Montporte Dungeon Campaign 2.0 Session 4 Notes (Montporte 50)

Cast of Characters
Alaric: Human Cleric (PC-Main Character)
Allidore: Kobold (NPC)
Alicia: Human Footman (NPC Henchwoman)
Carlos: Human Footman (NPC Henchman)
Diana: Human Torchbearer (NPC Henchwoman)
Enzore: Kobold (NPC)
Lord Jim: Human Fighter (PC-Sidekick)
Magnus: Human Magic-User (PC-Sidekick)
Merv: Human Torchbearer (NPC Henchman)
Ooga: Arbold (NPC)
Septimus: Human Fighter (PC-Main Character)

The Session
At the conclusion of the previous session, the adventurers were moving north on the first level of the Montporte Dungeon into unexplored territory. The adventurers suspected that this area was teeming with kobolds.

As the adventuring party continued their exploration, they began to find signs that confirmed the presence of kobolds--clever traps on doors, small footprints in the dust, and the sound of light footsteps beyond torch range.

Eventually, the party reached the northern end of the first level of the Elementalists' Monastery. Here they found a small group of heavily armed kobolds, accompanied by two arbolds. A nasty little melee battle ensued that resulted in the death of Alicia, party henchwoman and footman. Despite their tragic loss, the adventurers killed the kobolds and one of the arbolds. The remaining arbold, named "Ooga," surrendered.

The party then moved into the next room containing four more kobolds. The party killed two of the kobolds and the other two surrendered. There names were Allidore and Enzore. There also three small boats in the room. Two of the boats were very small and the third boat, a little larger, had a heavy crossbow mounted on the bow.

One of the kobolds had written orders from Degmar, the leader of the kobolds in the region. Degmar is known to be both charismatic and unstable. He had brought the kobolds to Montporte to search for some sort of legendary magic item or location (read Little Larry's story for more info). Some of the kobolds proved to be as fanatical as Degmar. Others followed out of a sense of kobold honor. And others went along, quietly grumbling and hoping for better leadership to come along. The two kobolds captured by the party fell into the third group and were happy to be out from under Degmar's scaly thumb.

Degmar's written orders described a three pronged movement of kobolds, moving from north to south. The easternmost group would move to secure the kobolds' left (east) flank from dwarves and orcs. The party realized that they had met and defeated this group in their second session (Montporte Session 48).

A second group, the most heavily armed, would sweep south and west through the ant caves on the first level of the dungeon. They would push back the ants, hold the right (west) flank and also serve as a diversion.

The third group would move south quickly with three boats, dragged by arbolds. The boats would be put into the lake at the south end of the first level. This was the western access to the lake. The east access had been tried but proved to be too hazardous for exploration, due to orcs and hazards in the water. The adventurers had unwittingly destroyed Degmar's operations by destroying two out of three groups of kobolds.

Having convinced the arbold and kobolds to become members of their party, the adventurers decided to secure the room and get a good night's rest. The session ended here.

Scroll of the Dead
Horace NPC Footman, Session 48
Pulvarti PC Magic-User, Session 49
Alicia, NPC Footman, Session 50

Montporte Dungeon Campaign 2.0 Session 2 Notes (Montporte 48)

Cast of Characters
Alaric: Human Cleric (PC-Main Character)
Alicia: Human Footman (NPC Henchwoman)
Diana: Human Torchbearer (NPC Henchwoman)
Horace: Human Footman (NPC Henchman)
Magnus: Human Magic-User (PC-Sidekick)
Merv: Human Torchbearer (NPC Henchman)
Pulvarti: Human Magic-User (PC-Sidekick)
Septimus: Human Fighter (PC-Main Character)

The Session
The second session of the Montporte Dungeon Campaign 2.0 (Montporte Session 48) picked up where the last session left off. The adventurers left the safety and comfort of the town of Montporte and returned to the dungeon.

The adventurers checked out the area just inside the entrance, looking for signs of orcs. While they did not see any living orcs, the adventurers notices that the orc bodies left from the previous sessions had been moved into a side room. Here they were organized and laid to rest. They found other evidence of recent orc activity, such as a partially eaten dwarf and a few mostly eaten kobolds.

