Keep on the Borderlands Play Report: Sessions 2 & 3

 I got a new job and had been doing a lot of traveling for training so my home game with my kids got pushed to the backburner. This past weekend we were finally able to pick it back up with two solid sessions.

To catch everyone up: Snoh (Magic User 1), Boulder (Fighter 1 - formally named Rokan), Grignak (Thief 1), Hortus (Cleric 1), and Keld (Dwarf 1) had enlisted the help of the jovial priest, Malros, in the keep to launch an attack on the caves (despite the warnings of the Curate). Predictably, Malros betrayed them and it was only a lucky hold person scroll that kept them alive and they were able to drag Malros back to the keep and turn him over to the Castellan who threw him in prison. They looted his apartment and were able to rent it from the jeweler (who I decided was also a landlord).

Returning to the caves they found that the hobgoblins and goblins had brought in wolves and dire wolves to bolster their defenses because the goblin ranks had been decimated. They ended up in a pitched battle and were able to hold the stairwell in room 17, beset by hobgoblins from upper levels and the remaining goblins from the east. The goblin king, already out of favor with the hobgoblins due to his previous losses, died in the battle (there was a cool moment where Snoh tried to use Charm Person on the Goblin King but it unfortunately failed). The hobgoblins pulled back from the stairs to regroup and the party fled east through the caves to get some space between them and the hobgoblins.

After looting the goblin king’s room they used the secret door to the ogre cave to lay low until they could quietly creep away from the ravine and head back to the Keep. On the way they were beset by 8 bandits who tried to shake them down for a 60 gold toll (10 gp per person). After 1 bandit lost his life the rest agreed to let the party pass.

Back at the Keep, Snoh and Boulder decided to visit Malros in prison. Their plan was to press him for information. Malros told them that there was a bloodstone gem set in the mouth of a snake, a pendant, that his mother had given him and he wanted it back if he was to die. In return he would tell them everything he knew about the caves.

They had found the bloodstone gem among his things and secreted it into the prison. Malros took it and told them that there was an evil temple in the upper levels of the caves. He claimed that if they could secure some small comforts he may even be able to make them a map.

The two heroes went back to the Castellan to see what they could bargain for on Malros behalf, but the Castellan informed them that it was impossible and that the evil priest was to be hanged. They also learned that he was the follower of a vile snake cult and at that moment realized what they had given him (a holy symbol). They confessed their deed and rushed off along with the guard to the prison to see the damage they had done.

Malros, upon the arrival of the guard along with Snoh and Boulder, whispered something to a crow outside his prison window and it flew off (speak with animals). He smiled and surrendered the holy symbol. Snoh and Boulder were thrown into the cell with Malros for the night until the Castellan decided what their punishment should be and Malros execution was moved up to the next day.

Snoh and Boulder bribed a guard (200 gold and a charisma check vs. morale) to summon their retainer Grignak the thief. Grignak attempted to pickpocket a guard for his keys (literally rolled a 100), was caught, and was thrown into a cell adjacent to them.

That night (1am) there was a commotion in the Keep as orc archers were shooting at the ramparts. Thinking that they might be under siege the guard mobilized leaving just 2 guards in the prison. A stranger slipped a staff through the bars of the prison window and Malros convinced Snoh and Boulder to attack him.

The two remaining guards opened the cell door to break up the fight and Malros used a Staff of Snakes to kill the first guard while Snoh and Boulder attacked the second. Malros finished off the second guard and turned to escape, but realizing what they had effectively done, Snoh and Boulder picked up the guard’s swords and attacked Malros. Snoh was knocked out quickly and Boulder was constricted by the Staff of Snakes. However, a random encounter check (2) brought two more guards who blocked Malros escape. Another random encounter check later (another 2) and three more guards showed up. Three guards were killed, but so was Malros. Grignak, in the adjacent cell, testified that Malros had planned the entire escape and that Snoh and Boulder had tried to stop him and save the guard’s lives. The partial lie was successful and the “heroes” brought once more before the Castellan who explained all the events of the night appeared to have been a ruse for Malros’ escape.

The Staff of Snakes was given to the Curate Borus who was going to perform a ritual that night to destroy it. Once again, greed got the better of Snoh and Boulder who decided they needed to get the staff for themselves. Using a potion of invisibility (found in the ogre cave in the first session), Grignak sneaked into the chapel while Snoh and Borus loudly created a scene in the street at 4am claiming that they needed entry because the staff was going to be stolen. The guard showed up, thoroughly annoyed with this duo by now, and threatened to put them back in jail for disturbing the peace and began escorting them back to their apartment.

