Session 22 - Read ALL THE BOOKS! Grab ALL THE GEMS!

You know, I didn't realise how valuable those golden tools were until I checked and hoo boy you should be glad you picked them up! You both levelled. Welcome to level 4, Peggy. You are now the highest level out of everyone.

And run, Tub, run like the wind! I hope you find what you're looking for while being pursued by a slow but inevitable black hole.

Session 22 - Read ALL THE BOOKS! Grab ALL THE GEMS!

Campaign date:
Saturday, May 13th 1549
Moon phase: Waning Crescent

New characters:
- Gadling, thief turned... thief?

Enemies defeated:
- 7 hollow dwarves, variously stabbed, sliced, popped like balloons, and sucked into a black hole (125 exp)
- A firey slug, kicked into a bottomless chasm (Gadling - 100 exp)
- Neutralised the source of the hollow dwarfs (500 exp)

Treasure and Equipment:
- Finely worked golden hammer (2500 exp)
- Finely worked golden pickaxe (2500 exp)
- Golden beard-trimmers (250 exp)
- Super sexy three-breasted alien lady (thrown into miniature black hole -  gone forever)
- A miniature sun (thrown into miniature black hole - gone forever)

Exploration:
- 9 dungeon rooms explored (90 exp)
- 2 wandering monsters (20 exp)
- Secret door found (10 exp)

Misc:
- Grabbed a bunch of wormhole gems (50 exp)
- Got rid of the purple smoke (50 exp)
- "Solved" the meteorite door (50 exp)
- Read aaaaall 100 books (Peggy - 200 exp)
- Read the rune walls (50 exp)
- Split the party bonus (50 exp)
- Near death experience bonus (Gadling - 100 exp)

Quests and Rumours:
- Sooo many stone books on dwarven history. You should ask Peggy about them.

Death Toll and Injuries:
- Fred the Pig, detonated from within by a fractal butterfly (I am really really sorry)
- Tub, currently running as fast as possible away from a motile black hole (I'm putting him down under "Recovering")

Exp Totals:
Liisa / Peggy Pigrider, Level 3 Dwarf: 9403 (Level up at 17,600)

*DING!* +1d10 HP! +2 to saves! +1 to architecture skill!

--- Socks, Level 0 Human
--- Trevor, Level 0 Human
Chris2 / Gadling, Level 2 Specialist: 2250 (Level up at 1500)

*DING!* +1d6 HP +2 skill points!

[[]]

Recovering:
Tom / Olaf Tenderloin, Level 2 Dwarf: 2737 (Level up at 4400) ETA: 27 weeks
Tom / Baron Noel Pompadour, Level 1 Specialist: 1223 (Level up at 1500) ETA: 13 weeks
Chris2 / Tub, Level 2 Goblin: 3671 (Level up at 4000) ETA: However long it takes to outrun a black hole.

Absent or Retired:
Chris / Crocell, Level 3 Halfling: 7738 (Level up at 8000)
Lisa / Bella, Level 1 Magic User: 905 (Level up at 2250)
Michael / Mist Urman, Level 3 Magic User: 4976 (Level up at 4500)
--- Stan, Level 0 Mercenary. (takes 1/5 of a share)
George / Magnus, Level 1 Cleric: 0 (Level up at 1750)
Renzo / Mushroom Lover, Level 2 Elf (Alpdrucke): 5258 (Level up at 6000)
Jacob / Wizard Khalifa, Level 1 Muscle Wizard: 430 (Level up at 2250)
Marius' Totally-Not-Necromancer, Level 3 Necromancer: 5111 (Level up at 9000)
--- Faust, Level 1 Specialist: 823 (Level up at 1500)
Nadav / Frog, Level 1 Fighter: 732 (Level up at 2000)
Charlie / Losh, Level 1 Elf (Habberjock): 309 (Level up at 3000)
Jack / Uldric, Level 1 Magic User: 409 (Level up at 2250)
Tom / Eli, Level 1 Cleric: 409 (Level up at 1750)
Kate / Khaleesi, Level 1 Muscle Wizard: 37 (Level up at 2250)
Emmi / Lyrel, Level 2 Necromancer: 2891 (Level up at 4500)
--- Schmidt, Level 0 Human

Session 21 - To Boldly Go Where No DM Has Prepped Before

So close to levelling for most of you I'm so sorry.

