Drownlands Campaign Play Report – Sessions #1 & #2

I had a lot of self-doubt about this game. I haven't DMed a campaign since about two years. I haven't DMed a one-shot since about a year. I was feeling rusty and unprepared. I didn't have a hexmap ready, I didn't finish stocking a dungeon I had in mind... Well, I was anxious. And of course it went swimmingly. It actually went so well that after session #1 on Saturday, we had session #2 on Sunday, because the players insisted. It was great. I think there are two things that I have to remember and take away from this. They seem super-obvious now, but they were not when I was sweating during prep. The most important thing is: play with your friends, those people that you like to hang out with outside of the gaming thing. Those people that you talk about books, tv shows and politics with, those people that help you when you need to move, or find a job or feed your cats when you're on vacation or whatever. Those people are the best players, even if they never played before. And thing number two: D&D game is a party. People drink, snack, tell jokes and have fun. And that's the way it should be. You want that. I think that those two things are crucial to having a good game. 

Okay, so let's dive into details. My players arrived and after a brief chat about cats, Polish politics and the new A Tribe Called Quest album we rolled characters. After about 45 minutes we had an adventuring party consisting of:

* Sapphire, a human fighter played by Marta

* Misty, a human wizard played by Paulina

* Enorindum of Astia or simply Eno, a 42 years old human thief played by Romain

and

* Norväk Bloodbeard, a dwarven cleric of Madarak, God of Redemption, played by Pierre

So I always used this trick when starting a new game: start with exciting action scene. For example the ship that PCs are travelling on is attacked by pirates, or there's a riot in the prison where PCs are held, stuff like that. But this time I couldn't think of anything appropriate and I started with something boring – PCs waking up in the barracks of Lone Tree Watch. Lone Tree is one of Smugglers Guild's trading posts in Drownlands and PCs are members of the Watch, which is fashioned like a militia, but in reality it's basically a muscle of an organized crime syndicate. Surprisingly my players reacted very enthusiastically and made many references to "thug life" through the game. 

Lone Tree trading post

As I wrote in a previous blog post I planned to repurpose parts of N5 Under Illefarn for this game. This module also has PCs as members of small town militia and gives them three starting quests: fighting lizardmen raiders, rescuing a kidnapped noblewoman and guarding a caravan. So after breakfast in the Watch's canteen they went and interacted with NPCs and found bits and pieces of information about these quests. They spent a lot of time talking to their nameless corporal, arranging meetings with Vana, the watch captain and One Eye, Smugglers Guild underboss and de facto Lone Tree leader, then they spent some time in Lone Tree Inn, where the innkeeper got half of the party really drunk on "Harpy Cream" (which came from a hilarious random roll on Hubris tavern generator) and it was all going in the direction I planned until they found a dot on their map. 

"What's that?"

"Oh, it's where Kaddbad the Druid lives."

"The druid?"

"Yes, he sometimes heals people that need it and because he's useful the Watch doesn't bother him."

"Is he human?"

"No he's half-wild elf."

"ZOMGLET'SGO, LET'S MEET THE WILD ELF!"

So when the party was traveling to the druid's grove by boat and talking amongst themselves I made my best poker face and started looking through one page dungeons that I keep at the very end of my D&D binder. By the time they were saying hello to Kaddbad I found an appropriate dungeon ("Dire Briars" by Joshua Jones) and tweaked it to fit the situation. High Priestess became Ursula, another druid and Kaddbad's friend and Bramble Beast became a plant demon that possessed her. The party went on their way. It took them 3 days travel and 2 random encounters from Hubris' Bogwood Swamp before they reached the grove. The party quickly learned that they have to search for traps, disarm them, look for hidden doors, etc. They made quick work of various monsters in the dungeon, but the encounter with Ursula, who turned into a bear, nearly ended with a TPK. But they managed to take her down without killing her, then they figured out that Bramble Beast's vulnerable to fire and defeated it just as it mind controlled the thief. It was close and exciting and I didn't even fudge the die rolls. Then they found some cool random loot and decided to take wounded Ursula to Kaddbad, so he can heal her. And that was the end of second session. 