Inside the chapel, Grignak successfully sneaked to the alter (invisible) while the curate prayed before the staff to destroy it in a holy ritual. However, he failed another pickpocket check and the curate Borus rose in shock as the staff seemingly floated off the altar. Grignak ran and the curate cast detect magic, causing him to glow.

Initiative check. If they won Grignak would make it out of chapel and out of range of the curate’s detect magic. If they failed, the curate had a hold person with Grignak’s name on it. They won (4 vs. 2).

Grignak disappeared into the dark of the early morning and the curate ran out into the streets yelling that the agents of the Snake Cult had stolen the staff. The guards, still with Snoh and Boulder (giving them the perfect alibi) rushed back to the chapel upon hearing the curate's yells.

The next morning the Castellan summoned them once again, explaining that dark powers in the cave were stronger than he expected and evidently even within the walls of the keep.  He doubled the reward promised to destroy the evil altar in the Caves of Chaos.

They tested my improv skills during those sessions, but it was a good time. It turned into a very Pirates of the Caribbean plotline where they continued to fail forward in spite of their own bad decision making. Kids, even more than normal D&D players, are psychopaths.

The Great Garlic Gambit

This post is heavily inspired by the ideas here: Trollsmyth's Theoretical Framework for OSR (2010)

“Garlic, bud 5.”

-Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson, Dungeons & Dragons Book I Men & Magic, p.14

Some things in our fantasy games don’t make sense and our initial impulse is to fix them or ignore them. However, sometimes I find it more enjoyable to take those things at face value. Accept them, lean into them. They do make sense, it is our job to understand how and why. This adventure started with the price of garlic, why was it so expensive?  To create the veneer of plausibility I needed to do the following exercise to truly understand the economics of garlic in our fantasy games. Nothing that follows is remotely scientific, it’s lazy research and preposterous assumptions applied to a fantastical problem.

Price

A single bud of garlic, a clove, costs 5 gold pieces. On average, a head of garlic contains 10 cloves and weighs 2.5 oz. A head of garlic costs 50 gold. A pound of garlic costs 320 gold.

Production

In 2022 a single acre of land can produce 15,000 pounds of garlic.  Historical garlic production is not well documented, but historical wheat production (at least from a western perspective) is relatively accessible. In the last 850 years wheat yields have improved 7.5x from 6 bushels per acre to 45. Assuming similar improvements in garlic farming have been achieved, a fantasy acre of land can produce 2,000 pounds of garlic per year.

However, garlic has a 9 month growing season and is hard on the soil.  After harvest, a field would be left fallow for the next 2 seasons to allow it to recover. Therefore, consistent production requires a 3 field rotation which decreases actual yield to closer to 667 pounds per acre. 133 pounds (20%) would be required to plant the next crop leaving 534 pounds per acre being produced for the market.

Consumption

In 2018 Europe consumed 124 metric tons (273,373 pounds) of caviar. Europe’s population in 2018 was 750 million people. That is less than .006 oz per person. Following the Black Death, Europe’s population was 50 million people. To emulate the scarcity of caviar, total garlic production in our fantasy world would be 18,225 pounds. That is the equivalent of 35 acres of production. A single large farm.

Supply Chain & Profit

As established, 320 gold per pound is the final retail price of garlic. Assuming 50% markup, the retailer is paying 160 gold per pound. The wholesaler’s markup is 30% and pays 112 gold per pound. The distributor’s markup is 25% and pays 84 gold per pound. Therefore, the farm is pulling in 1,530,900 gold annually from its 18,225 pounds of production.

To put this into perspective, a non-fighter can be hired for 12 gold per year, a heavy horseman for 240 gold per year, an engineer for 9,000 gold per year, and a sage for 24,000 gold per year. The garlic farmer is the richest person in the known world, a kingmaker capable of bankrolling entire wars with gold to spare.

Who Controls the Garlic?

Nestled in the Kolono Mountains, east of the Sangon Dunes and west of the Turkiso Wood, is the elven Duchy of Ajlo. Its wealth is unparalleled for it is the source of all the world’s garlic. It is ruled by the God-Duke Maslen Theobault.

