Sunday, November 24, 2013

The Adventures of Golgen and Nim - 01

My son (age 11) and daughter (age 9) had their first adventure in Aeranos today. Since they both had lots of fun, I'd call it a success. Though I tried for a straight up dungeon delve, they were having none of it, Between diplomacy with the enemy and caring for their henchmen, they managed to blow most of the hack and slash stereotypes I expected. It was really cool to see.

The Characters
Golgen Zeron Beclonzy: Oroka Warrior. Third son of the Chieftain of the Horselords of the Oras-fel plains. Strong, loyal, not incredibly intelligent, but excellent with the warhammer and shield.

Nimphzahla Mizma Salzim: Faelinarie Druidess. Young forest sprite of the Greenwood. Carefree, loyal, out to experience life while protecting the natural realms.

The Adventure
I borrowed this little gem of an adventure from Dyson's Adventure Blog, pretty much as written. (warning to my regular players: leave this site alone! I might be using Dyson's maps a lot. Great stuff!)

Anyway it has to do with a band of Kudra Raiders and a hidden horror at the bottom of an old ruin in a forest gully. Golg and Nim scouted out the gully with two of Golg's henchmen, Bangel and Regul, twin Oroka warriors. They made their way through the ruins, fighting Kudra along the way, but then Regul took a serious wound beyond Nim's ability to heal.

Finishing the battle, they managed to capture the last Kudra combatant. It turned out there was no question of continuing the mission. Regul was badly injured. They left the gully and took their injured, and their prisoner back to the village.

When interrogated, the Kudra promised to take them back to the gully in the morning and treat with his leader, Moluk, for the release of their prisoners, who were taken in the latest raid.

That night, an assassin entered the village and put a poison dart in the Kudra's neck. Nim was summoned and used her magic to neutralize the poison and save the Kudra's life. In gratitude, the enemy, who gave his name as Grayfeather, told Golg and Nim what was really going on.

Apparently the Kudra brigands were really being led by a mysterious, dark robed wizard who was keeping some kind of a horrible creature in the ruins. The prisoners were to feed the creature, and the Kudra were all serving the Master out of fear. In exchange for this information, they let Grayfeather go, and made a friend from an enemy.

Returning in the morning with a dozen warriors, they made their way deeper into the ruins. Nim was briefly captured, but managed to free herself with a clever use of the Levitation spell (proving that spell useful to even winged creatures in a bind). They routed the Kudra and rescued the prisoners.

The evil wizard waited for the unsuspecting heroes to release his creature, which they did. Unfortunately for him, the heroes than proceeded to run away. The evil creature, a horrible demonic ooze then stuck around the ruins long enough to eat the wizard and the remaining hidden Kudra, before making its way outside.

They valiantly tried to put some arrows into it, but when that proved unsuccessful, they showed great wisdom in running back to the village to warn everyone of the horror they unwittingly released.

And so ended the not-so-typical dungeon delve.

Congratulations to Liam and Rowen on achieving a great, ambiguously happy ending to their first adventure, with plenty of oozy reasons to continue adventuring next time.



The Ooze on the Loose

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Diplomacy and clever use of spells? Sound like my kind of players :)