I ran across the current edition of Delving Deeper on the web a
few weeks ago, and it prompted me to reread it in some depth. (It had
been some time since I read my copy of the Delving Deeper box
set.) The current version of the Delving Deeper Reference Rules
(V4) is available online in hypertext or for free download as three
digest-sized booklets.
I've decided I like this rule set very much. It really seems to
reflect the rules of the original 3 Little Brown Books of Original D&D
very well, and I can see that there are enough differences from, say,
the Labyrinth Lord rules that I have been using, to make it a
different experience. I'm looking forward to trying it out.
It prompted me to sit down and draw out a dungeon level and fill it
using the method in Delving Deeper, which turned out to be good fun.
We played the last session of M.A.H.'s “Footsteps of the Fallen”
campaign, and were successful in eliminating the Mourning! In mass
battle we defeated the army of the Lord of the Blades. Afterward we
killed the Lord of the Blades, but the psychic purple creature who
turned out to be behind it all escaped. We're left with a bunch of
psychically active purple glass that can be mined and turned into
psychically active artifacts.
This was probably the 33rd game session we'd played, and we'd been
playing since the first session on 2013-02-27.
Heard rumors of Cutthroat Henry Hobbs' treasure; key under Santa
Domingo's Lion's Gate (St. Leon's church). Go there. Try to climb
down well in church. Rowena falls, but quietly. Find box with sand
casting of key with the number 4 on the handle. Took it to a
blacksmith, who recognizes it as a key from a gold collection site
from mines of Santa Domingo — he warns us that the spirits of natives
who died in the mines infest them to this day. 11$ to make the key.
Can't find any way to protect us from the spirits. Bought Lantern and
Bullseye Lantern and 6 pints of oil for 89$. Went to mines. 5 main
passages. Some men came out of one of the other passages. Their
leader is Catfish Carlos Peña, and they say they can't let us get away
knowing about them. We fire and kill Peña and others flee. Number 4
area opens to our key. Only thing of interest is the Shipping
Security Log. The 13th shipment lists Robyn H Besh (an anagram for
Henry Hobbs) is in charge. He must have changed the log and took
command of the ship to took it to Santiago (destination listed on the
log).
Jack has a one-masted sloop with 4 crew. On the 3rd day one of the
crew sees a ship; 2 days later another crew member sees it. We've
also been having bad luck. We reach Santiago. Lots of taverns to
investigate. We find an old man, Smiling Jack, who sells us for 5$
the information that William Wilks sailed with Besh, boasted of
Spanish treasure, but lost money and couldn't pay. Smiling Jack leads
us to the gambling house wher Wilks, known as Whistling Willy, is
playing. He's about to be shot. Captain Jack Savage walks up to the
shooter and shoots him first, killing him. His friends weren't
happy. We kill 3 more, and 1 runs. Question Whistling Willy.
Cutthroat double-crossed his crew. Willy had a pine box Besh gave him
that turned out to have a false-bottomed, with a treasure map. It
looks like Besh hid the treasure on the Isle of Pines. We head
there. A day's trek inland. Come to the location where think
Hobbs/Besh buried the treasure. Find large pine with H.H. and an
arrow pointing down carved on it, but it's surrounded by fire ants!
Drove the ants out with burning oil. Takes 3 hours to dig down to 6
large chests with 5000$ each. Took us several days to transfer the
chests to the ship.
I converted my old log entries, which originated from my original
Docbook-based website, and were presently part of my static
Sphinx-based website, over to my current PyBlosxom blog tonight,
using the following script:
#! /usr/bin/env bash
find 200? -type f ! -name \*~ ! -name \*-idx-*.rst |
while read filename
do
newname="$(echo $filename | sed 's#/#-#g')"
date="$(basename $newname .rst)"
(echo $date; echo "#published $date 00:00:00"; echo "#tags Old Blog";
cat $filename) >/home/tkb/myblog/entries/oldblog/$newname
done
I'll have to go through and fix uses of Sphinx-specific RST
extensions, and I'll probably add real entry titles as I do so; in the
meanwhile, if the blog entry title is a date I haven't updated the
entry. I think this was pretty good for a ½ hour's work.
