The Creep On the Borderlands
Last night was our first session of The Keep on the Borderlands, played almost entirely via Google Hangouts with my iPhone mounted on a camera tripod over the gaming mat. The setup worked pretty well once we got the kinks worked out, but one of the big annoyances with Google Hangouts is that there are different kinks every time. So when planning the sessions, I'm going to have to allow for the fact that the first half-hour is always going to be fixing whatever broke this time.
The adventure starts with the party arriving at the gate of the Keep, where they are ordered to state their names and purpose before being allowed entry. The characters were:
- Brother Drang, a human tempest cleric of Kord, come to the wilderness to kick butt for great justice
- Togar, a dragonborn paladin of Bahamut, drawn to the Borderlands by forces unknown to battle against Chaos [1]
- Nikki, an anthropomorhic flying squirrel rogue with magic juggling clubs
- Rina Gremaer, a young wood elf ranger looking for adventure
- Sheala Amastacia, an even younger (seeming) high elf wizard with the aspect of an 11-year-old girl
- Miskan, a purrsian (large, intelligent winged cat race) bard, looking for adventure and new tales to tell
An odd collection, to be sure, but as the corporal of the watch recognized the holy symbols of Kord and Bahamut, and the group seemed friendly enough, they were let into the Keep, although they did notice a scribe taking note of their names and particulars upon arrival.
Inside the Keep, tensions were clearly high. A jewel merchant tried desperately to interest them in his wares, which were obviously not selling, and they eventually learned that the lord of the Keep's daughter (Lady Cynthia) had been captured by gnolls, for nefarious purposes unknown, and that there was an enormous reward for her rescue. There was also talk of bandits, and of course rumblings about bands of widely different groups of evil humanoids, who would not normally be associating, but were all together in an area referred to as the Caves of Chaos.
In the tavern, they were also chatted up by Brother Sampson, a travelling monk and most jovial fellow, who insisted on buying drinks for Brother Drang and eventually dinner for Sheala, and happily chattered away about anything and everything. His two acolytes, a sour pair who had taken vows of silence and so could not join in the conversation, sat nearby impassively.
The group finally decided on a general plan of trying to investigate both the bandits and the missing Lady Cynthia. They spoke to Helgist, the captain of the guard at the Keep, who told them that Lady Cynthia had loved to go out hunting as she grew up, and that as the relatively low threat of nearby kobolds turned into the more pressing threat of aggressive goblin-kind and gnolls, Lord Blakewell had started insisting that she be escorted by guards. On one of these outings, they'd been ambushed by gnolls and all of the guards wiped out, with Helgist only managing to escape by pretending to be dead himself. The gnolls had carried off Lady Cynthia and there'd been no sign of her since, despite the Keep regularly sending out squads of troops to look for her- many of which didn't return.
Further investigation revealed that the bandit activity, and the humanoid attacks, were coming from opposite directions. Unable to pursue both simultaneously, the party decided to begin by investigating the woods where Lady Cynthia used to hunt to look for clues.
Tromping through the woods, they eventually encountered a hermit called Old Bob, who I described as being "Not quite Tom Bombadil, and not quite George Carlin, but somewhere between the two." They greeted Old Bob cordially and he returned the same, and they began to chat. He gave them general directions to the Caves of Chaos, but as they talked to him they gradually began to realize he wasn't exactly playing with a full deck- particularly when he began to talk about how "the king" spoke to him in his dreams at night and gave him strange commands.
Once they came to the conclusion that they'd learned all they were going to from Old Bob, they continued their trek, following the directions he'd given them. As the sun began to go down and they searched for somewhere to camp, they came upon a hollow with a grisly scene: several dead kobolds and a few dead goblins, with goblin arrows scattered everywhere (including in the kobolds). So it would appear that the various bands of humanoids did not necessarily get along as well as all that.
So they set up camp for the night, giving Miskan the first watch. All was well until suddenly, much to his surprise, the purrsian bard felt a vice-like grip around his throat- Old Bob had crept into the camp while the rest slept and was strangling Miskan from behind! Fortunately in his near-death throes Miskan had managed to yowl and kick enough to wake up the rest of the party- unarmored but ready to fight as they realized the true nature of Old Bob's madness. Old Bob's pets- a pair of mountain lions- joined in the battle, and things looked grim as Miskan had been dropped to 0 hit points by the opening attack (Old Bob was a 5th level assassin, doing 3d6+1 with an unarmed sneak attack). Togar used his laying on hands ability to bring Miskan back from the brink, as the rest of the party slew one of the mountain lions and attacked Old Bob, causing him to flee. Miskan cast sleep spell on the lunatic as he ran and he faceplanted, allowing them to tie him up as his other mountain lion fled.
When Old Bob awoke, they interrogated him, discovering that he was convinced that "The Yellow King" had ordered him to kill and eat people, and had been doing so for years. Old Bob also said that the stars were watching everything they did. When pressed for more details about who this Yellow King was, Bob was vague, other than that he was yellow, and had a crown, thus making him the Yellow King.
They marched Old Bob back to his home, a giant hollowed out tree, looking for evidence of his crimes, but there was nothing to be found. So they instead took him back to the Keep, delivering him to the Bailiff and explaining what had happened. The Bailiff locked him up, and the heroes (having been up all night) headed to the Inn to get some rest.
That afternoon, after getting much-needed sleep, they set out into the woods again. They followed the trail towards where they believed the Caves of Chaos to be until it got dark, at which point they camped again. Fortunately, Miskan's watch completed without incident this time. On the second watch, Nikki and Togar were somewhat surprised to discover that the party was surrounded by a company of wood elf scouts, who were apparently simply observing the characters to see what they were about. The elves were not terribly chatty, but seemed like good enough sorts, who wandered off into the darkness.
In the morning, the group continued their march east [2]. As they traveled, they heard a vicious cackling and yapping- gnolls, converging on them fast. Most of the party hid, except for Togar who, being an enormous dragonborn in heavy armor, made a better Giant Distraction than anything else.
Unfortunately, being a Giant Distraction meant that the gnolls opened the fight by all three of them chucking spears at him. Togar dropped, and this time Brother Drang ran to his aid with a healing spell. The remainder of the battle was short but intense- the gnolls were quickly defeated, and the characters decided to take a short rest to recover.
We ended the session there; the characters had earned enough experience points to become 2nd level [3], so we dealt with that before signing off, and plan to continue next week. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I certainly enjoyed it. I never got to run Keep On the Borderlands "back in the day," so I'm happy to have the chance now.
-The Gneech
[1] That's Chaos with a capital C! The Keep on the Borderlands is a very Moorcockian place.
[2] Even though I kept calling it west. Stupid map dyslexia.
[3] 5E deliberately tries to shoot you up to at least 3rd level very quickly, but levels out a bit from there to keep you in that 3rd-8th level "sweet spot" for a long time.