Painting in the public domain of Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian Knot.

Introduction

I'm really a fan of all the many pleasures of the OSR play style, but one of my absolute favorite things to do in any tabletop game is something clever that no one at the table is expecting. I like video games and all, but even the most sophisticated of them has limits to how much it can interpret and adjudicate an act of lateral thinking on the part of a human being.

In my opinion, tabletop games should really lean into this sort of thing. Objects and abilities that encourage or even require creative interpretation, far-lasting consequences of your actions, the passage of time having an impact on the starting state of the adventure. All of these things are out of reach for most computer programs, but certainly an option in the hands of a skilled Warden.

In this session, all of the things mentioned in the previous paragraph came up. So buckle up, Gentle Reader, as we venture into a lost city and demonstrate the value of using the right item, the right way, at the right time.

Also, there's a ghost. Spooky!

Player Characters:

• Harrow (Derek/Me) - Fieldwarden Background
• Snowdrop (Bobby M.) - Foundling Background
• Cornelius (Dano O'Connor) - Mountebank Background

Journey Log (22nd of Highwater, Year 7728)

No Omen. Where's Madrigal (PC with an age of 12!) when you need him?

A Queazy Departure

It was raining as the expedition got underway. The party once again hired Blodwen the tracker and a newcomer, the seasoned veteran Far, to round out their forces.

They opted to take the river route to resolve the matter of Yonn and the Reedfolk, which they had previously ignored on more than one occasion. Blodwen's stomach did not agree with the decision and he spent most of the voyage puking his guts out.

As they approached the Misty Crater, they saw what appeared to be ash mixed with rain falling to the Southwest. The camp itself was abandoned, and Harrow asked Blodwen to find where everyone went. The tracker led them West to the riverbank, tracks clearly visible on the other side. The party fetched their raft and used it to ford the river. While crossing, they spotted river rays in the water. Blodwen mentioned that the Reedfolk hunt them, leading Harrow to speculate that perhaps the gray sails on their ships were made of the hide of the creatures.

The party continued along the trail, which quickly gave way to dense jungle. They are surrounded by trees bearing strange fruit shaped like asparagus leaves: red and football-shaped (American Football, for our international readers). As they came up on a rise, they noticed what looked like bodies floating down the river some distance away. They decided that they wouldn't be able to make it to them before they were washed downriver, and continued onward.

The group came across what appeared to be a market, abandoned baskets were filled with rotting fruit, discarded dolls, and broken pottery could be found within the area. Blodwen speculated that the fruit had only been abandoned about 24 hours. The tracker found a trail leading South that most of the people fleeing seemed to take. The party found where a smaller set of footprints separated from the rest: 3 sets of Upper Valley shoes and one set of Reedfolk footwear.

After about an hour on the trail, the group came upon some rubble blocking the way up a hillside. Cornelius used the Black Horn Relic he obtained in the Stone Forest to melt and crack the rubble so that it could be cleared.

A Buried City

On the hillside, the party found a staircase covered in debris and fine ash. On either side of the pathway are two broken statues of bird-like humanoid figures with crested helmets and spears. After about 75 steps, the staircase ended at the top of a plateau. Overwhelming smell of sulfur in the area. The plateau was covered in a wide piazza with an enormous fountain in the middle, a mosaic surrounding the fixture.

A ring of broken buildings encircled the square. Most were choked with ash, but there were a few exceptions: a building to the East that had a statue partially blocking the entrance, one to the South that was a once grand building now rotting and unstable, and a path along the side of the Eastern building that was still passible despite the presence of a collapsed wall.

The party opted to investigate the mosaic and found that it depicted dancing lizardfolk, strangely child-like and not the same as the ones encountered in the Temple of the Fungal Lizards.

The party moved on to investigating the fallen statue, which seemed to have been knocked over more recently than the rest of the destruction. Cornelius once again used the Black Horn to sever one of the arms from the statue, causing it to roll onto the ground and clearing the way to the building.

Inside, the party found the remains of what appeared to be a workshop for a stone craftsperson. 6 statues depicting bird and lizard-like creatures sat nearby and a hammer laid discarded on a workbench.

