Games are normally on Friday nights sometime after 6:00PM at World's Best Comics, 9714 Warwick Blvd Newport News, Virginia 23601.

**** THERE WILL BE NO GAME TOMORROW DUE TO WEATHER ****

This concludes a two month hiatus in the campaign. We have had board games in the interim and cancellations due to absences. But usually we meet, whether we run the campaign or not.

This is a two session report. Both nights we had an extra large Philly Cheese Steak with fresh Mozzarella. The second time we added fresh Tomatoes also.

What has gone before:

[Repeat] The Party is with a small underground civilization named Cynicism (demonym: Cynics) who are constantly stoned out of their gourd due to the poor diet of mushrooms, underground fish, and lack of sunlight. (I think it's mostly the mushrooms.) The Cynics are controlled by a priestly class of Ba'al worshipers and a tribe of Hobgoblins. The Party has aligned themselves with three rebel Catholic factions whose numbers are still too small (450) to defeat Ba'al. (Ba'al has 550 plus a tribe of 200 Hobgoblins, and a large family of Ogres.)

[New] This time the party has been reinforced with 500 light foot recruited by Sham the Samurai, 400 from the Duchy of Ten (Town of Rustagern) and 100 from Blackmoor (Gar's Hold). I set this near the Southwest end of the Blackmoor campaign map near the Nomads of Ten (a.k.a. Plains of Hak).

++++ START OF SESSION ++++

Anyone with a modicum of old D&D knowledge will have figured this is old Basic module B4, "The Lost City" modified for a different set of religions. Currently the party has decided to assault the government run by Ba'al cultists with reinforcements. I had transcribed the underground city map from from the module (the oblique map with the lake in the middle) onto a cutting board with a plastic overlay. Both sides battled it out amongst the buildings.(a)

Because we had large forces I translated this into the 2nd Ed. AD&D BattleSystem rules with 100 person units represented by 10 figures each. Except the Magi of Jesus which only had 50 Magicians with 5 figures, but as a magical unit they had distance weapons and potentially were more effective than a regular unit.

In the web site version of this post I will add some pictures from the halfway point where we took a three week break. (Not this one.)

From the right side of the city, the party set up their forces into units of 10 figures each appearing from buildings "L", "M", and "N" (a) which were the headquarters of the three factions. 200 Brothers of Joseph we called the "Joe Bros" (b), 200 Maidens of Mary (c), and 50 Magi of Jesus (d). Reinforcements from the Duchy and Blackmoor were to emerge from the main cavern entrance on the upper right side of the map. Each 100 person unit was also represented by a 6 inch by 4 inch card showing the unit's combat statistics. You can imagine there were different values shown for Light, Medium, Heavy, and other units.

To make the game more interesting, I told the players to write down their character's name on one of those cards and told them if the unit is eliminated, so is your character. Sham the Sam(urai) choose the BlackMoor contingent. Glaxx chose one of the Maidens of Mary units, Paveltepec chose the Magi, Cadfael one of the Joe Bro units, Navel and Thune one of the Duchy reinforcement units each.

I set up the Goblins and the Hobgoblins and tribe of Ogres on the left side of the city on the plateau.

Previously, Glaxx our Druid, used her powers to convince a Giant Constrictor Snake held in the livestock pens from area "F" on the map (a) to help block one of the bridges connecting the plateau to the city to slow down any Hobgoblin reinforcements. I also made the snake an "Elder Snake" from HackMaster (e) to make it smart enough to understand the request. Originally, the party wanted the Elder Snake to break the bridges by constriction, after some forethought, I decided the snake wasn't THAT big. Anyway it did its job as a speed bump and and the Hobgoblins had to fight it to get over the bridge.

Anyway back to the assault, the factions emerged from their buildings and assaulted known barracks and the main temple of Ba'al. The Joe Bros and the Maidens lead the assault to be backed up by the topside reinforcements based on a die roll for Turn arrival.

To keep players guessing enemy locations with a perfect intelligence assessment, I randomized the Ba'al units among the buildings by placing their cards upside down and added some blank cards. One known location were the Temple Guards, to which I assigned the Ba'alist Heavy Infantry unit. I also declared that Ba'alist units would be activated on a die roll or when one of the Player's units came within 5 inches of that unit. The die roll represented the uncertain effects of the magic mushrooms on the population in its regular diet. Once the general alarm sounded, it also represented how quickly a unit would muster by getting out of their stupor to put their armor on.

The party quickly defeated the Ba'alist Light and Medium units. Because of the way BattleSystem works, morale die rolls quickly bring a unit's effectiveness down. Also figures are lost quickly. The center lake on the map eventually became a pile of dead figures.

BATTLE HIGHLIGHTS:

The Temple Guards held out for awhile fighting both units of the Maidens of Mary. But were quickly decimated when the Magi of Jesus unit cast their Magic Missiles and Fireballs on them from a distance.