The PCs rescued Virginia Cotton from rowdy pirates. (+1 Fame) They
escorted her to the Royal Crown Tavern. Her contact, Knox (???), told
her that her dad Jebidiah was a pirate, to her shock, and that he'd
buried a pirate treasure then got captured, and is being held captive
at the house of Baron Pettigrew. When Virginia tells him that she
knows nothing of the treasure, he grabs her and tells his two thugs to
attack. We manage to down Knox and one of the thugs and the other
flees. We take their weapons and leave.
We decide to sneak into Pettigrew's mansion. Virginia suggests we
have our ship ready to go, so Capt. Jack gives the orders. We went to
the mansion after dark and snuck up to the back door. Sneak into the
kitchen, dining room, through the hall past a maid, and found a
sleeping guard. We tried to knock the guard out and failed, but
intimidated him and tied him up, got the keys from him, opened the
door and found Jebidiah. We untied Jebidiah and snuck out with him.
We agreed to split the treasure and headed off in the ship. Jack
healed up. We were trailed by another ship, but managed to give them
the slip. We arrived at the island, but had to ride out a storm
offshore. Then we took a longboat ashore, and dug up the treasure.
There were five chests, each containing 500$. We distributed the
treasure, one chest each to Jebidiah, Virginia, our crew, Rowena, and
Capt. Jack.
M.A. — Gordo Brondwyn, Aspen Darkfire (E.A. wasn't here)
Actual Play
They explored the tunnel the centipede came out of, and took the 5
tridents in the nest at the end, in want of some better loot. Headed
back to the main tunnel and continued on. They were soon captured by
the Fish People, who tied them up and marched them off toward a
wizard! After a while they came to an open area, held up by pillars,
and the Fish Men seemed to get very nervous. A white light appeared
in the open area, and the Fish Men all screamed and ran off, dropping
the characters' possessions.
The white light gradually resolved into a ghost, who seemed pleasant
enough, and introduced himself as Sargon. Eventually the PCs made a
deal with Sargon to bring him a magic Crystal of Power that the Fish
Men were keeping in the Temple of Hydana, in return for which Sargon
would tell them how to defeat Xorton Throg. They snuck into the
temple through a secret door Sargon told them about and killed the
Fish Men priest who was there before he could alert the guards. They
took the Crystal and a magic sword that was also on the altar. They
searched the room and found a secret door that lead to stairs that
lead up to a tavern. They found out it was the Mermaid Tavern, and
then escaped back down into the cellar followed by a bouncer, but
escaped down the hidden trap door before he reached the cellar, and he
didn't follow them. They continued down the stairs to the temple. They
returned to Sargon.
The Crystal returned Sargon to life and he told them how to find and
defeat Xorton Throg by getting him to throw a powerful spell at them and
reverse it onto him by bringing out the crystal. He also restored the
magic sword to good condition. They followed his advice and killed
Xorton Throg, after killing some skeletons and a skeletal
tyransaurous. They got 300 GP each loot and 4 swords each from the
remains of the skeleton army.
They returned to Nicodemus and gave the Crystal to him, then slipped
out of Port Blacksand and back to Salamonis, where the king rewarded
them with 500 GP each.
Unfortunately L.B. and E.A. were not here for this session.
Actual Play
Got to the sunken city of Pazar. Dru fell in. Everybody followed
down after tying rope around stone. Jeffrey was first onto the
platform. Killed all the tarantulas in G2. Opened the way to
G7, but didn't open the lamp. Left.
Eventually see Amun Re. He points them to the pyramid. Left off
playing right outside the temple.
About
Lacking Natural Simplicity is one, not particularly flattering,
definition of sophisticated.
This blog chronicles my journey through our at times too complicated
and sophisticated world.
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