Harrow investigated the hammer, tapping it on the broken statue outside and miraculously it righted itself and was restored to pristine condition. Two small gems embedded in the hammer glowed with a faint inner light, though one faded after the statue was restored. Before leaving, Cornelius noted a grate where waste (or perhaps metal) was drained out of the workshop.

Snowdrop, meanwhile, used his medallion to check to see if anything was magical, but found only the hammer was so. The party asked each of the hirelings to carry two of the statues, and the group departed the workshop.

Hard to Swallow

They decided to investigate the two-story building to the South next, its doors rotted away. Inside, they found that most of the southern portion of the building was covered in mud and rubble. Long shelves line the front that have collapsed from decay. In addition to the shelves, there was cloth covering rubble directly ahead and a staircase that spiraled up to a mezzanine.

Harrow opted to look at the shelves, Cornelius investigated the cloth, while Snowdrop went upstairs. Sadly, none of the books or scrolls were salvageable. Cornelius found that the cloth covered a strange bird-like figure that was incredibly preserved. Decided that the cloth itself was a Relic. Snowdrop and Blodwen find that at the top of the stairs they can see a way out of the building to the South, as well as a second room off to the East, though the state of the room made navigating to such places difficult.

Cornelius tried to put the cloth on the decayed books, but found that it had no result. It did, however, size itself to fit the Mountebank when placed upon his shoulders.

The party all ventured upstairs and tried to make their way down a gap to climb up the other side and reach the door to the East. However, just as they finish piling rubble to make their way Eastward a whirl of dust and howling wind comes from the Southeast and forms a vague figure that approaches from the Southwestern portion of the room.

Blodwen and Snowdrop managed to scramble their way up the rubble. Blodwen's attempt at wounding the creature with an arrow proved completely ineffectual, and Snowdrop busted into the Eastern room looking for aid but found nothing useful within.

The creature rushed at Cornelius and began pouring itself into his mouth, turning the Mountebank into a puppet against his will.

Harrow ordered Far to get his waterskin and be ready to pour, then grabbed Cornelius from behind, pulled the Vomit Cord (found in session 4) out of his pack, and wrapped it around the possessed man.

Ash began to pour out of Cornelius's mouth, which was quickly drenched with water. The creature screamed in pain and fled to the room to the East.

Snowdrop approached the creature and tried to reason with it, bit the creature spoke a language not known by any in the party. Harrow advised Snowdrop to kill the creature while it was wounded. In the end, it was determined that the creature would be out of commission for a few days and so they decide to spare it.

In the room, they found manacles hanging from the ceiling and a large cracked stone below it. They decide to mend the stone, which causes it to suck the ash phantom in and split open like an egg. Inside, they found a large blue gem the size of an ostrich egg. Snowdrop dropped his repellent and dagger in order to have enough space for the blue gem.

When Snowdrop touched it, he saw a memory of a person who was brought into the room and chained. Everyone was speaking a warbling speech unfamiliar to Snowdrop. The figure turned, saw a lizard person in the corner who approached and slashed the figure's stomach open. There was an explosion in the distance and everyone ran out of the room shortly before the world was engulfed in fire.

A Pillar of the Community

They left the room and picked their way through the rubble to the Southern exit. They found horizontal grates spread throughout a pathway headed East, each coated in fungus. The party debated burning the fungus, but ultimately opted to carefully weave their way through. They see flowing designs along the walls of the pathway leading to an aqueduct. Gold in some of the patterns. The party did not opt to do the stereotypical thing and chisel it out.

They lit a torch and ventured into the aqueduct. They saw footprints that approached from the West, recognizing it as the original hallway with the collapsed wall that they opted not to take. The East is filled with rubble, as well as statues of bird people with lizard people following. Meanwhile, there is a rotting smell to the North.

Naturally, the party opted to go towards the rotting smell. As they walked, they noted a narrow path to the West that most likely led to the grate within the workshop.

The passage emptied out into a chamber with a well and a large concave bowl-shaped depression. There was dark sand inside. The centerpiece of the room was an enormous, fungal-covered pillar that went upward before terminating at a grate-covered ceiling.

Harrow investigated the grate, realized that the concave bowl must have once been filled with water and acted as a well.

