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Monday, June 19, 2017

First Session of The Siege of Crasmere

I ran my One-Page Adventure of The Siege of Crasmere for my best friend, his brother and my daughter. My daughter was the only one that has played Swords & Wizardry and Swords & Wizardry Light. The other two only ever played 3.5 and some 4e. But they do know their Forgotten Realms lore.

Character creation went by quickly though they still had their minds adjusted to 3.5 style of looking at stats. My best friend was the human cleric, his brother was a dwarf fighter and my daughter was a human magic-user (also played as a kid character).
A quick note on how I handled the magic-user and how I plan on handling the magic-user in the future: I treated their spells as I would a cleric. Instead of memorizing a certain spell that day I let her have just one spell slot that she could use for any of the two spells she selected. Which were Magic Missile and Charm. I'm going this route because it is easier for kids to have spell slots instead of trying to predict what spells they might need for that day.

Go here for The Siege of Crasmere
Go here to see the map I used for this session

Game Summary

The game started in the Inn and I asked them why they would be in the inn and if they knew each other or if they just happened to be in the inn at the same time. The Cleric and Fighter knew each other and have traveled together. The Magic-User was just a kid that was there and didn't even know these other adventurers. After some time and a few drinks (well food for the M-U) a villager crashed into the inn with an arrow in his shoulder saying, "We're under attack!" The M-U quickly went to aid this villager. After they saw he would live they went outside and saw chaos. Villagers were running and screaming. There were villagers dead on the roads from the arrows and others that were injured. They quickly dragged some villagers into the inn but after that another volley of arrows came raining down upon them. This is when I had them Roll their Saving Throw. The Fighter and the M-U took an arrow dealing 1 damage each.

They surveyed the area and got an idea of where the arrows were being fired from. They made their way to the South-Western tower on the wall (after rolling Saving Throws against two volleys of arrows). In the tower was 2 men-at-arms. One was already hit by an arrow and the other was firing back. After another volley of arrows the other man-at-arms took an arrow and fell to his death. The M-U had the idea of lighting an arrow on fire and shooting it over the wall as a light source to get an idea of what's out there. The Fighter let the arrow loose and it struck a goblin and set the goblin on fire like a small campfire. They could see about a dozen or so goblins with bows and on the walls there were orcs with ladders trying to get on the wall. The Cleric jumped onto the wall from the tower and kicked away one of the ladders. The M-U tied one of her daggers to a 10' pole and handed it to the Fighter. He then got on the other wall and thrust the pole through an orc climbing up the ladder. In the process knocking the other orcs off the ladder as well. The M-U went down the tower to make her way to the next tower but as soon as she got down she heard people screaming about an Ogre at the gate. She quickly ran back up and told the others and that is when they decided that defending the gate from the ogre would be best.

When they arrived at the gate (after avoiding some arrows) they saw that some men-at-arms were armed with spears ready to attack the ogre once is broke through the gate. The cleric, while the ogre was trying to bash it's way through the gate, made a narrow ditch across the gate and poured oil in it and set it ablaze. As the the ogre crashed through the gate it ran through the fire in a frenzy. It took an arrow from the fighter and a spear through the gut from the M-U (using the modified 10' pole). But the cleric ran in for an attack but missed and took a club in the chest knocking him off his feet and into the wall killing him in a single blow. He then rolled up another character as the fighter and M-U eventually finished this thing off. After the battle the fighter only had 1hp left and the M-U 3hp. There was a howl in the distance and someone yelling, "The gate is open! Charge!"

The characters quickly got the remaining men-at-arms organized and some of the villagers offered to help defend their homes when the new character, halfling thief, stepped forward and said he would help out. They got organized with some staying at the gate and the rest attacking the orcs that made their way over the walls and getting the villagers inside buildings safely. The fighter was in need of healing and one of the men-at-arms told them to find Philmon at the temple and that he should have medical supplies to help the fighter and the injured villagers. They made their way to the temple and took out a few orcs on the way. Once inside the temple they discovered there were kids and injured villagers who were waiting for Philmon to return to aide them. But he was no where to be found. The characters explored the temple and found Philmon's room and his journal inside a cabinet. This is when they discovered that Philmon was aiding the attackers, Klatt, and that he was supposed to meet Klatt outside of the walls.

They made their way over the walls and saw that Philmon was alone and so the M-U charmed him and that is when they discovered who Philmon was working for, Klatt of Brokentusk, an orc and her Worg. After talking with him more they discovered that he had an item, an orb, that held Klatt's husband, Gromm. They convinced Philmon to follow them back into the village while the thief had a plan. The halfling thief managed to steal this orb and from one of the stores in the village he swapped it out with a glass globe that looked similar to what Philmon had. The plan then was to take Philmon back to where he was supposed to meet Klatt and confront her together. The M-U requested the aide of Philmon and he eagerly healed the party.

Once the party and Philmon made their way back to the meet up point they met Klatt and her Worg. She didn't attack at first but wanted to talk once Philmon opened his mouth and said how the party helped him and how he found more allies for the Brokentusk Clan. She asked for the orb but when he pulled out the glass orb she knew she was being tricked and that is when the combat started.

While on the Worg, Klatt, leaped onto Philmon and the Worg mauled him to death. The M-U, using the 10' pole with the dagger tied to it, was able to keep the Worg at bay for sometime. The fighter landed a blow on the worg and that is when Klatt jumped from her mount and cut down the thief in a single blow. His wounds instantly began to turn black as he died. After taking a spear to the chest, the Worg focused his gaze on the M-U, fortunately she avoided his bite and got the Worg in the throat. The fighter charged Klatt and landed a critical blow moments after she took out the thief. She retaliated and returned a blow and the axe wound burned the dwarf more than it should have. The Worg then went for the M-U one last time as his teeth ripped through her upper torso tearing her in two. The fighter was alone. Terrified from what he just saw the Worg do to his little human friend he took a swing at the Worg but came up too short. Leaving him open to Klatt's deadly axe that sliced through the dwarf's neck and sent his head toppling to the ground.

A TPK. But a great one! They all had a blast and were happy with the end results. But, did Klatt ever discover what happened to the orb? We may never know...or will we?

Changes I Would Make

If you look at the One-Page Adventure under the features you will see the arrows listed as a saving throw. This is one thing I would change for sure. I would just treat it as an attack roll with -4 to -6 to the to-hit depending on where they are in the village. After a few hits they tried their best to hug the walls of the village to try to avoid the arrows.

I let them have full health for this adventure. If I run this again with another group I would make them roll their HD for their health. Mainly, because this adventure is designed for "mass combat" in a sense that there are so many villagers that when a character dies the player can easily roll up another one. It is designed to encourage risk, danger and dying for the village.

Other than that I think everything is how it should be. And of course I'm sure with each run it would be completely different because every player would have their own style of playing. If anyone runs this for their own group I would like to know how it went for your group.

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