B/X Stonehell Dungeon Session 1 Oct 3, 2020

Dramatis Personae:

Benji Boggins: Halfling of great bravery, coupled with neither Intelligence nor Wisdom

Captain Jane Bridgers: Cleric, still proving her faith 

Fitladin: An incredibly obnoxious fighter

Valharik: An elf wielding a two hand sword as tall as he is 

Oryn: A dwarf of redoubtable strength 

The party cleared the Gatehouse, avoided getting bitten by lethally poisonous giant centipedes, got attacked by stirges, one of which drained some of Oryn’s blood before being shot off by Fitladin’s arrow. The party got a job from a group of goblins who were ousted from the main dungeon and who want revenge on the orcs who forces them out. Valharik the elf nearly succumbed to wounds inflicted by a fire beetle, but made his Death Save and hung on. The elf also found some interesting magic items behind a secret door. Jane found gold and a gem on a corpse, which she gave Last Rites to so that it wouldn’t rise as undead. Benji found a cask of expensive wine and some hand tools. When attacked by the stirges all he had was the saw he found to fight with, being initially only armed with a bow! In the end, the room looked like a Tarantino set, because stirges are essentially mosquitoes the size of crows and splatter blood everywhere when baseball-batted across a room by a cleric’s mace! Battered and bruised, they decided to head back to town, but were waylaid by brigands. Unfortunately for the brigands, the party was still a force to be reckoned with: right off the bat a full damage arrow from Fitladin killed a brigand outright, followed by a full damage magic missile that cored another’s head, leaving a “through and through” that smoked as he fell. Seeing his compatriots fall in mere seconds under a hail of arrows from Benji and Fitladin, and a magic missile from Valharik, and the rest from the Jane’s violent proselytizing and Oryn’s axe work, the final brigand decided to run for it. He then learned a lesson he won’t be able to pass on, because he passed on: never turn your back on a dwarf. As he turned to run, Oryn cleaved his head right off, and soccer kicked it away before either it or his body fell to the ground.

Notes:

This session showed the flexibility of B/X D&D, which I had never run before, having cut my teeth on Mentzer Basic and 2e back in the day. It also showed the importance of armour at low levels. The party pooled resources and got the cleric good armour, a wise old school move. Most of the monsters had a hard time hitting the PCs at all. The centipedes never landed a hit to deliver their “save or die” poison. I’ve never seen a tougher group of level 1 sewer snoids. Luckily for the delivers, the wandering monsters check failed whenever they broke marching order. I was hoping for a group of orcs to split the party while they were spread out but the dice were against me. I guess I can’t complain: the same d6 that gave me a bunch of 5s and 6s for initiative gave me the same for wandering monsters which requires a 1 or 2, which only happened for the stirges which were there anyway, and the brigands at the end. So much carnage missed! Oh well, better luck next time! 


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