Turns out those leaping brain guzzler things were even more brutal in my original notes so you lucked out. Two attacks per round holy moly.

We have a new girl - Lisa with a single i - so conveniently I don't have to do a Chris/Chris2 thing. She's a wizard who can speak to books.

You've found the entrance to whatever you want to call this dungeon. It's the Dwarf Satan Dungeon in my notes but I guess I should call it the Lost Tomb of the Old Miner or something to make it sound more mysterious.

Bella and Tub explored into it a little way without you guys before bugging out due to the bar closing down and also getting a bit scared. They saw some interesting pictorial lore which I'm sure they can tell you about and stole some nice quality daggers and cloaks and stuff though. Lots of purple smoke.

What did you do/are you doing with the horse and carts by the way?

A girl from my office looked over my shoulder and saw me write this so she wants to come to D&D now.
"I want to be a magic elf". Easy enough!

Liisa has finally named her one-legged dwarf - Peggy. Very fitting. She has also put a saddle on Fred the Pig who they have discovered has a peculiar mold-based condition that only effects him in human form.

Pictured is a high quality prosthetic leg from the 1500's which Peggy paid good money for!

Also attached for Peggy/Liisa is the dwarf Lorebonds list. You can pick any of the tier 1 abilities, and at level 6 you can bump it to tier 2 or choose a new tier 1 ability etc etc. See you all next time!

Session 21 - To Boldly Go Where No DM Has Prepped Before

Campaign date:
Saturday, May 9th 1549
Moon phase: Third Quarter

New characters:
- Bella, Huntress turned tattooed Wizard (Lisa)
- Not a new character, but Liisa's dwarf has been named Peggy the Pigrider

Enemies defeated:
- 3 horrible infested deer, shanked and stabbed to death. (225 exp)

Treasure and Equipment:
- From Robert Doyle for killing the Black Knight - 100 lbs of turnips, 2 rams, 4 ewes, 2 acres of land (freehold)
- From Father McKenzie for killing the Goat of the Woods - 17gp, 45sp, 112cp
- Peggy collected earnings from Pie Mama's
- Various stuff purchased on your travels, including a peg leg for Peggy and a saddle for her pig.
- Accountant hired by Peggy in Pillartown to handle transactions.
- A cart and horses.
- Some cloaks and daggers (Tub and Bella - 20 exp split)

Exploration:
- Travelled approx 96 miles (160 exp)
- 2 randoms encountered (20 exp)
- First party to enter Gush (500 exp)
- Beheld the entrance to the Dwarf Satan Dungeon (100 exp)
- Entered the Dwarf Satan Dungeon (Bella and Tub - 100 exp split)
- Explored 2 rooms (Bella and Tub - 20 exp split)
- Uncovered some of the backstory of the dungeon (Bella and Tub - 50 exp split)

Misc:
- Fame increase bonus (50 exp)
- Selfless charity bonus (Crocell - 100 exp)
- Adventuring group named "Dead Man's Guild - sponsored by Pie Mama's". (50 exp)
- Bella caroused (800 exp)
- Crocell caroused (1600 exp)
- Peggy caroused (3200 exp)
- Tub caroused (1200 exp)

Quests and Rumours:
- "The demons that besieged Wurzberg are now turning north again! They must have been repelled by the prince-bishop, or  got what they came for..."
- "If you see tracks of soft and loamy earth, those are the routes the moles take to hide their treasures."
- "There are armoured soldiers of Moldus Vane wandering the Forest of Moondine. They can keep you safe for a price."
- "If you see yellow mold, don't touch it. Its choking spores are a deadly poison."
- "Those mold men all worship horrible black goats. I heard them talking last night outside my house."