One of the cards turned over was a unit of Tourist Trolls. (2 figures, who regenerate hits every turn unless killed outright.) Defeating them took a few extra turns.
Meanwhile, the Hobgoblins, Hobgoblin Archers, and the Ogre tribe (two figures) finally arrived on the scene and faced the slightly reduced Maidens of Mary and Magi of Jesus. In a miraculous feat of die rolling, the Hobgoblin Archers got five hits on the Magi of Jesus from a medium distance. (The number of dice are halved one die for each figure. Which meant all five dice hit.) On top of that, all five figures of the Magi failed their Armor Checks which in turn meant that all the Magi were killed in one volley.

After a short pause from that throw, the Player for Pavetepec turned to me and said, "You realize you just killed my character?"

Of course I did.

The Ba'alist Medium and Light infantry held out longer in pitched battles against the Joe Bros but eventually lost due to bad die rolls. But they lasted long enough to see the Duchy of Ten and Blackmoor reinforcements arrive. The Ba'alist Archer and Halberd units were then activated just in the nick of time and caused the Duchy and Blackmoor units to retreat back to the cavern entrance due to a morale check.

That is when Ba'al himself showed up at the cavern entrance. (I used a large Cthulhu-like figure.)

Then I took pictures of surviving unit map locations and we took a three week break.

In the next session the Duchy of Ten and Blackmoor units regained morale and fought Ba'al directly. I made him a 5 hit unit that regenerated every turn. Being a large unit, he got two twelve-sided dice to inflict hits, as opposed to six-siders for the Light Infantry facing him. But Ba'al had bad luck, on those, he rolled a three on one turn and two the next. The Duchy and Blackmoor units eventually regained their composure and ganged up on Ba'al and imposed 5 unsaved hits to kill it, which took 17 figures hitting all at once.

One the other side of the map the Hobgoblins, Ogres, and Hobgoblin Archers gained the upper hand. Even though the Ba'alists lost the Ogres the Hobgoblins formed a line in front of their Archers and let the Archers kill all the Maidens of Mary. (This meant Character Glaxx also died.) The Hobgoblins then started a march across the city to fight the Duchy and Blackmoor units who had just turned about face and were back to fighting the Halberdiers.

It was touch and go for several turns. The Blackmoor unit was eventually lost (meaning Sham the Sam's character too).

Finally the Player's side won when they realized once they got into melee with Archers, the Archers were not so effective.

In the final tally there were only 20 figures left on the Player's side. All characters except Namo the Thief were killed.

Paveltepec rescued himself by Playing a HackMaster card that said "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

At that point I reverted the game back to roleplaying mode and told the Players unless Ba'al is permanently killed, he is going to come back. By this I meant that they had to take Ba'al's center horn and cast it into the lava pit on the island in the center of the lake. (Much like a bad Conan movie.)

So Namo and Paveltepec went to Ba'al, grabbed his center horn, got onto one of the city's fishing boats and rowed out to the island to do this thing.

"Plop" in to the lava pit it went.

Then I tell them a portal opened up before them. Cautiously Namo sent one of the surviving Duchy of Ten soldiers though. The soldier doesn't come back. So Namo also decides to jump. Lastly, so does Paveltepec.

(So much for the The Lost City, he Module and the Campaign.)

I told the players they landed in shallow water by a river bank near a swamp area. In the distance they see people with conical hats in black pajamas tending a rice paddy outside several hooches.

(I was sorely tempted to give the villagers AK-47's and tell the characters they heard music of "Flight of the Valkyries" and a "whop, whop, whop", sound approaching from a distance. But no, I'm going to keep this a medieval style campaign. But the ubiquitous greeting, "soldier, me be with you long time" may still be a valid contractual arrangement. Although I still haven't decided whether the characters can speak the local language.)

At this point I tell them the portal winked out.

Oh wait, I'll send in the 10 Sprites, along with their musical instruments, just before it does. (They didn't fight after all, so there should be no penalty.)

Toto, I don't think we're in Blackmoor anymore.


++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++
BT








BBBB

PART 2.

++++ CHARACTER ROSTER ++++

REFRENCES:

(a) Module B4 "The Lost City", map insert just before page 15.

(b) Brotherhood of Joseph, (originally the Brotherhood of Gorm from Module B4).

(c) Maidens of Mary, (originally the Warrior Maidens of Madarua from Module B4).

(d) Magi of Jesus, (originally the Magi of Usamigaras from Module B4).

(e) Hacklopaedia of Beasts Vol VII page 86


CHARACTERS

Paveltepec, first level Painted Mage
Sham, first level Samurai (Deceased)
Cadfael, second level Cleric (Deceased)
Glaxx, first level Druid (Deceased)
Namo, first level Thief
Thune, first level Berserker (Deceased)
10 Sprites, in a musical band called the Pharies
500 Light Infantry, enroute (80% deceased)
1000 Cynics (95% deceased)

BT








BBBB

++++ RECORD KEEPING ++++

PART 3.

This is also posted on two forums, and a blog.
http://www.kenzerco.com/forums/forumdisp...ster-Tales
viewforum.php?f=76
http://furiouslyeclectic.com/hackmoor/
http://www.furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/ ... php?fid=13

Glad to read that your Blackmoor adventures restarted after a hiatus ;)