AD&D 2nd Edition Revised Session 5

We started by selling the goblin leather and hide armor we had collected from the monsters at Phrum Castle to Kram the saddler who said he would take it.  He didn't have enough gold, so we accepted trade.  In exchange for the 4 leather and the 4 hide armors we received 10 gold pieces and a masterwork riding saddle worth 30 gold pieces and the promise of another masterwork saddle in a month or two.  We then went to Jud's Forge sold the two suits of chainmail, six short swords, three battle axes, one bastard sword and one scimitar along with a suit of field plate for two sets of chainmail barding, shoeing two horses, and a bit a bridle for two horses along with 100 gold pieces.  We then went and talked to Kram again and got 4 light war horses that were underfed for 75 gold pieces each along with two riding saddles, saddle blankets.  We then went to Gab's wines and he paid us 50 platinum pieces for a case (24 glass bottles) of elven wine.  We then went to Dirgg's Bazaar and sold two red gems and two ivory tusks to him for 126 platinum pieces.  One hundred for the gems and 26 for the ivory tusks.

We then left Stout and headed to the Stone ruins to find the Druids.  We had to remove a Giant Toad from the road in order to get there, but that was easy.  We made it to the ruins and Nightwind and Ja'Lil meditated the first watch while I remained awake.  Bram the wizard just slept.  A druid appeared on the second watch, she didn't give her name, however she was a Drow.  She helped us with the map we found and told us how to find the Black Tree ruins.  We had found the map after defeating the spiders in the lower level of Phrum Castle.  Anyway, she left after that and we headed out the next morning.  I sent a message attached to an arrow in a parchment case flying towards our city saying:

Defeated monsters at Castle
Gave coin to Stout
Heading to Trynt

We were on the road for a little over a day and were ambushed by some orcs.  Six orcs dropped me, Nightwind and Ja'Lil, but Bram was untouched.  While we were unconscious, the Drow Druid came and helped Bram defeat the reamaining orcs.  His wand is very helpful.  She cured us with her magic all the way to tip-top shape.  She has some powerful spells.  I asked her if she lived in the Stone Ruins and as she faded from view, she said, "Not in, under, I live under the ruins."

We continued our trek towards Trynt and encountered a merchant selling clothes and potions.  I was able to find one healing potion, Ja'Lil found three and Bram was able to find four.  We should be in good hand until Ja'Lil's deity grants him some powerful spells.  We had one last run-in with Giant Toads before passing through the mountain pass to Trynt.  We sent them on their way by coercing them off the road.  We made it to Trynt the following afternoon.  It took us about one week at the speed of mules, but at least our horses were rested.

This is where we left off.  I have to make the city of Trynt map.  I will have the map we found and Trynt map loaded for all to see by next week.  Happy gaming.

AD&D 2nd Edition Revised Session 4

We head down the stairs and find ourselves in a small room with a door.  We check the door and find it untrapped and unlocked.  We open the door and it leads into a large room.  We see some boxes on the far side of the room and a door to the right.  After entering the room, we see another statue.  This one is an elephant with tusks.   The tusks are 100% ivory.  We search the boxes and find some wine and water and some tools and gear along with some food stuffs.  The door to the right is locked.  We unlock the door with the keys after I failed to unlock it with my tools, it doesn't seem trapped.  Nightwind opens it carefully and I peak inside.  I see movement inside.  Nightwind swings the door open and it knocks over a chair that had been placed behind it.  It clatters to the floor alerting the beings inside to our presence.  We defeat two hobgoblins and two orc guards.  We loot the room and see a large door with big holes in it.  This must be the door Mishin warned us about.  We use the keys and the trap is disabled and the door unlocked.  We step into another room and find a large cell with a locked door with two chests in it.  The cell is made of iron bars, but one of the keys on the keyring unlocks the cell door and we find a cloak and ring in one and two potions and a suit of magical splint mail armor for a human.  We identify the potions to be a potion of growth and an oil of slipperiness.  The armor is a suit of splint mail +1.  The fireplace in this room is searched and found that the chimney goes all the way up to outside, but only a small person can squeeze through.  We go through the door that leads further and find a set of stairs leading down.

We follow the stairs down and notice that the walls seem to shift.  The wooden walls blend into stone and the light only carries enough to see that we are in a small room with a door the leads to the north.  We check the door, but nothing is found.  No trap and it is unlocked.  We open the door cautiously and see a hallway with no lights.  We find a goblin corpse outside a locked door at the end of the hallway.  We search him and find a gold key in his hand.  We move his corpse and unlock the door and head in.  We see some beds and while searching find the corpses of 3 more goblins barricading a door that leads further into the castle.  We move and search the bodies.  All the bodies seem to be in tack, but for some reason they are dead.  We look closer and see puncture wounds on them.  Poison.  As we move the last body away from the door, we can see that the latch has been damaged and the door swings freely.