Death Toll and Injuries:
- Orthos the Short-Lived, brain guzzled

Exp Totals:
Chris / Crocell, Level 3 Halfling: 7738 (Level up at 8000)
Liisa / Peggy Pigrider, Level 3 Dwarf: 6600 (Level up at 4400)
*DING!* +1d12 HP! +Choice of Dwarven Lorebond!
--- Fred, Level 0 Pig
--- Socks, Level 0 Human
--- Trevor, Level 0 Human
 Chris2 / Tub, Level 2 Goblin: 3671 (Level up at 4000)
Lisa / Bella, Level 1 Magic User: 905 (Level up at 2250)

[[]]

Recovering:
Tom / Olaf Tenderloin, Level 2 Dwarf: 2737 (Level up at 4400) ETA: 27 weeks
Tom / Baron Noel Pompadour, Level 1 Specialist: 1223 (Level up at 1500) ETA: 13 weeks

Absent or Retired:
Michael / Mist Urman, Level 3 Magic User: 4976 (Level up at 4500)
George / Magnus, Level 1 Cleric: 0 (Level up at 1750)
Renzo / Mushroom Lover, Level 2 Elf (Alpdrucke): 5258 (Level up at 6000)
Jacob / Wizard Khalifa, Level 1 Muscle Wizard: 430 (Level up at 2250)
Marius' Totally-Not-Necromancer, Level 3 Necromancer: 5111 (Level up at 9000)
--- Faust, Level 1 Specialist: 823 (Level up at 1500)
(Mist's retainer)
--- Stan, Level 0 Mercenary. (takes 1/5 of a share)
Nadav / Frog, Level 1 Fighter: 732 (Level up at 2000)
Charlie / Losh, Level 1 Elf (Habberjock): 309 (Level up at 3000)
Jack / Uldric, Level 1 Magic User: 409 (Level up at 2250)
Tom / Eli, Level 1 Cleric: 409 (Level up at 1750)
Kate / Khaleesi, Level 1 Muscle Wizard: 37 (Level up at 2250)
Emmi / Lyrel, Level 2 Necromancer: 2891 (Level up at 4500)
--- Schmidt, Level 0 Human
That one guy / Nadriel, Level 1 Barbarian: 293 (Level up at 2000)
That other guy / ???, Level 1 Fighter: 293 (Level up at 2000)

Retrospective 2 - The Engine Catches

They escaped Better Than Any Man's slice-of-Germany in session 11.

Session 12 was A Single, Small Cut where George and Jay's characters died in a genuinely heartwrenching fashion.
It was also the session where Renzo showed up, who would be incredibly good and fun and reliable until his eventual return to his home Italy.
Liisa whose Dwarf remained unnamed for many sessions until her leg got chopped off in session 20, was a good player. She was also new to the game and also Finnish so ended up being a sort of swap-out replacement for Emmi when she had to go back to her mother country.
Losing players to emmigration happens a fair amount in London.

Chris arrived and was very much a rules-focussed player who was in our game until he could find a more rulesy Pathfindery sort of game. He got really pissed off when his character got cursed in the God That Crawls to need to ask everyone at the table for permission before he could do anything, saying it ruined his character. Not the game for him, really. I think he did find a Pathfinder group in the end.

These guys were all pretty reliable. I was out of the crucible now. Tom kept trying to change the date so that he could fit D&D around his various mid-week obligations then never showing up anyway, but he wasn't crucial for the game to keep going so I eventually stopped shifting things around. He'd show up occasionally, but the group culture had sort of changed in the interim so he was an outsider rather than the core.



The rules were still in a state of flux, but it's hard to find evidence for what they actually were at the time! Definitely some early unrefined combat tweaks in there, anyway.
Also the first business investment using LotFP mostly Rules-as-Written. I'd change this eventually.

I generated towns and villages on the Gate area map by rolling stats for them, which worked well.
Zak's blog post here was the inspiration.
I still use this method for stocking villages when I do a zoomed-in map level. It's great!

My first smaller scale map ever, d'aww/

Mini Reviews:

A Single Small Cut. 
Review here. A good little side-mission that takes about session to finish. Resulted in one of the coolest moments in the game to date.

Caspian's Delve
A mountainous dungeon of my own design, most significant were the blood birds that lived in the walls and got spooked easily by loud noises. Unfortunately barely explored. One of the first deaths by Save or Die poison, they never returned.