Snowdrop investigated the source of the smell, finding it to be a figure hanging some distance up the pillar and covered in fungus. Their sandals indicated that they were one of the Reedfolk.

Cornelius, meanwhile, dug through the sand in the depression and found a crystalline nodule. He briefly considered removing it before he realized that it was attached and seemed to be growing (from the blood dripping down from the corpse) and ultimately decided against it.

They left the room, heading back East and using Cornelius's Relic to once again clear the rubble.

There was a sort of park further in, perfectly preserved in crystal. A path between the preserved plants could be clearly seen.

Rather than venture into the unknown, the party doubled back to check the other passage ways. They reasoned that Yonn couldn't have gotten past the rubble, and sure enough they found him in the narrow passageway that led to the workshop. Quite dead of deprivation, though he had signs of several injuries including a spear wound in his side that looked to have been made from the same type of spear that the bird-headed men were wielding in the statues.

They decide not to press their luck further, and head out of the abandoned city through the Western pathway with the collapsed wall, finding another soldier underneath covered in spear wounds. As they left the area, the sky cleared enough to see a volcano spewing ash in the distance. Ominous.

Rewards

• 125 GP a person after paying for hirelings and upkeep.

Reflection

What do you mean I can't spend 20 minutes smoking a cigarette and hacking people's emails without consequences? Art from Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which is a great immersive sim that can't really live up to the original.

In one of the first missions in Deus Ex: Human Revolution you are told there is a hostage situation and that you need to head over and deal with it immediately. Naturally, like all good completitionists I promptly ignored the shit out of this advice and spent the next 10 minutes looking for items and hacking people's emails. I didn't think anything about this course of action until I found out that my lack of urgency resulted in the death of hostages. It was a shock to discover that there really were consequences for assuming the mission would remain static until my arrival. Naturally, I don't think there is a single other time-sensitive element in the entire game.

Why do I bring this up? Because Yonn died because of our inaction. It was pretty clear that, had we taken the job sooner, his chances of survival would have been much higher. He was a horrible person, so Harrow isn't that choked up about it, but it bears dwelling on due to the fact that, unlike in a video game, there's no reason that Yochai can't do a similar thing again. A lot of people like to advise GMs to not penalize the players for not following up on a hook, but I absolutely think that having an occasional consequence for not acting in a prompt fashion is a great way of demonstrating that player choice matters.

Putting that aside, we got to do some of my favorite things in this session: overcome challenges and solve mysteries.

One of my favorite things to do as a player is overcome challenges. When I was younger, I tended to seek out this pleasure by designing characters that could utterly annihilate their foes. These days, I find it more fun to bypass challenges and solve them in ways that involves lateral thinking. When we first encountered our first obstacle of rubble, I was a bit upset that I didn't bring the Wooden Saw relic. Luckily, Cornelius easily dealt with several stone-related challenges this session with the Black Horn. The beautiful thing about magic items like this is that they can be used in ways unforeseen when they are first introduced.

Speaking of unforeseen, I don't think anyone saw coming how Harrow dealt with the Ash Phantom that possessed Cornelius. The truth is, I didn't either until about 5 seconds before I blurted it out. One of the Maxims of the OSR is some variation of "The answer is not on your character sheet", and yet that is not always the case. The answer most certainly was on my character sheet, it just wasn't a distinctive button or toggle that I could interact with instead of solving the problem directly with critical thinking. It was not the presence of the Vomit Cord or the flask of water that allowed my mad scheme to succeed, but the combination of both and a hireling that I could coordinate actions with. I will remember this triumph far more than any combat encounter I ever overcame through character optimization, certainly.

As for mysteries, the locations of the Lower Valley continue to intrigue and baffle in equal measure. Bird people, lizardfolk that aren't quite the same as the Fungal Lizards. There's quite a lot that still needs to be uncovered and pieced together. I was reading through our previous session reports and realized that we found a depiction of a winged figure in the Spiral Cave all the way back in the 3rd session. It almost makes me want to go back to the Temple of the Fungal Lizards. Almost.

That's all for now, but I'll have another one soon enough about what happened when we finally decided to try and track down Fasha the rogue werewolf...