wrote the following:
Trombly Escargot:
One time I thought that
I would be safe with my friends
But who knows now-adays
Thorndike Stromulus:
We enter palace
We will find the treasure here
And survive trials
Elbow Thorndike:
Though the void itself
May swallow me in darkness
You only live once, bro
Oregano Stiltskin:
Charisma so great,
I doubt it will be useful
In this dreadful place
Altruism Johnston:
You will die one day
Death is imminent, oh no!
I love frogs a lot
Lyra Falsehood:
Castle Mordengard
Transcendent minds beware
If you dare proceed
Leslie Meow:
Here in Mordengard
May the angels protect me
Or guide my soul home
As they were putting the finishing touches on the poems, ten centrist bandits burst in and demanded donations. A charm person spell cast upon their leader defused the situation, but in requesting a monetary transfer in the opposite direction, the adventurers tipped off the other bandits who restrained their charmed leader and attacked. Three bandits and Caspar died in the ensuing fight, and the remaining bandits fled. After, two more sleeping bandits were killed, and the charmed boss was tied up and used as a guide. Three lanyards and 21 besants were taken from the dead bandits.
The adventurers explored some rooms to the south. They acquired 16 besants by throwing junk at a pile of money inexplicably drawn to the ceiling. Thorndike discovered a lever on the back of a statue, opening a secret passage leading farther south to a room with a slime fountain and an old infirmary. Exiting the infirmary, they ran into 3 anarchist bandits who took the adventurers for centrists thanks to their lanyards. Pressing yet further south, they discovered Leopold IV’s bowling alley and frightened off four silver skrogs.
Low on time, the adventurers exited the castle and took the ski lift back down to Mitochondrion, where they rented rooms and the Mitochondrion Motel.
Deaths: None
Foes Encountered: 1 mauve dragon, 10 bandits (centrist), 3 bandits (anarchist), 3 silver skrogs
Treasure Recovered: 3 centrist lanyards, 37 besants.
Experience Points: Base 287 experience points were awarded to each character, adjusted by relative levels and experience point bonuses.
Reflections
- The players spent probably 20% of the session on the other side of the river and maybe 40% at the monastery talking to Father Nigel. I was hoping to spend more time in the dungeon but everyone seemed to have fun. I think the handouts organically piqued people's interest in the worldbuilding so I consider it a success.
- Describing room dimensions verbally is tough. I struggle distinguishing right & left and East & West and misspoke a few times. The player drawn maps are... diverse.
- I need to hammer out my procedure for reaction rolls and encounter distance; the thing with 2d6 is that most results are in that ambiguous 6-8 range which is tougher to work with than 'definitely friendly' or 'definitely hostile'. In the case of the mauve dragon it was exciting to roll a 20 on the overland encounter table and get a dragon, but a bit tough to figure out how the interaction should play out.
- Following the lead of my co-GM, I awarded experience totals to each participant rather than dividing them. This is a concession to time constraints; based on past experience I'll be lucky to run one session every other month, so I think accelerated leveling is fair.
- Worries that I hadn't stocked enough rooms during prep were not borne out. I suspect that the pressure to make the dungeon more coherent and interconnected will rise with future sessions, but initially even the most naturalistic dungeon will seem gonzo and incomprehensible so there's leeway to improvise and run things off the tables. (This is partly based on my experience as a player as well).
- At the end of the day, OSR dungeons are enrichment for humans, you can't go wrong with silly lateral thinking puzzles.