The party continued east. At this point, a sporadic sprinkle of arrows came at them from two different directions. The adventurers did a tactical retreat and then secured one door while Septimus shot arrows north, into the dark. He heard a kobold scream and then the sound of a body hit the floor...a clear sign that his shot in the dark was not in vain.

The party advanced north, following a trail of blood from a second kobold. After much winding around and searching, the party stumbled on a larger group of kobolds. Two of the kobolds were mounted on giant spotted spiky spiders.

The kobolds were easy pickings, but the spiders proved tougher. One of the spiders bit Horace and died from the poison damage. When the last of the kobolds were killed, the two spiders retreated to the east, leaving a trail of spider blood and goo behind.

The adventurers gathered up the weapons, a smattering of gold, a few semiprecious gems, and a vial of magical foot fungus cure. At this point, the party thought it best to leave the dungeon, heal up, and then return.

The Scroll of the Dead
Horace NPC - Session 48

What Worked
Giving the kobolds a knowledge of the dungeon, a mind for small unit tactics, and a desire to keep their enemies out of melee range worked well. This is where restricting PCs to humans only put the party at a (fun) disadvantage, despite their clear superiority to the kobolds. Torches and lanterns make for great arrow targets. The tactical movement and darkvision of the kobolds turned a run-of-the-mill melee into a sprawling challenge for the players.

I am really digging Bloody Basic, our rule set. Simple yet robust, with its comprehensive d20 mechanics.

Montporte Dungeon Mysteries: Vardray's Discontinuity and the Deep Dark

Introduction
Deep under the earth lies the Vardray Discontinuity. It was discovered in ancient times by the sage and wizard, Vardray. His writings have been lost to us, but Pliny the Alder, the great elven scholar and encyclopedist, has preserved excerpts of Vardray's work in his Gazetteer of Arcane Geography. Pliny lived in late antiquity and some of his works have not been passed down to us. Fortunately, we do have a number of reliable and complete copies of his Gazetteer of Arcane Geography.

Pliny on the Vardray Discontinuity
In his Gazetteer of Arcane Geography, Pliny records the following with regards to the Vardray Discontinuity.

The mighty elven wizard Vardray is the first to describe what is now known to sages and scholars as the Vardray Discontinuity. How Vardray discovered the discontinuity is shrouded in mystery, but many stories come to us of Vardray’s unique and creative laboratory spells and his renown courage as an explorer. 

Vardray, in his Observations from the Field: Volume 2, writes:

And it came to pass that I learned of an odd and major arcane feature in the eastern mountains. The dwarves, in the Elder Days, named these mountains, Dragonfang. I have found that there is a very narrow zone that separates an upper region of the earth’s volume from the deeper region below this narrow zone of separation. 

Above this separation zone [now known as the Vardray Discontinuity—Pliny], the rock and soil contain very little magic. This is the earth—the rock, stones and soil—that we see around us every day. I call this the Mundane Zone. However, below this zone of separation lies a region permeated by magic and wonder. I call this the Deep Zone. 

This Deep Zone is permeated by a magical energy such that certain kinds of plants are able to draw sustenance from it much like our trees, grasses, vines and crops draw life from the sun. In turn, these plants support a wide variety of other creatures. Indeed, I have learned of races living in the Deep Zone and raise crops of Deep Zone plants for food and trade. Stories of these societies can be found among the dwarves. 

The material of our universe is somehow altered in this Deep Zone so that has the most amazing and wondrous properties. I have discovered some of these properties during my investigations. Firstly, in the Deep Zone, the material of our universe is stretched thin, for lack of the better term. There are places where powerful creatures find it easy to pass from their home plane to our plane of Aarde and back again. This, of course, makes the Deep Zone both interesting and dangerous.

The Deep Zone also features areas where the laws of geometry do not match the geometry of our surface world. For example, there are many areas where careful mapping would tell a Deep Zone traveler that their destination is 2 days distant, when in fact, the destination is 5 days distant. Goblin traders from the Deep Zone have told me that special maps are required to navigate between locations in the Deep Zone. The goblins, keeping these maps to themselves, have become masters of Deep Zone trade. 

The goblins have also told me of cities and lands that lie outside of our dimension, yet have access or a portal via the Deep Zone. These cities and lands are part of our plane, the plane of Aarde, yet they are not. The goblins’ descriptions of these lands are beyond belief, but I would not be surprised if they contain much truth. 

