The Forgotten Shrine

This is the first in what I hope to be an ongoing series of campaign diaries. The series will detail the events of an Old School Essentials campaign taking place in the Skyspire Highlands region of my homebrew campaign setting, Valakis.

Although I have been playing RPGs for roughly twenty years, starting with 3rd edition around 2002, I have never run or played in a D&D game which used rules from before the WotC era. Recently, as I grew dissatisfied with the bloat and power creep of the current edition of the game (5e at the time of writing), I started looking into fantasy systems that focus on low fantasy, or at least ones with less powerful characters. I want to run a game with characters who live and die by the sword; where characters that ascend to greatness do so because they earned it. After reviewing various systems, I finally settled on Old School Essentials as the best option to achieve what I was looking for in a fantasy role playing game. It provides a light enough framework for me to create a game I will (hopefully) look forward to running for years to come.

The Setup

Before the full group was able to meet for the first time, two of my players join me for a sort of test adventure to sure up our understanding of the rule system. I proposed the following: 

I would run a small dungeon from an existing adventure I own (the Shrine on the Lake from In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe by Jacob Fleming). If either player character died, the dungeon becomes a practice session and the character starts the game in the first session as normal. However, if both characters survive, any experience, gold or magic items found in the dungeon will start with their characters to serve as a small backstory for them.

This was easily enough of a carrot to galvanize my players into treating this experiment as a canon adventure for their characters. They were in, now they just had to survive. To help reinforce some of the older style rules, I provided them with 3 retainers to assist their characters. A peasant torcher bearer named Barron, a level 0, short bow wielding man-at-arms named Everard, and a 1st level cleric of the Holy Chantry named Ritter.

As for the player characters, enter Ser Thaddeus the paladin of Galadomë, the Flaming Tree of Knowledge, and Barry (probably not his real name...), a wandering barbarian warrior of the northern Duvari tribes.

With the introduction out of the way, let's talk about the Forgotten Shrine on the Lake.

Laszlo Pinter

The Buff Bastards

Ser Thaddeus and Barry, now causally referring to themselves as the "Buff Bastards" due to their matching 16 STR scores, arrived at the small rocky island on Loch Murrach around midday, having left from the town Murkwater in the morning. Barry did a quick circuit of the island, finding little of note beyond its weather-worn rocks and a few cedar trees. There was only one thing of note here, the large hole in the side of the island's lone hill which lead down into darkness.

The Flooded Chamber

The party headed down the rocky slope into the first cavern, a large chamber with chest high water that had likely washed in from the lake during a recent storm. As the party advanced, staying within Barron's torch light, they were quickly setup by 3 large water termites which attempted to eat the torch bearer's extra torches, as well as the paladin and barbarian's shields. The group was able to quickly drive the insects off, using fire and a well place stab from Barry which gravely wounded one of the termites.

The ground found that on the far side of the flooded cavern there were two rooms. One room ended in a large, rusted metal door, while the other held a strange, 12' tall, stone, bird-faced statue with 3 eyes. The statue's hands held a 2' wide, stone disc up towards the ceiling. The statue also seemed to be the current resting place of a pack of strange creatures with 6 legs, bat wings and foot-long, razor sharp beaks.

Deciding caution to be the better part of valor, the Buff Bastards decided to try their luck with the door, which they forced open without much effort. Beyond the door, a set of worked, stone stairs led further down into a chamber with a large basin of water and four doors. While searching the room, Barron's torchlight caught a glimpse of the first treasure to be found: a jeweled necklace which was found resting at the bottom of the basin.

Choosing the northern door, the group discovered a long hallway which eventually turned east. The group opened the first of the two doors, discovering a chamber filled with the skeletons of four long-dead soldiers, likely some kind of temple guard before their untimely deaths. Ser Thaddeus, assuming the worst, prodded the skeletons, which did not take kindly to being disturbed, and decided to prod back.

Skeletons & One Big Lizard

Brother Ritter, being a cleric of the one true goddess Renna, produced his holy symbol and turned the skeletons back, but not before one of the skeletons stabbed poor Everard in the midsection, though the man-at-arms would survive. The party then systematically dispatched the skeletons, who could not move past the cleric to escape. The group discovered a suit of seemingly magical armor on one of the skeletons, which they convinced their torch bearer to wear, as he was not wearing armor of any kind.

