When Hack'n'Slash Goes Horribly Wrong

Hardrun Valley Solo B/X Campaign #3

What follows is session 3 and 4 of the current B/X campaign.

I’ve always played a pretty hack and slash style, and this time it wasn’t just the PCs that paid for it.

Session 3 has more of a narrative feel, as I like to experiment with different journaling styles to lend the PCs some depth here and there and explore the world and their relationships and personalities a bit.

I hope you can read my handwriting in Session 4…it’s a doozy.

”When Hack and Slash Goes Horribly Wrong,” indeed.

The bandits we surreptitiously in one of the last sessions have now been marked for death, and we are going in like a shitty 80’s action movie.

Vael is the defacto leader of the group and I wanted him to be different from the average haughty elf - more idealistic, friendly - this is someone who wants friends, and to mend the rift that has formed between the demihuman races.

Buy the ticket, take the ride. Bad planning (lack thereof) and some rough rolls have turned this from bad to worse - but the BX morale roll and reaction check are calling the shots!

I’d be surprised if this was the last we saw of REDSWORD. Rough time for the woodsmen - hopefully the bandits were loaded with loot…

Or, not. Couldn’t help feeling a little bad even though it’s just a game for the woodsmen’s wives and children. They acted pretty nobly to help some locals and paid the price for it - on the other hand, the village was saved a surprise attack by a large bandit force. Win some/lose some.

Not my best painting, but an homage to the brave woodsmen on the pyres in Thorp, that they gave their lives to defend.

Rolling into the next session, I took a minute to work up an area encounter table, with one general section, and then a few tighter location tables for mountains, and further afield areas. It’s incomplete, but will serve.

Drawn behind is the shadow over the campaign, one of the Wyrd demon lords called the Xarath…more on them later, when I know more specifics as they’re revealed to me by the dice!

I skipped over the relatively quick and boring trip to Smallbridge - I didn’t feel like developing or worldbuilding another village, so went right in to the overland journey up into the very dangerous Shield Mountains.

This one was short, brutal and bloody.

Looks inviting - I’m completely certain its absolutely devoid of foul and malevolent inhabitants…oh, shit!

Lots of dice rolls calling the shots here - random encounters, distance, reactions, and so on…

We begin to grasp there are many fell servants of the Wyrd Lords…and rumors of great worms. The harpies serve a chimera, but I didn’t run into them again, thankfully, my ENTIRE party WILL SURVIVE this session.

Evon shows his quality with his Charm of Deathlike Silence this time, but the dice rolls regarding adjacent areas were…merciless. Monsters EVERYWHERE. I also gambled a little too hard here, thinking I could get some good rolls and break morale.

Critical misses and critical hits - all against me in this one.

Torvas Bright, little brother of Bjorn Steelvein, has fallen - the first of the comrades to succumb.

I decided, since the other PCs are all nearly second level, to have treated these sessions as a type of funnel, acting as the PCs backstory for future adventures, if and when I have them - I really want a cleric in the group, but perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.

The PCs drag the dead and wounded out of this terrible fortress of evil, and some time will have elapsed between now and the next session.

Keep your blades sharp.

- CG

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