Much to the delight of dwarves, great riches can be mined in the Deep Zone below the eastern mountains [Dragonfang]. Dwarven history is filled with the establishment of mines and cities in and above the Deep Zone in the eastern mountains [Dragonfang]. The stories of these settlements have the same sad plot, the discovery and extraction of obscene amounts of metals and gems of all sorts followed by horrible and complete disaster from below. As I noted above, the Deep Zone is a dangerous place. 

In terms of geography, the Deep Zone lies closest to the surface in areas of the eastern mountains [Dragonfang]. The narrow zone that separates the Deep Zone from the Mundane Zone plunges deeper into the earth as one moves west away from the mountains towards more civilized lands. In fact, I was unable to determine any evidence that the Deep Zone exists beneath our own settled lands to the west. On the other hand, my preliminary work in the laboratory and field indicates that the Deep Zone does exist beneath the wild land to the east of the eastern mountains [Dragonfang]. The Deep Zone lies deeper below the surface of the wild land than it does in the eastern mountains [Dragonfang] but it is clearly there below the surface. I believe that the existence of the Deep Zone beneath the wild land might be the reason the wild land is so wild.

I, Pliny, have in my own humble travels come across interesting settlements and history in the Dragonfang. For example, there is a settlement of humans who have dedicated themselves to understanding the fundamental fabric of the universe by studying the elements and energies. I believe that they have found this easier by living in close proximity to the Deep Zone. There are also dark and ancient tales of kobolds abiding in the Deep Zone and master the magic of the elements and energies for malevolent purposes. Fortunately for us today, kobolds have lost both the knowledge and interest in such dangerous magic. I have written more about this in other writings.

Related Posts
The World of Montporte
The Montporte Region: History and Geography
The Deep Dark: That Which Lies Beneath the Montporte Dungeon
Montporte Cosmological Notes: On the Planes
Montporte Cosmological Notes: On the Elements
Montporte Cosmological Notes: On the Energies
Goblins (Fey)--Montporte Dungeon Campaign Critter
Peoples, Tribes, and Gangs in the Montporte Dungeon
Little Larry the Kobold (an NPC's story)

Related Maps

The town of Montporte and surrounding area

The Montporte region

Haiku 9: Kobold

A repost from my old blog:

dangerfield geckos
little lizards of vile hate;
respect the K-bold

Little Larry the Kobold (an NPC's story)

Source: www.requiemlarp.com

Introduction
The Montporte Dungeon adventurers first met Larramore during Session 3. They found him hiding in a potty room. He was the sole survivor of a battle between kobolds and jinomes (undead gnomes). The adventurers decided to spare his life, for some odd reason. They healed his wounds, gave him some food and invited him to join their happy throng. They dubbed him “Little Larry.” This is his story.



Little Larry's Story
I am the youngest of my batch-hatch (the collection of offspring born to the same mother and father). My grandfather was chief of our clan and my father, the eldest of his batch-hatch, was the chief-son. My father was in line to be chief. In most kobold families, treachery runs rampant. Had my father followed the customary course, he would have already become chief. But my parents choose to live by the honorable ways of the very ancient draconic ones. It was their honor that was their undoing.

My Uncle Degmar, the second eldest son of my grandfather, chafed at the thought that he would someday live under the rule of his elder brother, my father. In true kobold fashion, he conspired against my father and mother. He is a clever kobold and succeeded in killing my parents in a way that placed suspicions elsewhere, away from him. The clan suspected nothing, but my batch-mates knew otherwise. Despite our wariness, they were killed in their turn.

When my grandfather died, I was the only one left in my immediately family who had a claim to the throne, but I was too young. Degmar seized control of the clan, craftily killed off his naysayers—as is the way of kobolds—and then decided that our clan needed to move north.

Degmar had come upon some secret information—information about an ancient kobold place of power. My grandfather and his fathers before him had dismissed this as an old orc’s tale. Degmar, however, was a believer. Perhaps finding a place of power appealed to his oversized sense of destiny.

He consulted wizards, mediums, spirits, my dead ancestors and determined that the place of power was located underground, north of the human settlement of Montporte. Being sparsely settled and with the humans otherwise occupied by wars to the west, we had the wilderness to ourselves. Sure, we skirmished with orcs, but that is just good clean fun. We could invest the rest of our time and energy into finding this place for my uncle.

