Today was the first session of my open-table Barrowmaze game on the OSR Pickup server. I was honored to run for the following five players:
- Dante, playing Uriel the Ranger
- Hans, playing Heinrik the Thief
- Jesse, playing Wangat the Magic-User
- John, playing Sky the Druid
- Malley, playing Donnie the Bard
The beginning portion of the session was taking up with usual character creation and equipment buying, but shortly after I introduced the group to the Barrowmarsh, and the village of Helix, saying they had arrived in the yearly batch of adventurers looking to make a fortune off of the barrows. Tamson the Miller’s son wanted to go hunt rabbit and water fowl in the marsh, so he offered to guide the party to the barrow mounds.
The group found a plundered tomb with a block & tackle positioned above a massive hole in the floor, descending into a deeper, older tomb. Down below they found rubble, bones, and some graffiti painted over the archway reading “Go no further.”
Disregarding the warning and noting the need to pay off loans compelled them to trek into the tom. Donnie routinely tried giving the party an accompanying soundtrack in hushed tones, but Wagnat would have none of it.
As they searched down south corridors they found a collapsed portion of the tomb, with a withered skeleton holding a compass. Donnie smacked the compass onto his palm hoping it would make a great sound, but it unfortunately shattered the delicate glass.
They continued to scavenge south, finding a room with a peculiar plinth bearing a potion, and the script “For Your Glamours” written upon it. Wagnat placed his bag onto the floor, and knocked the corked bottle into it.
Discovering an older door with a stone skull as a keystone, the party plumbed further south, finding several more doors, an archway and a long hallway, as well as a patched up concrete wall.
They decided to check the door with the skull keystone, and were assailed by four zombies. The rotting corpses shambled forward, one clawing Donnie in his gut, causing him to bleed out rapidly. Wangtan immediately pulled the door shut, while the party utilized bandages to staunch his blood flow.
Sky spiked the zombie door while the rest of the party held it shut. Uriel & Wagnat made a cot out of 10′ poles and some sheets to carry poor Donnie back to the entrance of the maze. Sky & Heinrik went south to try to get a peek beyond the concrete sealed wall.
While Wagnat went to work prepare for Donnie’s lift out of the dungeon, Uriel heard realistic bird chirping down the hallway. Investigating he peered upon wild looking humans, all a bizarre combination of animal parts, fangs, fur, horns, feathers and the like. He noted that they spoke some mixture of grunts, words in a variety of languages, and animal noises. The creatures took a defensive posture as he approached, but did not attack.
Uriel quickly made his way south to alert Sky & Heinrik, telling them that they had to leave immediately. When they returned they found that one of the creatures had approached the archway where Wagnat & Donnie remained, and it pointed to its mouth while gesturing to a small silver tiara it was carrying.
Wagnat realized it wanted food so they threw it a ratio, and it gestured to them an open palm. They realized that there were five creatures, and so they traded five rations for the silver headwear.
Heinrik decided to cautiously approach the group, offering them jerkin, looking to trade further. At which they slid him a tarnished dagger in return. After muttering to themselves they slunk off into the dark.
Making their way back to the surface, the party spied some harpies flying in the distance, and met back with Tamson before heading back to Helix. There they met with HHR Huffnpuff, the local jeweler, as well as Mazzahs the Magnificent, the local wizard, selling off their wares.
The grouped swung by the local Chapel to St. Ygg to receive healing for a small donation, and then onto the Brazen Trumpet for a night of drinking, eating, and resting. Uriel went into the wilds to hunt for his meal, while Donnie performed a song for his rent, schmoozed with a barmaid after hours and got some intel on some of the residents of the town.
Overall it was a fun session. We used Cavegirl’s horrible wounds table, but instead of using Int checks I opted for saves, just because I kind of try to keep stat rolls to a minimum. I did interpret the “tick down” portion of the bleeding out table to have a minimum of “next turn”, because I don’t want someone’s attempt at healing to outright kill a PC. Although I do think that in a single round there is probably a limit to how many people can try to bandage someone. Since Uriel readied a bow in case the zombies got through the door, and Wagnat was holding the door shut it turned out to be 3 people could try to bandage, which I think is maybe a good number to cap it at.
The biggest regret I had was forgetting to schedule a bathroom break. I usually have to use the restroom several times which often makes it so I give appropriate breaks, but this session I somehow didn’t need to and forgot to bring it up. I never mind if a player has to duck out or take a break for any reason, but I forgot to actually book time. I will make sure to do so in the future.