OSH Karst Chantry (Part 1) AP

Friday's Old School Hack game was really unusual in that we played on a Friday. On normal game nights, this would have been impossible. But lacking the two players that would have been most affected by Northern Virginia's notorious traffic issues actually improved the commute situation for the rest of us. Leaving directly from work also had the side benefit of giving me some extra time for game prep (and let's here it for the office printer!).

My preparation for this game consisted of getting a start on stocking my Karst Chantry map with more DungeonWords, as well as printing character sheets, extra copies of the rules (in PocketMod format!), and assembling a list of names. I also tried to bone up on Zak's awesome Vornheim because I had a notion that I'd kick off the game in that setting. As it turns out, the players were keen on continuing with the characters that we used in the Temple of Hentai adventure. That was fine by me. I just didn't think anybody had saved their characters. Well, a few of the player didn't have their characters but it is ridiculously easy to reconstruct them in Old School Hack. Lacking a fighter, our only new player selected the swashbuckler template from Barsoomcore's excellent Dino Pirates of Ninja Island hack.

The Characters

• Sven (Thief): A charming rogue from the western cities, his goal was to "get lucky". With Belinda the elf blowing him off (and not in a good way), he was mostly left to watch other characters score with the Silver Wolf's busty barmaids.
• Eck Redbeard (Dwarf): A female dwarf that could only be deduced as such (the female part) through close scrutiny. Having achieved her goal last session, she is focused on scoring some dungeon loot to impress her hirsute beau back in the dwarfholds.
• Drak the Wild (Magic-User): Dressed in black robes and wielding a heavy scythe, he had a surprisingly  pleasant disposition for one of such morbid appearance. After avenging the death of his former companion in the last session, he traded away most of his wealth for a treasure map to the Karst Chantry that would be the focus of this session activities.
• Gay-Ho, the Great Patriarch of Hakuna (Cleric): The Great Patriarch of Hakuna is the only patriarch of Hakuna. In fact, he is the only worshiper of Hakuna, a lost god now confined to a Brady Bunch tiki in a satchel. Looking a bit like Don Ho in his prime, the Great Patriarch's goal was to gain at least one more follower for his god. Having acquired and then lost three fickle followers in the last session and the intervening months, his goal is to find some more reliable worshippers to elevate his patron deity above the rank of insignificant godling.
• Colin Silverblade (Swashbuckler): Seeking a cause, fame, and wealth, Colin followed a caravan into Sanctuary and quickly identified the party as not-entirely unworthy adventuring companions. He cuts quite a figure in his silk tunic and outrageously high boots.

The Setup
It was nearly midsummer at the Silverwolf Inn and the place was packed beyond capacity due to the pleasant weather and still-in-town caravan. Two parties of adventurers huddle in the corner, pouring over maps of the wild and plotting their expeditions. The player characters are one such party and they listen to Drak spin tales of a lost wizard's chantry in the wilds beyond the pass. The founders of Drak's own Scholomance are reputed to have originated there and stories of its continued existence persisted until the close of the previous century. Surely there must great treasure to be won within its haunted passages.

The other party of adventurers made an early exit from the inn before the nights festivites truly got under way. Were the strangely knowing looks on their faces as the passed the player character's table an ominous sign for the next session? (We'll have to find out on on Friday)

The Journey
Ah, if ever there was a time for a montage sequence, this was it. The party passed a week of uneventful travel, guiding their poor mule along dusty tracks on the western slopes of the south-eastern range.

Arrival
Late in the afternoon of the seventh day, the party arrived at the edge of cliff to spy countless rocky formations, the afformentioned karsts that gave the chantry its name. On the nearest, the entire visible portion of the rock is carved with cyclopean sculptures of lewd and lacisvious nature. The party descends down a treacherous switchback, across a saddle, and begins their ascent up the narrow path that winds clockwise around the karst.

First Fight!
And here is where ye Old School Hack really shined for us. Alerted by falling rocks, the party braces for the impact of an ambush of five really tough gargoyles (modeled as 5 hit monsters with powers of flight as well). The narrow ledge was both tight and hazardous, with similar arenas connecting tip-to-tail. The gargoyles arrived out of an open arena and the daring swashbuckler Colin created yet another by jumping onto a gargoyle's back. Awesome point flowed freely as the party took quite a beating. It finally ended with some daring moves, climbing on statues, and (alas) a rapier shattered in a killing blow against the guardians.

Dungeoneer's Caution
After the fight, the party proceeded a bit more cautiously up the path. They noticed three downward facing arrow slits and squeezed themselves by in such a way as to try to avoid the arc of fire. Of course, the mule couldn't contort itself but after all that effort, nobody was home to shoot them.

Arriving at the door of the half-collapsed gatehouse that extended from the side of the cliff, the party narrowly avoided a fiendish curse that would have dismembered an overly-eager hand upon one of it's two knockers. Instead, the party retreated back down the path a short way and grabbed a piece of lewd statuary that had fallen from the hillside and used it as a battering ram. Of course, instead of knocking down the door, they knocked down the entire gatehouse.

Scouting Ahead
Lacking an easy way into the locked door that now stood just out reach against the cliffside, Sven and Colin grabbed a hold of the numerous pornographic protuberances and climbed in through the arrow slits. Scouting around a bit in the fading light, they avoided falling to their doom in a concealed floor trap and opened the front door for the rest of the party, who then proceeded to use ropes to cross the perilous gap.

Shrine of the Flayed God
As a party, the adventurers moved past the entry chamber, which contained a near-empty and semi-magical font, as well as three statues of unknown but undoubtedly infamous necromancers from antiquity. Then they wandered into a room that smelled like a charnel house, with still-fresh skins of a variety of humanoids arranged in a purposeful manner. A trail of blood led off to the south.

After detouring through an observation room (acquiring some of their first loot in the form of orichalcum astrological instruments), the party came to face to faceless with the flayed hunters who constructed the makeshift shrine to their abominable deity. Another fight ensued in a chamber filled with corpses dangling on chains, but it was ended before escalation thanks to a well-placed sleep spell by Drak the Wild.