After much searching, we found a sinkhole that allowed us egress into an ancient underground complex. From what we could gather, neither the humans nor the orcs knew of this place. We had it all to ourselves and could explore this complex to our hearts content.

I never lost sight of the fact that my uncle Degmar viewed me as a threat. I was careful and gave him no chance to kill me. Furthermore, I proved myself an able warrior against the orcs. Degmar sent me on numerous missions against the orcs, purposefully sending too few of us in the hopes that I would get killed. But our small parties were stealthy and we killed many orcs. I gained fame as an orc slayer, making me even more of a threat to my uncle.

The orcs also felt threatened and decided to raid our complex. They failed to find us hidden down in our sinkhole but they uncovered another entrance into the underground complex and sent a significant force to take up residence. I personally was excited by this because…well…because I love killing orcs. Now I could eat breakfast at home, go take down some orcs, and be back for lunch.

However, the orcs changed their tactics. We found them to be under the control of some more intelligent being. They were no longer careless. They left us alone and started raiding human settlements, bringing back a handful of them as prisoners. In the meantime, my uncle’s quest to find our place of power became more urgent. We went on exploration forays underground but the orcs blocked us in.

I was finally able to pass by them by myself and came to an underground lake. My uncle was encouraged by this and sent me back, leading a party of eight. We had three boats. We made it through the Dwarven mines but were jumped by some jinomes (gnome undead). I was grievously wounded and the rest of my party was killed. I managed to hide out in a small potty room and spiked the door shut.

I was faint with blood lose and expected to die, sitting on a stone chair with a hole in the seat. I heard a noise outside and nocked an arrow. A voice yelled out in kobold, offering safety. It was not a kobold voice. I recall that I was thinking it was one of my uncle’s gnoll bodyguards, coming to rescue me, or more likely, kill me. Perhaps the gnolls would take me back so that my uncle could use my defeat to have me executed. It is a sin for a kobold commander to return alone after leading his troops into battle.

Instead, it was a half-orc, Adzeer Mattiu, and a small party of humans and gnomes. They healed me, fed me, and offered the unexpected invitation to join them. Knowing that I had nothing but my death waiting for me with the kobolds, I decided to join this little group.

Who Can Tell The Difference? Goblin, Kobolds, and Orcs

Illustration Source (butterfrog)

Goblins, kobolds, and orcs. Over the years, I have created my own spin on these guys and have found it particularly useful in dungeon settings. I have found that players have been able to differentiate these races in play, so that goblins are not just weaker orcs and kobolds weaker goblins (from a player perspective).

• Goblins: Goblins are the economic driving force in the upper reaches of world below. They are a combination of organized crime mob and used car salesmen. They move goods and services between the surface world and the world below via trading partners and caravans. Whatever you may need, they "know a guy." They will fight if they have to, but they prefer to wheel and deal and hire gnolls and other tough guys as their muscle. Player characters find they have to come to some sort of "arrangement" with goblins in order to remain in the dungeon, but there are benefits, such as the ability to buy provisions and information (for a price, of course). I have swiped some good gobliny stuff from James Mishler's Monstrous Menaces #2.

• Kobolds: As the weakest of these three groups, kobolds have been forced to develop some badass attitude and serious survival skills. Kobolds rely on stealth, missile weapons, traps, ambushes, and tactical sophistication to protect themselves. Woe to any player character who is careless in scouting or unprepared to use missile weapons. Player characters have learned to fear the kobold. Kobolds do not surrender and they have no mercy on opponents surrendering to them.

• Orcs: Orcs are my biker gangs and the bullies of the upper levels of the dungeon and wilderness areas. They love to beat up goblins for their lunch money whenever they can. There are just as prone to fight one another and inter-tribal warfare among orcs is a common occurrence. Orcs are very religious and differences in religious opinions often start and fuel their tribal conflicts. As they are not very bright, these religious battles are more about ignorance of their own religion as opposed to actual doctrinal differences. Orcs are simple-minded bullies and, as a general rule, they will charge into battle against any foe or prey that appears weaker than themselves. Like many bullies, orcs will typically flee or surrender, once it is apparent that they are losing. They are excessively cruel to their own captives, however, so it is a rare orc that will surrender to an orc from another tribe.

How do you differentiate between various humanoid races when you are gaming?