Immolated by Dragonfire: ODND Campaign Heats Up

Homebrewed 0e campaign using Outdoor Survival

Art by Jeff Easley

I’ll be honest - I’m not sure in my many many years of playing D&D if I’ve ever had dungeons and dragons appear in the same game session.

In fact, until a recent solo session of Delving Deeper, I don’t think I’ve ever fought a dragon in a game that has that critter in the name…

This session’s conclusion paid off in spades by rewarding me with a consummate D&D experience that resulted in a lot of excitement, laughter, and ultimately - the campaign’s second addition to the growing Wall of Death.

OK, so where we left off last time, PCs had just made the decision to do a little wilderness exploration outside the large river city of Vør, which is sort of like my campaign’s answer to Lankhmar, but smaller.

It’s probably going to be the most populous city in the campaign world the PCs will experience for some time, and luckily, I have the AD&D Lankhmar supplement to assist. Highly recommend this one for anyone running a city campaign - the tools within are varied and terrific and you can use them without it being a Newhon/Lankhmar game.

They head northwest, into some plain looking terrain that leads up to the foothills of the Lower Vyr mountains…Hex 2112 (Rush fans rejoice), which will now be an ominous and dreaded number from here on out.

First, the random encounter rolled is NPC party, for which I roll all fighters plus a dozen guards, and assume this is a mercenary group of some kind with connections in the city. My big merc crew in Vør is called The Company of Flashing Blades, so its decided they have a group here restoring a ruined tower for use as an outside the city foothold and training facility.

The PCs have some brief conversation as the reaction roll was very positive, and continue north into the foothills.

Here, they encounter another NPC group of fighting men with a few archers. They’re trying to nail down the truth of a rumor of some wyverns in the mountains for a small village to the east who’ve reported seeing flyers in the area from a distance - wyverns are, while not common, definitely known to be frequently spotted in the Vyr range, although usually further north.

PCs have a talk with the group and decide to crew up with them and assist with they Wyvern situation.

Another random encounter is rolled as they head into the crags and foothills of the mountains and I stare in disbelief at the boxcars I’ve rolled for my encounter table.

Red dragon(s).

Quickly, I simply decide that the villagers were dead wrong, and what they saw from faroff and thought were wyverns were actually these dragons, who were much further (and larger) than they imagined!

I make an immediate decision to let the dice fairly arbitrate the situation that looks like it’s going to go south fast - how many are there, 1 or 2?

2. Gulp.

Age? One adult female, one mature male, a mated couple.

I roll distance for both - the female is extremely close, her mate is much further away, hunting the foothills in the late afternoon.

I decide the PCs have just come over a rise and the female sees them.

Rapid, somewhat panicked decision are made - the river is about a half mile away and dragons fly at twice the movement speed of a man.

One fighter flees immediately toward the river, as does one magic user - the other two stay with the NPCs, who dig in and prepare arrows.

The dragon flies closer, and one of the magic users asks -

Can I wait to see if one NPC hits with an arrow and if it’s close enough over head, cast a prepped darkness spell on the arrow itself?

Delving Deeper and ODND is pretty hazy on exact rulings on spells - our decision has been that Light and Darkness must be cast on objects, and within a range of a shortbow or so…

I think the idea is very cool, and say what I always do when players get inventive. “You bet.”

NPCs fire a volley before the dragon closes.

An arrow strikes.

Darkness is cast.

I give fair rolls for everything, and decide on a 1-2 on a D6, the blinded dragon will crash into the ground, as it was in a dive to blast the party with fire.

1.

It slams the ground and takes a few d6 of damage - its breath weapon fires out randomly in rage as PC and NPC alike scatter to surround it, firing into the globe of darkness.

Two NPCs are turned into burned meat, but the rest are firing volleys into the dragon and rolling 20’s like it’s going out of style.

The dragon is killed - but its mate has been flying at top speed to close the distance as it spotted trouble.

A series of frantic running and evasion towards the river (with a brief conversation about cutting open the dead dragon and climbing inside discarded as absurd, time consuming, and likely just to result in everyone getting killed when the big one lands) results in the rest of the NPCs immolated.

The PCs have reached the river and dive in - some are wearing heavy iron mail and narrowly avoid drowning, as they ditch all of their hard won equipment to the bed of the river, swimming for dear life downstream.

The last one to reach the river, PC magic user Zaulreth (heartbreakingly close to leveling up) has a chance to make a DEX check to avoid taking a breath weapon attack before leaping into the water.

Critically fails. Falls face first into the ground, and is absolutely roasted by a 39hp mature dragon cone of fire…those not familiar with ODND rules, dragons breath weapons do the same amount of damage as they have HP, with a save for half. Dismal chances of survival for any lower or mid level PCs.

His character sheet is stamped with the red skull, and added to the Wall of Death.

The others narrowly escape as the enraged dragon turns its fury on the tower being repaired by the mercenaries and the PCs make it out of the area and back to the city to lick their wounds and lament their lost equipment.

An important lesson is learned about the absolute lack of balance in overland encounters, and new fear is instilled about that whole area of the map.

After the game, the surviving magic user has leveled up - Hastur beats the odds and survives level 1 magic user!

His player and I talk, and decide we will add to the weirdness and grimness of magic users in Callastor by deciding they must be Chaotic to get past L3, and that beginning at L3 and every level thereafter, they will roll on a chart to see what new trait of evil they earn. Allergies to certain herbs, aversion to sunlight, necessity to feed on human blood…you see where I’m going with this.

Here is a look at the complete current skill list (we think we may add Gaming to it) we are using.

All skills begin at 1 in 6.

PCs begin with 2 points to place into their skills (we are considering upping this to 4), but cannot raise more than 1 point in a skill per level.

Each level, they gain 1 point to allocate to a skill.

So far so good with this, and players seem to enjoy being able to make something that feels like a ranger, or a thief etc while still just playing a fighting man, and magic users can be herbalists, know lore, or work toward being more versatile by choosing classic thief skills or something.

It’s just another way to vary characters a bit mechanically, and we will see how it goes:

Athletics (climbing sheer walls, swimming, making extreme leaps etc)
Herbalist (allows the identification and collection of herbs for healing and poison)
Forage (bushcraft knowledge applies to trapping, edibles and the like)
Hunt
Track
Navigation (roll to avoid any “getting lost” rolls)
Engineer (traps, building, etc)
Smith (weapons and armor, leather)
Sleight (pickpockets and other prestidigitation)
Locks
Stealth
Lore (ancient languages and histories)
Trade (haggling and wheeling and dealing)
Pilot (ships and their general knowledge)
Ride (horses and other beasts - all can ride passably but the skill allows for more impressive feats)

Next time:

Last Friday’s session includes a daring river heist as our PCs explore the world of Vør’s organized crime for fun and profit, and then work for the other side of the law as caravan guards on an 18 day round trip to the southern city of Doro…

And in so doing, experience the raw power of having an L3 Fighting Man in the party versus large groups of low HD warriors. Carnage ensues!

Keep your blades sharp!

- Castle Grief