The final ballad of Makuur-Gak

I haven't written up a session report before. However, after discussing it with the people in the OSR discord I decided I would pop one up. This tale is the final ballad of Makuur-Gak, cleric of the Preposterous Grandfather.

Returning to Stonehell to continue their adventures in the halls of the great ancient prison. The party consists of Munder the fighter (now sporting a new bow), Makuur-Gak cleric of the Preposterous Grandfather, Snips the Gnome, Bash the fighter and their two hirelings arrived at the ancient gates to Stonehell around midday.

As they passed the gates, they saw their friend Coal the great bear being attacked by some bandits. The players engaged the bandits to help Coal. As they closed in on them they could hear the bandits yelling at Coal to get the arm he had in his mouth back. After rescuing Coal, defeating the bandits and healing Coal up, Snips learnt that a magic user had attempted to loot his caves up in the mountain and he was merely defending himself. He managed to steal the magic users arm and what he was carrying however, the bandits the magic user hired chased after him. So now my players have a one armed Magic User wandering around who is pissed he lost his arm and his high level scrolls!

 

 

Now this encounter was not something I planned. I planned for Coal to just give the players the scrolls before they entered in to Stoneheck. However, as the players were going towards the entrance, I rolled a 1 on the wandering monsters table and it was bandits. So what better way to capitalize on this than to have them attacking Coal, and then it just popped in to my head that Coal was carrying a wizards arm they wanted back! Wandering monster tables do some heavy lifting in this session for fantastic results.

So now they have three scrolls. One was the spell Incouture  (a levelless spell from the Book of Gaub - great book, get it) one was a level 7 AD&D 1e Cleric Spell "Gate" and the final spell was Wish that read;

Reading this out loud will summon a Djinn who will grant you one wish.

My players realized that if they read this out loud at the table it would summon the djinn so they decided to stay tight lipped. Snips was about to read it out loud but quickly realized this was not a wise choice right now and passed it off to Makuur-Gak who was smart to not read it out loud yet.

 Nevertheless they continued down to the depths of Stoneheck. Bidding farewell to Coal. They knew they wanted to head south and explore more of the first level of Stonehell. So they traced their steps back through the halls southward. They met a group of Kobolds that were just finishing a delivery. The Kobolds informed them how to read the Kobold Korner (South and to the East). After this they went through a secret door they had once passed through and encountered some Orcs. They met the Orcs, and after some strong words were exchanged, and the Orcs told them to piss off - they got in to a fight. The Orcs eventually parlayed with them and took them to their Captain, Makuur-Gak fluent in the tongue of the Orc bartered a deal with the Captain - The head of the Goblin Chief in the contested territories of Stonehell for a bountiful reward. This again, I was not expecting but it made for an interesting story/goal.

 The players reached the contested area. They found a crossroads and noticed some Orc graffiti that read: 

Open Sore Tribe - Keep Out!  Piss off Goblins

Never the less they met with the Orcs inside, who corrected their path to the Goblins and expected the head of the Goblin chief from the Wolf Gang when they return. 

The players then explored to the west, where the walls of Stoneheck turned in to rocky caverns and they encounter a group of Kobolds heading back to Kobold Korner with a harvest of fungus. After passing by, they entered a room that had very strong magnetic metals in the rocky walls. Bash and Makuur both got stuck to the walls. As they tried to drag them off the wall the loud scraping of their plate armour attracted the attention of some Beserkers who - in beserker fashion, went in to a frenzy and attacked them. They disposed of them very quickly.

Eventually working towards the Goblin home base. There they encounter some more Kobolds who are delivering some supplies to the Goblins. When they question the Kobolds of the location of the Goblins because they want to bring the Chiefs head back to the Orcs, these Kobolds recommend they do not disturb the balance that is maintained. The power vacuum created would spur the Orcs to expand further and become more brutal. This cast doubt on the plan to kill the Goblins, however they continued. 

Soon after they encountered the Goblins and received council the Goblin Chief - Grizelda the Voracious. He told the PCs that they should not side with the Orcs because they will bring chaos and destruction, and that if they choose, they could side with the Goblins who would offer them treasures - asking them to think about it.

Returning to the cavernous area, they explored a little more before returning to the Orc stronghold - here they encountered a Orc patrol returning home (another very convenient wandering monster roll!). The Orcs told them that next time they see them they better have the head of the Goblin Chief. As they turned to return to their stronghold, Makuur-Gak shot them in the back - they had decided it was the Orcs who must be removed. As they progressed further in to the Orc stronghold - slaying the savage orc beasts, some Orcs retreated to protect the living quarters that contained their women and children. The Orc Captain standing guard of the quarters told them that they do not need to continue and can leave without pursuit! The players refused, and pushed further in. Killing the captain. 

 

Eventually the Orc chieftain emerged to join the battle, emboldening the orcs further they begun to strike Makuur-Gak, Bash, Snips and Munder landing heavy blows. As the players and orcs trade blows, a great Ogre emerges from behind. The battle starts to turn - with mightly blows from the Orcs, Makuur-Gak is wounded and he falls. As it tries to get back up, he struggles before breathing his last breath and dying. It is at this point the players realized that they cannot win and Snips the Gnome, remembering he has some illusionist spells up his sleeve, casts hypnosis on the Orc Chieftain, securing their escape. For this was the final ballad of Makuur-Gak.

I did not expect things go to this way. I didn't realize that there was Orc women and Children in the stronghold. Also, more than 20 orcs in a area means there is a 1 in 6 chance of an Ogre, and I rolled that 1 so the Ogre turned up. 

 Oh, and now the Orcs have a wish spell - which they can read (Stoneheck University is a first class school)  - so there is definitely going to be some hi-jinks there. 

Finally, I have been trying to utilize Diegetic Advancement more often (shout out to undeadwaffle for helping me understand this idea). So to reward the astonishing amount of killing blows that Bash managed, he now gets a bonus to attack and damage after his first kill in a combat as he feels the blood lust. This is also to reward the player who role played a battle cry when he was dropping Orcs and Beserkers.

All in all, a fun night.

NB: This is the first time I have written one of these, and I started off trying to do it as a play by play of the players, but it ended up just being from my perspective. I wanted to add little bits where they did something I didn't expect and really enjoyed it and how I pivoted.