Tower of the Stargazer
Good fun! Well documented as a good starter dungeon. Several sessions here. Calcidius was released and had a vendetta against the party which was never realised since all the characters present had died by the time he tried to enact his revenge.
Such is D&D.
One of the players apprenticed himself to Calcidius briefly so he got these star-spells.

The God That Crawls
Man, can you tell I'd been busting to use the LotFP modules in my collection?
This dungeon inspired my post on how to run negadungeons. I loved running this a second time round, I really fucked it up when I ran it in Australia.
It was also the first time I'd run something where everyone was in different parts of the map and it was massively confusing! Good experience for Scenic Dunnsmouth some time later.

A Thousand Dead Babies
Fucking great. Little self-contained weirdo mystery. This big black knight guy chopped off the as-yet-unnamed Dwarf's leg and she needed to get a pegleg. Subsequently became named Peggy.
As far as I remember, they basically rocked in and murdered any cultists they could find.

Session 20 - Goatmurdered

Godspeed, Alan the Barbarian. May you spend all your days getting trashed in Valhalla or cultural equivalent.

I was worried that you guys wouldn't get much exp despite the hardship, but it turns out plate armour's high cost makes it quite the prize. Plus it's black as night and super pimp.

As talk of your deed spreads, people will now be calling you the Slayers of the Black Knight, unless you can think of and spread something cooler.

George - if you want, rather than rolling up a random profession, your new Cleric can be the witchfinder that Father McKenzie sent for. Basically you'd have turned up with all your witchfinding gear only to find that the problem's already dealt with.

Session 20 - Goatmurdered

Campaign date:
Saturday, May 6th 1549
Moon phase: Third Quarter

New characters:
- Magnus, rolled up by session's end. Profession unknown.

Enemies defeated:
- The Goat of the Woods, drugged up and stabbed (250 exp)
- 9 cultists, including a "witch" and some scabby gambler guy, put to sleep then slaughtered (45 exp)
- The Black Knight, brought low at the last (100 exp)

Treasure and Equipment:
- A big ol' pig wearing a hat and leather jerkin found wandering in the woods.
- The black armour of the Black Knight (1000 exp)
- The black shield of the Black Knight (10 exp)
- The huge broadsword of the Black Knight (50 exp)
- The head of the Goat of the Woods. (100 exp)

Exploration:
- Travelled approx 12 miles (20 exp)
- Met many people in Sayzel's Meadow (50 exp)
- Found the home of the Goat of the Woods (50 exp)

Misc:
- Trapsetter bonus (50 exp)
- Increased the fame of the party (50 exp)
- Killed a legendary foe (100 exp)
- Near death experience bonus (Mist; Liisa's Dwarf - 100 exp ea.)
- Death's witness bonus (Mist; Liisa's Dwarf, Crocell - 100 exp ea.)
- Quest complete: Clear out the devil worshippers around Sayzel's Meadow (500 exp)

Quests and Rumours:
- Father McKenzie says he has some devil worshippers in Sayzel's Meadow and he wants them cleared out before they reduce the village's moral fibre.
--- Complete - 500exp, See Father McKenzie for monetary reward.

Death Toll and Injuries:
- Alan the Barbarian, cloven in twain by the Black Knight
- Mist Urmin, ear chopped off by the Black Knight.
- Liisa's Dwarf, leg severed at the knee by the Black Knight. Prosthesis required for further adventuring.
- Pig, knocked himself out against a tree whilst fleeing from the Black Knight

Exp Totals:
Chris / Crocell, Level 3 Halfling: 6038 (Level up at 8000)
Michael / Mist Urman, Level 3 Magic User: 4976 (Level up at 4500)
*DING!* +1d4HP, +1 level 2 spell/day, +1 free lvl 2 spell
Liisa's Dwarf, Level 2 Dwarf: 3498 (Level up at 4400)
--- Pig, Level 0 Swine.
George / Magnus, Level 1 Cleric: 0 (Level up at 1750)

[[]]