It was good. Everything went smoothly and DMing felt natural and easy, even though I was improvising on the spot like 70% of the time. Really happy how it turned out, I only hope I can keep it up on session #3. 

Oh, and when my players asked Ursula why she would make a pact with the Beast and get mind controlled in the process I told them that she did it because the Beast promised to help her save Drownlands' dire otter population which is being hunted to extinction. I meant it as a joke but girls at the table took it seriously, because otters are cute and wrote on their charsheets that dire otters need saving. I love my players!

Better An Ignis Fatuus Than No Illume At All

Couple of years ago I was stoned and watching some sort of documentary about American wetlands. I'm not sure if it was Louisiana, Florida or somewhere else. But I remember people mostly traveling by boats, and there were alligators, giant snakes, and dangerous-looking redneck poachers there. I decided to put this kind of area on my campaign map, but D&D-fied and turned to eleven. And here it is, on my super-old map (that I'm preparing to redraw soon):

I called it Trupie Błota then, which roughly translates to Corpse Mud. But I never started any campaign in the area, and somehow no player has ever set foot there. It was just laying there all those years, a stoner vision of giant alligators, gargantuan anacondas, mysterious grippli tribes, a lawless and dangerous frontier where might makes right. 

Soon I'll be starting a new campaign. And most of the players will either be new to D&D or haven't played since high school/uni. You see where this is going? I'm going to subject my newbies to this wonderful place. I have to flesh it out though. And give it a new name. Right now my new favourite is 

Drownlands

I really want it to be this lawless, kinda Wild West place. So no dukes, no castles, no real cities, no well traveled roads. Instead we have Smuggler's Guild's trading posts and black markets, brown coal mining towns, monster hunting druidic circles, traveling grippli fortresses, peat fields, tar pits and shanty towns. And that's the "civilized" parts. Deep swamp is home to all the usual megafauna that immediately comes to mind...

...but also dinosaurs (especially spinosaurus, smilosuchus and cyclotosaurus), sentient moss, giant mosquitoes and giant leeches, dire otters, vodniks, fog giants, mudmen and so on.

So the next couple posts here will probably be about:

• Smuggler's Guild, which maintains some semblance of control over the Drownlands 
• grippli, the frog people that use their own bodies to synthesize exotic substances, especially powerful poisons
• vodniks, or drowners – not the Witcher games variety however, but spirits of the drowned and infants who died at birth

So back onto the new campaign. My crazy plan is to use 1987 N5 Under Illefarn module as a basic adventure hook but replacing all the usual pseudo-medieval, faux-feudal NPCs with Smuggler's Guild operatives and D&D-fied Deadwood characters, lizard men with grippli, Illefarn itself with something that isn't boring, etc. And when building the bigger sandbox/hexcrawl I'm gonna steal the shit out of Bogwood Swamp from Mike Evans' Hubris – probably the coolest D&D book I've read. 

And I'll also try to put Swamp Thing in there. 

Because Swamp Thing is awesome. 

Bird Gods of the Hunt

Kenku champion stalks his prey. 

Some say they are immortal spirits of the first birds of prey. Others that they were born of the hunt. They dispense gifts – enchanted trinkets, stalking totems or spirit weapons – to those who are worthy, who mastered tracking, pursuit, killing and devouring of prey. They value cleverness, ruthlessness, bravery, avarice and ambition. They despise weakness, fear, moderation, restraint and compassion. They are known by many names, but their true names can only be pronounced by those, who have a beak.

Their most numerous followers are the kenku, but almost all birds worship, or at least fear and respect them. Only exception are the owls, who betrayed them eons ago and allied themselves with serpents.

They exist on many worlds (or planes/dimensions/planets, whatever fits your setting) even having some of them completely conquered. Those are their proving grounds, where mettle of the brave hunters is tested and their skills honed. From there proven champions are summoned to other worlds, where they aid their supporters in the great hunt.

