The Editioning, Weeks Seven and Eight, Basic D&D

The Basic Box

The Shop on the Borderlands has me in its thrall, dear reader. Every Friday, about lunchtime I receive their newsletter, News from the Borderlands, and my wallet doth quake with fear. There is, invariably, a long list of classic D&D titles newly received as stock. They tend to get them in job-lots, so one week, there might be a preponderance of AD&D 1st edition Greyhawk books, and the next there’ll be a dragon’s hoard of DCC adventures. In fact, it has been invaluable in building my collection of D&D books for the Editioning. The vast majority of books that I didn’t already own, came from the Shop on the Borderlands. It’s great. It has an amazing selection of used and new RPG books, from the original OD&D books going for thousands of pounds, to the latest 5E titles, not to mention all the other RPGs they stock. I would highly recommend checking them out, particularly if you’re in the UK. Check out one of my newest purchases in the gallery below. It’s the 11th printing of the Moldvay Basic D&D set. It’s missing the dice and the rulebook has seen better days, but, since I didn’t buy it as a collector’s item or an investment, that doesn’t bother me. I have been using it at the table while we continue our adventures in the module included in this very set, The Keep on the Borderlands!

Hard on the Hirelings

One moment, things are going your way. You and your mates have gone out on adventure, sowed seeds of war between rival clans of humanoids living in the Caves of Chaos, gained the respect of the local authorities and have even made a coins along the way. And then, dear reader, the random encounter table just fucks you. We have learned this the hard way, over and over in this adventure. We’ve been unlucky with our encounter rolls most of the time. On our very first encounter, my first PC, Edmund, went down to the very first arrow that was loosed in an ambush of Ospreys. Later, after braving and surviving the storied Caves of Chaos, our resident halfling PC, Lotharia was brutally disembowelled by a griffon while returning to the keep with a spell book delivery. In our most recent random encounter disaster, we lost half of our eight hirelings in an encounter with a troll on the road back from the Caves. We defeated it narrowly and followed its trail back to its stinking, filthy lair, where we took care of some larval trolls too, but not without first losing another of our hirelings.

These were heavy losses, all of them, although, I’ll be honest and say we had a respectfully understated celebration of the fact that we didn’t have to split the xp between all eleven of us…

Anyway, the point is to expect the unexpected in old school play. Also, that the more hirelings you have the more targets there are that aren’t PCs, so that’s been helpful.

Murder and Intrigue

Events are moving along without us, or, perhaps because of some of our choices. As I noted in my last Basic D&D post, we’ve taken the side of the castellan of the Keep and taken the ears of a number of Ospreys, the rebel band who want to overthrow him. Perhaps, if we had decided to support the rebels instead, the most recent shocking events might have been prevented (though probably at a very high cost in lives.)

In the last Basic D&D post I mentioned we had been attacked by a band of mercs sent to kill my character, Thaddeus Nightbane. After killing them, we proceeded on to the caves of the Shakkelwart Clan of orcs. We spotted and safely set off a trap in the mouth of the cave. This attracted the attention of the guards, who we convinced to allow us to talk to their leader, Baralgus Dorden (no idea if that’s spelled right.) We convinced her to welcome us in and we feasted with them before delivering the arms sent by the Thyrenian Guild. This was a fun scene where we learned a lot and, hopefully, planted some seeds of doubt in Baralgus’ mind regarding her allies, the Barrowdelve clan and the gnolls as well. We gained a RESPECTED reputation with the Shakkelwarts in the process.

By the way, I mentioned in a previous post that there was a reputation mechanic built into this module, but that’s not true. Instead, this is actually DM Isaac’s genius addition to it. He was inspired by the Root RPG, and it has enriched our experience of the game. We are actually going out of our way to ingratiate ourselves with particular factions to improve our standing with them, instead of thinking of them all as fair game.

Following this, we returned to visit our other besties in the Caves of Chaos, the goblins led by Sharktroll. We delivered another cache of weapons and armour to them (in fact, this is just stuff we’d picked up from looted enemies, some of whom belonged to this very goblin clan!) We’re hoping for all out war between the orcs and the goblins, and we might get it if we keep pushing this way. The goblins also released some prisoners that our Thyrenian Guild contact, Richard “Dick” Kirkdon, has asked us to retrieve for him.

With that, we set off back to the Keep again. And that’s when we ran into the aforementioned troll. I have to give props to Isaac here once again. Trolls are common enough in D&D and related media, that we generally feel we know them, we might fear them a little given their regenerative abilities and all, but, the knowledge of them makes them a little less scary. Isaac turned this on its head with his sensory descriptions of its look, its smell, its otherness. Scared the pants off us. And then it started killing hirelings. Anyway, that was bad, as I mentioned before, but we did get some treasure out of it.

Back at the Keep, we went first to the Temple of the Holy Sun, where the entire populace had gathered for the funeral of Father Burgoyne. The mourners were giving Tom’s Elf character, Eandril, the dirty eye. We soon discovered that this was because the priest had been murdered by the Castellan’s elven advisor. So, of course, we went to talk to our good buddy, the castellan. After enduring some more anti-elfism from he guards, we were granted an audience. He explained that Cywyn Morningflower, he advisor had been accused by Father Burgoyne of being a member of the reviled Serpent Cult that had once made its home in the Caves of Chaos. In response, the elf had drawn his sword and run the priest through. The castellan had little choice but to imprison his advisor since the murder had happened in his hall and in his presence!

We told him we’d crack this case wide open so he let us talk to Cywyn (genuinely have no idea about this spelling either btw.) Turns out, the elf was just sick and tired of Burgoyne and his constant racism and this was the final straw. He really did murder him in anger. But one other thing came up. The priest had claimed that he had evidence that proved Cywyn’s cultishness and that it was in his chambers beneath the altar in the church.

Next stop, church! I distracted the gathered acolytes while the Anastasia and Eandril investigated the hidden chambers below. They discovered no evidence against Cywyn, but they did find a snake staff and some magical armour and maces, which raised questions more about the church than the elf.

Conclusion

I think there might only be a couple more sessions of our adventures on the Borderlands. I’ll miss it when it’s over. I have grown fond of our little band and and the relationships we’ve built in this place.

I probably won’t miss the random encounter tables quite so much, but even they have introduced elements of true peril and danger to get the blood really pumping.

Back with more soon.