The Fearless DM

So the “mashup edition” I’ve been running was originally supposed to be Labyrinth Lord but includes elements of other editions. (I can’t help it, but the inconsistency has been kind of fun for me). Figuring prominently in the mix, due to player demand and my own long familiarity with the material, I have added a ton of First edition AD&D.

In the last adventure there had been a bit of a catastrophe wherein 2 PCs (and 2 hirelings as well) had been suddenly killed in an explosion of gas in the first level of the Black Key. The bodies were recovered, dragged back to town and raised (which wiped out the party savings at that point). They also had amongst their treasure an unidentified magic item- which turned out to be a periapt of health- a very valuable and powerful item (well, it’s proof against disease, and it has a gold value of 10,000). At first the priest of the local church attempted to swindle the party out of it, but then they visited one of the few local spellcasters, a witch named Yaga, and she identified it for the group.  The dwarf who had recently been cured of a disease elected to keep it. 

On a chance encounter through the wilderness as the party tried to forge their way through directly from the witches swamp to the dungeon, I chuckled as the result “giant beavers” came up. So we improvised a river crossing, and then they came upon the giant beaver dam- and had a very rollicking encounter with a group of 4 adult beavers (and a small group of kits that were eventually forced out of the dam).

Giant Beavers in AD&D are amazingly valuable: the pelts are worth 500-2000 gp each. The baby beavers are worth 100-200gp per hit point, if you capture them alive. I was like.. whoa, that’s some inflation! Also, they are extremely dangerous critters: 4hit dice, and they have a bite that does 4-16 damage. In previous encounters the party had taken out a herd of flightless birds in a hunting expedition, so they carefully planned out their luring assault and capture of the beavers and it all worked out pretty well. The downside is: they had to return immediately to town or risk spoiling the beaver pelts. So the dungeon got skipped.

While in town, Hans the Puppeteer showed up. So, earlier in the campaign, in the dungeon, there are some visions of some of the demons who have escaped the dungeon, and assumed human form. One of them has assumed the identitiy of a bandit, one of them was an itinerant performer, etc. As a break I had “Hans the Puppeteer” (aka secretly  the demon Agares) show up, and of course the overjoyed and (partially ensorcled) townsfolk were sending the children out to him. The party identified him - they were sure he was the demon they had witnessed in the dungeon— but couldn’t convince the townsfolk anything was amiss, so after several townie inteviews, they decided to raid his circus-wagon.

During that, the investigation was going pretty well, with Bloody Rose Red trying to run interference, while Veldrin the thief managed to break into the wagon and find a bunch of townsfolk who had been transformed into puppets. Once negotiations broke down, a new player (“Jericho”) decided to outright attack Hans, and normally, this would have been an attempt to knock him unconscious. Unfortunately, Hans was secretly a Vrock demon, and everything got crazy at that point. So Jericho’s knockout attempt turned into a real hit.

But that battle worked out pretty well, even after Hans/Agares dropped a heavy brass stove from the wagon on top of Veldrin with telekinesis. (Did you know Vrock demons had telekinesis? That’s how he operates so many puppets..)

Once Hans was eventually dispatched, the wagon yielded a few more mysteries, including a small cache of gems, a scroll of protection vs elementals, and an empty iron flask. (Iron Flasks are bad-ass magic items). Bloody Rose Red took possession of the flask.

AD&D Note: While most magic items yield experience points (not the cursed ones..) the Iron Flask does not. Why not?

The party organized and  went off to visit kindly old Yaga the witch again, and she bought the demons talisman from the party, as well as the scroll.

FINALLY, with just a few hours to go, the party returned to the dungeon, first hitting the scene of the crime- the place where the trap had gone off (and not been reset). They had cleared the room of valuables pretty well, and then the focus changed to finishing out the map of the first level.

In one room there was a place where magic users could identify (automatically) a constellation (“Orobas the Oracle”), and twice a year, ask a question to the constellation. Luckily enough, this was one of those times. 

So Aelfwine got all the way through identfying the constellation and the dungeon roof seemed to disappear and the stars shone down and a ghostly voice whispered into his ear “I am Orobas the Oracle. You may ask me one question.”

The magic user paused for a second and then said “Is this just a voice in my ear?”

“Yes”. Said the oracle. “It is. Your question is complete.”

And the oracle shut down for another 6 months.

I think the players may want to kill me.