Land of NOD - Session 2

Session 2 (Jan 11, 2013)

(Back to Session 1)

Continuing our campaign started not much before the - apparently delayed - End of the World, the party pursued their goal and, after quickly acquiring a ship and hiring several sailors, set off towards the little island of Psara, where Porto's pirates were supposed to lair. The player of Udes could not come due to sports injury (which we, students of philology and similarly portentous fields, who participate not in such mundane and strenuous activities, shall never fear*); however, an other new player joined the game. We play together in Narmor's Dragon Age campaign (unfortunately, the reports are in Hungarian); he is new to OD&D, however.

*Such is the humour of ours, arts students.

The cast of characters:

• Elil Uh-Rair, devout follower of Kothar-wa-Khasis (Cleric 3 / Magic-User 3)
• John Carter, a former military officer in a space-faring empire (Fighting-Man 4)
• Latrotox, a nobleman from Venatia (Illusionist 3)
• Béla, a druid (Druid 4), who actively tried to use (and abuse) his powers associated with animals
• Ubul, the kobold, follower of John Carter
• Gaston, 5 archers, 8 armoured and 1 unarmoured footmen
• later a ship captain, Jack (first mate), and 20 sailors

The most notable events were the following:

• the party sought for a ship in the docks and found one, Shelly, available for their purposes
• they saw a peculiar formation of rocks, a cave leading in, and some long-armed monster dwelling  there; they decided not to deal with it and continued their journey
• one night, a couple of merrows climbed aboard and started a fight; they lost several sailors and the captain before they could kill the beasts
• the former first mate, Jack, took the vacancy in the chain of command
• with the help of a powerful scroll of illusionist magic (and beard and clothes of the original pirate captain), Latrotox disguised himself as Captain Porto, escaping captivity
• fortunately (?), Porto's brother, Rico, or their majestic ship, the Mute Shark, was not present
• the highest ranked pirate informed Latrotox in private that Rico (self-appointed captain) took over the lair and company of pirates; most of the ones here are secretly planning to capture the recently returned Porto - which was the very same thing our brave adventurers would have liked to do to Rico and his minions
• Latrotox (still in disguise) and his fellow adventurers confronted with the most loyal men of Rico; then started to delicately take care of the guards, while the rest of the pirates were in the great hall

It is only a matter of time before the absence of proper guards gets noticed; Rico's minions may still have a chance to surprise the invading adventurers; furthermore, the Mute Shark may still mysteriously return from its course.

This session started very sluggishly, due to the long-drawn character creation process (the new player likes optimising choices very much) and some misunderstanding regarding the rules, especially the fact that most of the "complicated" things were resolved by very simple mechanics off the top of my head.

All in all, it was pretty good, the tension rising gradually, we sort of finishing the game with a cliffhanger. Despite all of my concerns regarding encounter difficulty, hastily made rulings, and the lack of the fantastique (the scenario was pretty mundane), the players were eager to arrange the next session.

(Next session)