Expedition to the Black Stairs Written in very rough draft form.
PCs
Eachern M The Cleric
Dalkon M The Dwarven Warrior
Aowen F The Elf Thief
Eva F The Thief
NPCs
Marts MF With Plate and 2H Sword
Melenad FF With Ring Spear and Bow plus Dagger
Belenad FF With Ring Spear and Bow plus Hand Ax
Melenad and Belenad are two attractive foreigner twins.
NPCs not hired
Raph MF With Chain, Shield, and Sword plus Crossbow
Tran MF With Plate, Battle Ax, and Spear
The Black Stairs Servant's quarters.
Dalkon
get's let down on rope and he gets shot at by 2 goblins. Aowen goes
down below to help. As well as Eva, Belenard, and Marts. Eachern and
Melenard tie rope to bush and go down. Belenard proves to be a great
shot! Killing one of the goblins and the Dwarf kills the other but not
until Melenard is horribly injured! Two goblins are dispatched. Three
more goblins come out. The party quickly dispatches them all but poor
Marts is killed. The adventurer's explore the rest of the servant's
quarters and find much gold and an amulet of protection.
They
find door on the western end on the main hallway with a warning written
in goblin”No go in here” The Cleric feels unholiness in the area and
decides to go to the door to the south instead that opens up into a
three way hallway.
The western hallway has a smell (Now as a
house rule Dwarves will be able to tell the different kinds of humanoids
by their smell!) of some kind of humanoid but the dwarf can't tell what
it was.
The southern hallway opens up into a green house.
The eastern hallway goes down to a room with a lit fire.
The
players go south into the greenhouse and find two knotted ropes coming
down. The cleric decides to cut the ropes ten foot up as the Elf decides
to climb up the rope. She finds a mulemaster and a pack mule. The
mulemaster is heavily question by the elf as the dwarf climbs up. The
dwarf finds out that two of the NPCs that were not hired Raph and Tran
have decided to come to the Black Stairs themselves. The Dwarf pays the
mulemaster 3 gold and tells him to cut the rope when they get back down.
The elf and dwarf climb back down and the rope begins to get pulled
back up with the mulemaster explaining that he did not have a knife to
cut the rope so he would just pull it up. The Dwarf runs and leaps
grabbing the rope. The mulemaster surprised by this does not let go of
the rope and accidentally gets pulled down headfirst to his death 20
feet below. The party rolls in laughter with this strange turn of
events.
The party then decides to go down the eastern hallway and the
elf scouts down the hall and sees three goblins completely distracted
by something farther down the hallway. The elf decides to sneak up and
gives a battle cry too early allowing the goblins a chance to attack but
somehow they all miss. The party quickly dispatches the goblins and
find an old mine, 6 slaves and a freshly dug gold mine with many nuggets
of gold.
The party decides to get the heck back to Raven's Keep
and right in the servant's quarters they are ambushed by Raph and Tran.
Raph and Tran attack with crossbow and Spear and miss! They close in
and the Dwarf is killed (CRIT!) by Tran as well as Melenad and Beledad.
The cleric is taken out as well as the elf but she does manage to kill
Raph. Only Eva the thief is left standing as she fires her arrows at
Tran hitting him but he still is up. She drops her bow and draws her
sword as the battle axe barely misses. They both make a last strike his
axe cutting her nearly to death and her blade hitting the mark killing
Tran. She tires to heal the cleric and fails and succeeds on the elf who
quickly pours a potion of healing that they found earlier in the
cleric's mouth.
They limp back to town.
I use the Dave Arneson method of spend the gold in order to get the Experience Points for it.
The
cleric is a worshiper of Bobber the god of fishing. He find the temple
of Bobber in great disrepair and their acolytes lax. The local priest of
Bobber is an old man who claims to be 115 years old. Much gold is
spent getting the temple in repair.
The Thief spends her money on much partying.
The
Elf Thief spends her money of a fully armored warhorse. A new set of
armor, some caltrops, a couple of tattoos, new fancy sets of clothing,
and the rest is wasted on partying.
The brother of the Dwarf
comes to the city looking for his brother. He is saddened to find that
he is dead and is gladdened to find he died in battle with honor.
The party hires the following NPCs
Mark the Fighter M Chain and Shield with Sword.
The Band of Dwarves M, Dully, Martrus, Dontar, Dunkin, and Brannoc. All had Ring and Shield with Battle Axes!
There was Stryder the Elf Warrior and Mage with Longbow ready to fire.
They all headed back to the Black Stairs ready for Part 1.5 which I will tell later...
The party hires the following NPCs
Mark the Fighter M Chain and Shield with Sword.
The Band of Dwarves M, Dully, Martrus, Dontar, Dunkin, and Brannoc. All had Ring and Shield with Battle Axes!
There was Stryder the Elf Warrior and Mage with Longbow ready to fire.
They all headed back to the Black Stairs ready!
The
party went back in and found the slaughter house. An animal pen, a
blood pit that scraps and blood was drained to the unused 3rd level and
the actual kitchen.
The party and their retainers bumbled around
until they attracted the attention of some zombies. The cleric turned
all of one of the dead but the party foolishly pursued the zombies and
lost two dwarfs. The zombies were dispatched though.
The fighter
Mark kept talking smack about the superiority of humans as the party
explored the slaughterhouse area of the dungeon. The Player Dwarf pushed
him down the bloodhole. He survived the fall but the party discovered
he met a gang of ghouls who quickly dispatched foolish Mark but not
before he beheaded one of them. A quick application of oil dispatched
another ghoul but the party knows going deeper they will have to face
them.
They explored a bit more and found a horde of dishes and
silverware. The best find was a huge set of gold candle holders. The
headed back to Raven's Fort where they cashed in the items for gold.
A
party of legend has happened for the last three weeks as the
Adventurers have unleashed a time of drunken debauchery right during The
Summer Festival of the Lottery. With the huge amount of gold the party
has shut down much of the city for the last three weeks. Crops have not
been tended, cows not milked, jobs not done, the city has put in a
virtual standstill. Drunken citizens lay all about the street for the
last three weeks! The party is out of money and the Baron is now
displeased. Time to leave town!
This was a Swords and Wizardyr game but I converted the world to LL/AEC.
Sadly some of the players claimed they did not enjoy the game. IF we would have been using 4E then the same game would have taken MANY sessions. They only wanted to play 4E.