Recovering:
Tom / Olaf Tenderloin, Level 2 Dwarf: 2737 (Level up at 4400) ETA: 27 weeks
Tom / Baron Noel Pompadour, Level 1 Specialist: 1223 (Level up at 1500) ETA: 13 weeks

Absent or Retired:
 Renzo / Mushroom Lover, Level 2 Elf (Alpdrucke): 5258 (Level up at 6000)
Jacob / Wizard Khalifa, Level 1 Muscle Wizard: 430 (Level up at 2250)
Marius' Totally-Not-Necromancer, Level 3 Necromancer: 5111 (Level up at 9000)
 --- Faust, Level 1 Specialist: 823 (Level up at 1500)
Chris2 / Tub, Level 1 Goblin: 1366 (Level up at 2000)
(Liisa's retainers)
--- Socks, Level 0 Human
--- Trevor, Level 0 Human
(Mist's retainer)
 --- Stan, Level 0 Mercenary. (takes 1/5 of a share)
Nadav / Frog, Level 1 Fighter: 732 (Level up at 2000)
Charlie / Losh, Level 1 Elf (Habberjock): 309 (Level up at 3000)
Jack / Uldric, Level 1 Magic User: 409 (Level up at 2250)
  Tom / Eli, Level 1 Cleric: 409 (Level up at 1750)
Kate / Khaleesi, Level 1 Muscle Wizard: 37 (Level up at 2250)
Emmi / Lyrel, Level 2 Necromancer: 2891 (Level up at 4500)
--- Schmidt, Level 0 Human
That one guy / Nadriel, Level 1 Barbarian: 293 (Level up at 2000)
 That other guy / ???, Level 1 Fighter: 293 (Level up at 2000)

Session 20a - The Saddest 20th Birthday

Another reminder that next week's session will be on a Tuesday. If you can't come let me know in advance so I can cancel!

I know Mike's back so hopefully we can get at least two players. sob sob.

Session 20a - The Saddest 20th Birthday

Exploration and Misc:

- Only guy to show up to the session bonus (Tub - 1000 exp)

Exp Totals:

Chris2 / Tub, Level 2 Goblin: 2366 (Level up at 2000)

*DING!* +1d6 HP +2 to saves

[[]]

Recovering:
Tom / Olaf Tenderloin, Level 2 Dwarf: 2737 (Level up at 4400) ETA: 26 weeks
Tom / Baron Noel Pompadour, Level 1 Specialist: 1223 (Level up at 1500) ETA: 12 weeks

Absent or Retired:
Renzo / Mushroom Lover, Level 2 Elf (Alpdrucke): 5258 (Level up at 6000)
Chris / Crocell, Level 3 Halfling: 5146 (Level up at 8000)

Marius' Totally-Not-Necromancer, Level 3 Necromancer: 5111 (Level up at 9000)

--- Faust, Level 1 Specialist: 823 (Level up at 1500)
Jacob / Wizard Khalifa, Level 1 Muscle Wizard: 1430 (Level up at 2250)
George / Alan, Level 2 Barbarian: 3380 (Level up at 4000)
Liisa's Dwarf, Level 2 Dwarf: 2506 (Level up at 2200)
--- Socks, Level 0 Human
--- Trevor, Level 0 Human
Michael / Mist Urman, Level 2 Magic User: 3987 (Level up at 4500)
--- Stan, Level 0 Mercenary. (takes 1/5 of a share)
Nadav / Frog, Level 1 Fighter: 732 (Level up at 2000)
Charlie / Losh, Level 1 Elf (Habberjock): 309 (Level up at 3000)
Jack / Uldric, Level 1 Magic User: 409 (Level up at 2250)
 Tom / Eli, Level 1 Cleric: 409 (Level up at 1750)
Kate / Khaleesi, Level 1 Muscle Wizard: 37 (Level up at 2250)
Emmi / Lyrel, Level 2 Necromancer: 2891 (Level up at 4500)
--- Schmidt, Level 0 Human
That one guy / Nadriel, Level 1 Barbarian: 293 (Level up at 2000)
That other guy / ???, Level 1 Fighter: 293 (Level up at 2000)