Mr Moai's Molnhem Campaign - Session 1

    We began our AD&D campaign in earnest this friday. I didn't waste much time setting the stage beyond a very cursory overview of the political situation, suggesting a few hooks with murmurs of foreign dwarven activity in the nearby abandoned mines, a trade war between lumberjacks near a lake to the south, and an open bounty for bandit scarves from a notorious local gang of bandits.

The players jumped at the lead for the nearby mines, and set off on the most direct path north through a heavily mountainous region. They spent a few days lost, though they weren't necessarily aware of it. One of the Rangers was on night watch and noticed a lot of wolf activity nearby. The creatures were circling their camp. They'd stopped and set up camp dangerously close to a den of wolves!

The wolves were of course a random wilderness encounter in the mountains for the evening, and I rolled an appropriate score to suggest that there was a lair on the hex, therefore I ruled that there must be a den of wolves, which explained the sheer number of the beasts now closing in on the party.

The group acted fast, with Doloon the Monk taking the initiative to scramble up a nearby tree and secure a rope for his companions to follow him, while Tyrano-Thompson the ranger and Faith the Cleric tried in vain to intimidate the approaching wolves.

When both rangers pointed out the sheer number of wolves they were aware of in the surrounding woods (at least 2 dozen, from educated guesses), the rest of the party scrambled up the tree behind the monk.

They attempted to wait the wolves out, even shot a few before the beasts retreated into the nearby foliage to wait them out. The party spent the rest of the night up in their tree, and the wolves maintained a rotating vigil, one of the perks of being so close to the den I suppose.

Sure that the wolves wouldn't be giving up any time soon, Doloon the monk suggested swinging from treetop to treetop and continuing on their path north towards the abandoned mines. Progress was slow, but the woods were dense enough that it wasn't an issue to swing across them at a steady pace for the entire day.

The wolves eventually gave up on pursuit and returned to their den, and the party successfully located the valley with the entrance to the mines proper.

Their stint in the mines themselves was a short one, primarily exploratory in nature. They followed ruined railcart tracks through the caverns. The only combat of note that they didn't flee from was with a group of Kobolds who were mining in a dead end chamber. The kobods quickly took losses sufficient to warrant a morale check, and the result was total and immediate surrender of the 6 of the remaining after the first round of combat.

The party debated at length whether to just execute the kobolds, or leash them up and force them into service. Erring on the side of caution, most of the group agreed to execute them rather than risk them running off and causing problems down the line.

The total take-home from the kobolds meager possessions was 141 copper pieces, split evenly among the 5 adventurers when they returned to town. 

Nothing flashy, but exploratory sessions seldom are. At least nobody died, which is more than could be said of most of our B/X sessions. I think the party is still playing incredibly cautiously because of this, and hopefully we'll break out of our shells as a group and begin to play to some of the gonzo things AD&D has to offer. I believe there will be growing pains for a little while, but eventually they'll get more comfortable with this newfound freedom and stretch their legs a little bit. 

The goal of this campaign is to run AD&D hewing as close as possible to the rules as written. I'm trying to avoid smoothing out things that come across as cumbersome until I've spent enough time with the mechanics to appreciate what the intent of the rule was in the first place. Similarly, my goal is to run an entirely self-generated sandbox campaign using only the core 3 AD&D manuals to generate the dungeons/encounters etc. No published modules, no prefab dungeons. I'm trying to recreate the sort of sandbox campaign described in the rulebook, so far the freedom is a refreshing change.

With the few hooks set, and a few more in the chamber depending on what direction their adventures take them, I'm going to try to be reactive with most of the future content I generate, and work it around what they're doing, their desires, and the consequences of their actions. From random encounters rolled tonight, I already have a new lair fixture on one of the wilderness hexes (the wolf den, with a defined number of wolves), as well as hints at a new faction to populate some untouched areas deeper within the modest dungeon I've been generating in my spare time thus far.

This Session's Players:

Shirzgird: Bill the Ranger

ManOrManatee: Alistair the Cleric

AngryTiki: Tyranno-Thompson the Ranger

Alaskarly: Faith the Cleric

Purple Druid: Doloon the Monk

Take-home: 28CP, 13XP each from slaying 9 Kobolds.