The next room was entirely empty, which prompted the party to search it for secret doors. Sadly, none were found and the group was forced to move on. Coming to the end of the hallway, they found another empty chamber which connected to a room full of stone tables and shelves. As they made to investigate the room, a loud hissing noise was heard. The chamber's new owner, a 5' long lizard revealed itself from out of the shadows. The creature hissed again, warning the group to stay out of its den. Seeing no glory in slaughtering (or being eaten by) a huge lizard, the party backed out of the room and returned to the central chamber with the water basin.

A Companion Falls

Upon returning, the group discovered the central chamber now had 3 of these bat winged, mosquito monsters flying around inside of it. Seeing no other realistic course of action, they attacked and Barry dispatched one immediately. During the melee, one of the creatures impaled Ritter, and drained the poor priest of most of his blood. After dispatching the remaining monsters, Ser Thaddeus was able to save the holy man from death's door by laying his hands upon the dying man. Brother Ritter would live, but he was no longer in any shape to take part in any further fighting.

After briefly checking the southern-most door and discovered a storage room with a long forgotten great sword, and realizing one of the doors returned them to the lizard's chamber, the group entered the final passage off of the basin chamber. A large stone door with 3 moon symbols carved into it blocked the party's way, and a familiar 2' disc shaped indent marked the middle of the door. Resigning themselves to dealing with more mosquito monsters, the group headed back up into the flooded cavern.

Regin Wellander

Statue of the Ancient

Realizing that their torch light did not wake the monsters hanging in this chamber, it was agreed that Barry would attempt to carefully scale the statue and retrieve the disc without disturbing anything if possible. Sadly, Barry slipped part way up the statue, and all 6 blood suckers sputtered awake, setting upon the party. As the party cut down the monsters left and right, one attempted to drain Barron of his lifeblood, and would have done so if not for his newly acquired leather armor, which saved the boy from certain death.

After Barry, Everard and Thaddeus dispatched the last of the deadly creatures, the barbarian returned to the statue and retrieved the heavy stone disc. The group headed back down into the deepest part of the temple complex, and placed the stone disc upon the door, releasing the arcane lock sealing it shut. Barry found this most distasteful, as his tribe abhors witchcraft in all forms, and he had not understood the disc to be magical up until that point.

The Unexpected Prize

With the final chamber unlocked, the party ventured into the main worship chamber of the temple, where another large, stone statue of a 3-eyed bird man was found kneeling at the far end of the room. As the group crossed a causeway between two large pools, a trap activated, sending Thaddeus down into the water and into the clutches of a large, carnivorous fish. Barry quickly hauled his companion from the water, but not before the fish managed to land a sizeable bite on the paladin's leg.

Determined to not become distracted with spear fishing, the adventurers headed to the foot of the main statue of the temple, where a large offering bowl and a small bronze chest lay at its feet. Within the chest was a large cache of ancient, silver coins. The offering bowl, however, was a much stranger matter. Upon it lay a folded, black velvet cloth. Unfolding it, the group realized it to be unexpectedly large, roughly 6 feet in diameter. Placing the cloth upon the ground, its magic activated, and the cloth became a portal to a fantastical realm of biting cold, drifting banks of snow and jagged rock. Unsure what to make of this strange discovery, the group pulled up the cloth, which closed the portal.

Matt Rhodes

Final Thoughts

Overall, I was extremely happy with how the dungeon played out. An after discussion with the players revealed that they had been on the edge of their seats for most of the adventure due to the constant threat of a swift death if they made poor decisions. They also were highly engaged in the inventory management aspect of the game, which was aided by B/X & OSE's encumbrance system where everything is given its weight in terms of coins.

As the referee, I rolled in the open the entire adventure, which was actually very advantageous. The monsters had turned out to be wildly incompetent and if I had been rolling privately in our VTT, they likely would have assumed I was pulling my punches.

Though it was mostly glossed over, the fight with the 6 blood suckers in the cavern statue room was very tense, due to the group being out numbered and down their cleric. I plan to post a list of our house rules in the future, which will explain why Brother Ritter was able to be saved instead of dying outright when he was reduced to zero hit points.

Finally, my favorite moment of the night was easily the treasure in the final room of the dungeon. In the official adventure rules there is a Helm of Telepathy on the statue's head. It's a relatively tame magic item, but it did not excite me, so I decided to have the players roll instead. Imagine my surprise when they rolled a 4 (d4) and then a 98 (d100). I won't spoil what the specific item is, encase my players ever read this blog, but needless to say, I feel the outcome is far more interesting than the helm.

Overall, we all had a blast and I am extremely excited to expand the group to its full size of 4 in our first session. Thanks for reading!