Maslen Theobault lives in the Garlic Palace, a 178 acre complex (the size of the Forbidden City in China) that completely encompasses  the 35 acres of garlic fields that are the source of the Duchy’s wealth.

Within the premises the garlic is either cured and powdered, roasted, pickled, or crushed and jarred prior to export to ensure a viable bulb never leaves the compound.

Secrets of Garlic

The consumption of a single clove of fresh garlic extends one’s natural life by 1 day. The unusually long lifespans of elves is actually directly tied to their garlic heavy diet. Elven adventurers tend to age much quicker than normal elves because maintaining a diet high in fresh garlic is difficult outside of the confines of the Duchy of Ajilo.

Where to go from here?

This is my favorite type of world building, spiraling out from what already exists in the text. I have always wanted to write a high level dungeon, my belief being that if I have something I want to play at the high levels then I will be motivated to run a campaign sufficiently long enough for my players to see it. This is the birth of that adventure...

The Great Garlic Gambit! A 178 acre Forbidden City like compound where no expense has been spared to protect the only living garlic plants in the world. Escaping with just one viable bulb could change the course of the world!

Wish me luck!

Edit: So you can find it on the map. Thank you to Rob Conley for this great Outdoor Survival Map that made these hexes possible.

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/11/original-southlands-map.html 

Keep on the Borderlands Play Report 1

Quite a while ago I had started Keep on the Borderlands with my kids and we made it through the goblin section before trailing off. Since then we bounced around The Tower of Zenopus, some one page dungeons, and a couple Basic Fantasy adventures. But we haven’t managed a true campaign, and that is my fault. It is 2024 and I’m trying to spend a little more time actually playing D&D. Long story short, we got back to the Keep on the Borderlands because for me it is a great campaign starter.
 

House Rules (for those that care)

Here is the actual play report from today.

Snoh (MU1) and Rokan (F1), brothers looking for adventure, arrived at the Keep. After having a cordial conversation with the guards they entered and headed straight for the tavern. They spent all of their starting coin buying rounds to gather rumors and picked up four ne’er-do-wells who agreed to join them for a half-share each: Keld Marblegaze (D1), Grignok (T1), Hortus (C1), and Masud (F1).

Abilities were all 3d6 down the line. We rolled up 6 characters with the understanding that the 4 “unused” ones would be our starting retainers. This led to a couple interesting characters…

Masud (Str 5, Int 11, Wis 9, Dex 15, Con 14, Cha 6) the fighter was inspired by a Slinger (Mercenary in AD&D DMG) and outfitted with a sling, shield and chain.

Hortus (Str 5, Int 13, Wis 15, Dex 6, Con 9, Cha 16) the cleric is a fat priest who carries the torch and is outfitted with shield and chain.

Getting their group together pretty quick, they headed out to the caves. They did the predictable things and hit the goblin cave first (it is the closest ground level cave to the entrance of the ravine, I was never sure why the Kobold cave seems to be the assumed “start” of the complex). They were able to sneak in the entrance thanks to some lucky wandering monster rolls and surprise checks and got the drop on the 6 goblins in the guard room.

1 dropped in the surprise round. At the beginning of the next round 1 ran for the stairs, the other 4 stood to fight. The characters with ranged weapons shot at and missed the fleeing goblin and the melee characters whiffed… until Hortus was up to bat. “Back you foul creatures! Back I say!” Waving around his torch he rolled a 20 and did 3 points of damage to bring low a goblin.

20s always hit for max damage. He needed a 20 because he was rolling at -6 (-2 Str and -4 improvised weapon).

The players won initiative in round 2 and fortunately their ranged attackers were able to kill the fleeing goblin this time before he was able to make it up the stairs (he would have if the goblins had won initiative). 2 more goblins fell and the last 2 surrendered. They tied up their captives and were ambushed from behind by 6 more goblins. They fought their way out but Rokan was down to 1 hp so they hustled back to the keep.

The guards would not allow them back into the keep with the goblins and wanted to dispatch the goblins on sight. The party decided to set up a camp outside the walls with a rotating watch so that the goblins could be kept alive. The goblins, fearing for their lives, promised to show them where the ogre lived and a secret door into the goblin halls.

4 days were spent at the keep. The party made friends with a mysterious priest named Malros despite the warnings of the keep’s curate Borus who was openly suspicious of the other priest. Borus did tell the party that for 100 gold he could arrange a meeting for them with the Castellan.