We enter the final room and with the torch the wizard carries, we see an old room.  We search the room and find two piles of bones, mostly goblin in two different corners.  We look up and see nothing but webs for a ceiling that is pure white.  We notice that there is a secret door, but no way of opening it from this side.  We also find a locked door.  We unlock the door and enter, but we find a small room.  We figure that there is something not right about the length of the rooms here and we search the small room for a secret door.  We find a secret door, but also find the concealed door in the other room at the same time.  That is when we get ambushed.  We encounter a Large Spider, but it calls for help and 2 Hairy Spiders and a Huge Spider come from above to help.  The hairy spiders and the large spider are all the size of men while the Huge spider is the size of a horse.  Apparently they've eaten well recently.  Fortunately, nobody got bitten while we cleared the area.  We found three chests in the concealed room and opened them with the gold key we found on the one goblin.  We found a set of field plate in one chest, a magical +1 longsword in another chest and we found +1 Goblin Plate and Slippers of Spider Climbing in the final chest.  We get everything together and haul it upstairs.  I get my wagon and we load it up and head back to town.  On the way back we encounter three orcs that run away after we confronted them.  We continued onto town and gave the mayor 10% of the coin we found.

This is where we left off.  See the maps of Level 3 (underground) and Level 4 (underground) of Phrum Castle.
I made an error on the Level 4 map because the stairs went down from Level 3 in a different place than the corner where I had the stairs show up on Level 4.  That is why I had the walls shimmer and go from wood to stone, kind of like a magical vortex or residual magic left over from the combat 30 years ago when a mage tried to clear the castle of bugbears or more recently trying to clear it of something that is no longer there.  Also, I waited to blog this and I regret it.  This is close to what actually happened, as best as I can remember.  In the future, I will blog right after we conclude our gaming session.  Thank you and have fun gaming.

Phrum Castle Level 3 (underground)

Phrum Castle Level 4 (underground)

AD&D 2nd Edition Revised Session 3

We travelled up the wagon road to the castle of Phrum and had no trouble getting there.  We left the wagon and the mules tied up so they could graze and to not get too much attention.  However, we had been spotted and the Goblins had laid a trap for us.  Two were on top of the tower throwing their javelins downward at us.  They hit Nightwind, but missed everyone else.  Thank the gods that goblins aren't excellent marksmen.  Alas, I jump ahead.  We had just crept up to the front door, which were heavy wood with metal bindings and ajar they were.  The opening wide enough to get a wagon through.  We could not see any movement inside, although Nightwind had noticed some earlier.  We thought, maybe they hid, so we slowly moved in and when we were just inside the doors we hear the Goblins yell,"Now!"
We see the two on top of the tower pop up their heads and ready their javelins; at the same time, two goblins run out of what we find out later is the kitchen.  but they don't move too fast so we have plenty of time to move up to them and attack before they can, but the javelins come first and one slices into Nightwind's leg.  Bram the wizard Magic Missiles into the two on top of the tower and kills both of them and I slice into the two on the ground.  We search the kitchen and find a partially eaten rat and some kind of meat soup.  Still warm.  Find some old horse shoes in the stables.  We look for the secret door that is shown on the map, but can't find it.  We take the stairs down into the lower levels.
There is a heavy metal door that leads into the deeper levels of the castle, we know that there is four from Brad the engineer in the village.  Its not locked, but I stop Nightwind from opening it cause the hinges need oil.  I give him some oil and we put it on the hinges.  I tell him to open the door slowly.  There is only minimal squeaking from the rusty hinges.  We see wooden interior walls, thick, but wooden.  the walls around the metal door were stone, even though they were interior walls.  Perhaps it was the owner's idea of security.  We proceed cautiously.  We come to a small wooden door.  It is unlocked, and not trapped.  Nightwind opens slowly, but opens all the way.  We see a fire going in the fireplace, four nice beds.  We all go and stand by a bed, Bram takes some pushing to go and do his, but he goes and searches the bed that is left for him.  We all search the beds in front of us.  Nightwind takes off the mattress and looks under the box spring.  He sees a goblin.
"You dead or alive?" He yells in goblin.
"Don't hurt me," the goblin whines.
Nightwind asks, "Why are you here?"
"Ask Mishin," the goblin replies and points to the bed that I am searching directly placed parrallel and a couple feet over.
Nightwind walks over by me and yells,"Mishin!"
The taunt works and Mishin yells back, "What?"  He pokes he head out the side as he yells.
"Why are you here?"
"Don't know why here.  Hobgoblin bring us.  Grack bring us," replied Mishin.
We also find out about a trapped door with circles on it and that they have been raiding the village for food.  We also know that Grack is one level down and that they don't go down to the next level cause they don't come back up.  We found out that there use to be 40 goblins.  Mishin also tells us about their treasure.  Mishin pulls out a small chest and opens it to reveal 300 silver pieces (sp).  We let him keep 50 sp and their weapons and armor, but they have to leave.  They go, but Mishin gives us the key to the chest, and a keyring with three skeleton keys on it.  He tells us that he has tried to kill Grack before, but he couldn't because Grack is smart.
We check the door that leads away from the entrance and its locked.  We try one of the skeleton keys and it opens the door.  Inside we find a large chest and two boxes.  Each box is filled with 24 iron rations.  We open the chest and see three bottles inside.  Two are identified as healing potions and the third is unidentified.  We don't know what it is yet.
We leave and start heading towards the other door to the room with the stairs.  We find a statue inside the room that has red eyes, and get a 10 gold piece (gp) gem and a 50 gp gem.  Lucky the goblins are short.  We start down the stairs to go below.

This is where we called it.  We had some rule look-ups about combat and had to find them before battle.  Next is the third level of the castle of Phrum.  See below for the pictures of level 1 (ground) and level 2 (underground).

Phrum Castle Level 1 (Ground) - need to rotate 90 degrees left

Phrum Castle level 2 (underground)

General Overlay of Area (Original Sketch)