That’s how I introduced the kenku to my campaign years ago. I made them weak, compared to their brothers from other worlds. Living on an isolated island. Still struggling to open their first portal, through which one of the champions of the hunt might emerge to help them a bit. They might hunt the PCs or they might hunt with the PCs. Most of my players treated them as kill-on-sight enemies. But one group sort of befriended the kenku, started helping them in their hunts and eventually witnessed opening of the portal. They were really uncomfortable when they glimpsed the conquered world of the proving grounds through the portal but really started thinking how to get out of this mess when through the portal came a champion. A sort of demon or spirit, looking vaguely like a giant humanoid hornbill with four arms. He rewarded two of the best hunters in the party with his sacred gifts. One got a magic bow and the other grew a sharp beak.

For proving his worth in the hunt the bird gods reward PC with…

1-5. Stalking totem. It’s a sculpture of a bird made of reed, clay, hemp rope and feathers. It comes to life once per night and functions like a spy drone. PC can look through its eyes. After about an hour of stalking it comes back to the PC and turns inanimate again.

6-10. Wind rock. Looks like a shard of volcanic stone. It’s magic and has a power of minor air manipulation. It allows kenku (and other winged creatures who normally would be too heavy) to fly. If PC lacks wings he can still probably do cool stuff with it. Like blowing candles. Or looking cool in a cloak. (Or think of something else if in your campaign all/none of the kenku can fly.)

11-15. Small mummified bird amulet. Like a bird-shaped ushabti. If crushed or otherwise perforated it will release a spirit of an ancient kenku warrior, that will aid PC in battle for d6+2 rounds. It fights like a d4+1 HD kenku and can only be harmed with spells, magic weapons or turn undead. One use item.

16-20. Pendant necklace made of strange looking leather. If a tooth of a creature is attached to the pendant, the wearer gains +1 bonus to tracking and combat with other specimens of the same creature. (Think ranger's favoured enemy.) Multiple teeth of the same species can be attached, but they have to come from different specimens for the enchantment to work. Maximum accumulated bonus is +4.

21-25. A bag of d12 healing worms. When consumed each worm heals 2d8+8 HP and feeds PC like a full meal. After about a week worms die and loose their healing power. However, their lives can be extended by allowing them to feast on a carcass of a freshly killed creature.

26-30. A kenku egg. It will hatch in d12 days. The hatchling, if cared for, will turn into a sort of bird familiar in d12 months. And into a full grown, loyal kenku follower in d6 years. It treats PC like its parent. (If you don’t like the randomness of those dice rolls my AD&D2nd Monstrous Manual says that kenku hatchlings gain one hit point a month and become a one HD kenku after 6 to 8 months.)

31-35. Stick man. It looks like that thing from Blair Witch Project. If burnt in a campfire it will release a protective spirit, which will shield the PC and his party from any wandering monster table type threat as long as the fire is burning. One use item.

36-50. A magic item. Roll on your favourite magic item table. Or rather roll on the magic item chart you deem most appropriate. The one with Cloak of Camouflage and stuff like that.

51-65. A magic weapon. Roll on your favourite random magic weapon table. Or rather roll on the one that you deem most appropriate. The one with Bow of Hunting and that kinda stuff.

66-70. PC's digestive system mutates and now resembles that of a vulture. PC can eat rotten meat without getting sick, also gains immunity to most non-magical poisons taken orally. PC's poop smells really bad though.

71-75. Not sure if it’s pheromones or magic, but birds like the PC. Like that scene in Disney’s Snow White. (Translate that to a system specific bonus/advantage to reaction/charisma/animal handling rolls.)

76-80. A beautiful, feathered crest grows from PC’s head down his spine. The crest opens up when PC gets excited.

81-85. PC's hair (including body hair) turns into plumage.

86-90. PC's eyes turn avian. Basically like built in binoculars, night vision goggles and also check out that ultraviolet. You can look up “bird vision” on wikipedia.

91-95. Something changes in PC’s brain. He starts to understand the language of birds, but he loses other random previously known language.

96. PC grows talons on his (1) right hand (2) left hand (3) both hands (4) feet (5) all appendages. Counts as natural weapons.

97. PC grows a sharp beak. Counts as natural weapon.

98. PC grows a pair of wings. They allow him to glide.

99. PC grows a pair of magic wings. They allow him to fly.

00. PC turns into a kenku.