The party plus Malros and his 2 acolytes went back to the caves. The goblins had trapped and fortified the main entrance, but party skipped it following the goblin captives to the hidden ogre cave. Another fortunate surprise roll and Snoh the Magic User cast Sleep on the Ogre. They murdered it, stole its loot, and then were prepared to head back to the keep. Realizing that the party was going to drag them back to the keep, the goblin captives started screaming. The secret door swung open and the party plus Malros and his acolytes made short work of the 6 goblins that jumped them. Their goblin captives did not survive the aftermath of the battle.

Feeling powerful, they decided to push further into the goblin halls. They came across 10 more goblins and their luck started changing.

House Rule Alert! Death: Standing at 0 HP (cannot be reduced below 0). If struck again save vs. death. If successful you are unconscious but have lost a hand, arm, foot, etc. If failed, you die. I tried death and dismemberment tables but they were a bit "too much." This way a player gets 1 round to break ranks and try to escape with their life.

Hortus went to 0 HP in the first round. 2 goblins fell, but Malros and his acolytes hung back. Snoh went to 0 HP in the second round and then Malros struck, hitting Rokan with Inflict Light Wounds in the back bringing him to 0 HP. Several more goblins fell, but with half the party one hit from death and pinned between a 4th level evil cleric and 6 goblins things looked grim.

Hortus used the hold person scroll that they found in the ogre’s cave on Malros who failed his save. Two more goblins were killed and the remaining 3 ran. They murdered the priest and the 2 acolytes surrendered after seeing their leader so easily dispatched. The party hightailed it back to the keep with new captives in tow before the goblins could return with reinforcements.

Session 2 tomorrow! And they already had a major power spike when they picked up a +1 mace, +1 plate, and +1 shield along with approximately 500 xp!

The Girardoni Air Rifle

 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle

Someone over on Reddit today asked about some cool historical firearms that could be included in games. This made me think of a weapon that was like a firearm but was not actually a firearm - the Girardoni Air Rifle.

The Girardoni Rifle was used primarily by the Austrians for a brief period from 1780 to 1815. This gun was a contemporary of the early muzzle loading rifles, but it came well after the musket which was represented by the heavy arquebus as early as 1521.

The wikipedia article I linked at the top of the page is extremely interesting and I am not going to summarize all of it here, but basically the Girardoni Air Rifle used compressed air to shoot 9-13 gram balls at high velocity. Because it did not rely on gunpowder it had several advantages over a traditional musket or rifle:

• Quiet
• Smokeless
• No flash
• Could be reloaded from a prone position
• Could be used in wet conditions
  
• Could fire up to 30 shots consecutively (no priming)
• Effective range of 150 yards
  
• Steampunk as ****
  

 However, it was fragile, expensive, and re-pressurizing the tank required upwards of 1500 pumps (the tanks were modular so you could just take the empty tank off and put an already pressurized tank on if you had a spare). Also, as could be imagined the gun would progressively lose power as it was shot (although most sources I went to in my quick google around the internet seemed to agree that ~30 shots could be fired).

Now the important stuff: The Girardoni Air Rifle for your B/X Game. I'm using the firearms rules from Carcass Crawler #1 to model this:

Girardoni Air Rifle: 750 gp (includes 1 tank); 9 lbs, 4' length

• Damage: Equal to current Resource Die (Compressed Air)
  
• Range: 5'-50' / 51'- 100' / 101' - 150'
  
• Magazine: 20 musket balls (can be shot 20 rounds in a row without reload).
• Reloading the magazine takes 1 round
  
• Compressed Air: Start at d12. Roll with every shot, on a 1 or 2 it reduces one step. When 1 or 2 is rolled on d4 the air tank is completely empty.
• Tank can be recharged by 1 step by taking 1 turn (10 min) pump it back up. This is very tiring, 2 people working together can recharge it twice as fast (taking turns).
• An empty tank can be switched for a full spare in 2 rounds (1 round to remove the old tank, 1 round to attack the new tank).
  
• Fragile: Using as  a club (1d6) has a 2-in-6 chance of permanently breaking the gun.

20 musket balls cost 1 gp (you don't need to buy powder, wadding, and cord).

A spare tank (that is the tricky part to make) costs 500gp. If you use item saving throw rules, treat spare tanks as potions with a +4 bonus on their save.