LL with Nick - Return to Hommlet

Nick's game continued tonight - he's never played the Temple of Elemental Evil, which I was shocked to find out, so I strongly impressed upon him his need to play it... at least to some extent. I'm probably going to substitute something for the Temple bit, but wanted him to at least play in Hommlet and the moathouse near to it.

As I mentioned in my last game journal post, Nick's character Agnal had been discovered to be of evil persuasion. I don't think he fully realized what spell had been cast on him at the church, but after wandering around the town for a while, he and his travelling companion Mog ended up visiting the druid Jaroo, who made courteous small talk and then suggested that they dine together at the inn. Back at the inn, Jaroo mentioned that he saw some village leaders in a private room off from the main dining hall, and that Agnal and Mog should meet them, considering the types of questions they'd been asking him and of others around town.

"After you..." he said to them, motioning them into the company of seven men seated at a long dining table. On the left, the priest they'd met earlier at the church, Calmert. Farther away on the same side was Terjon, his superior. Rufus, an imposing fighting man sat still farther away on the left - at the head of the table sat Burne, obviously a magician. On the right side of the table were three individuals who appeared to be travellers, one of whom was an elf.

Introductions were not made, only Burne announced his name and spoke to Agnal, asking his business in town. His tone became increasing aggressive, as Nick (Agnal that is) struggled to kiss ass ingratiate himself and explain (audio clip!) how his church had sent him to help. In the end, it was hopeless for Agnal - Calmert had notified Terjon of the evil nature of Agnal, who had then contacted Rufus, and Burne, who had himself contacted Jaroo to arrange a meeting. They had not expected to be able to meet with Agnal himself, but merely to discuss his detention and interrogation at some future point. Here now he'd introduced himself to them, and they confirmed Calmert's magic by using their own. Agnal confessed to nothing, but was led from the room to be shackled and questioned further to be followed by his expulsion at a great distance from the village. Mog did a good job of explaining her relationship with her church and Agnal, and once her basically good nature was confirmed, was asked to join the other three at the table.

These three were: Narmain, a fighter, Ipsil the thief, and Eluxen Dawnrazor (fancypants), an elf. These three had made it known that they were available for hire should the town need any evil exterminated, and after being interviewed by Burne and the lot, it had been agreed that they'd be told of the ruined moathouse's existence and encouraged to go there and find out whether it was being used as a hideout for bandits or any other nefarious purposes. Burne and the others were reluctant to go themselves, lest the village be attacked in their absence. The four adventurers were joined shortly thereafter by a huge fighter named Kersow Kaludh and ventured out to the moathouse.

As everyone who's ever played this module can likely guess, the party was of course promptly jumped by the giant frogs near to the ruins' entrance, and though suffering no losses, all but the elf suffered serious injuries requiring them to turn back to town without even having been able to enter.

A pretty smooth session - I appreciated both my digest sized copy of LL and my miniature DM screen for the space they saved me (my office desk is an absolute mess). The index card character sheets were perfect and allowed me to shuffle through the party during combat very quickly.

There wasn't a ton of action tonight, but we did get to some combat and managed to work out the potential stumbling block of the evil Agnal (whom we may not have seen the last of!)... From here on there will be straight up dungeoneering to be done, which should prove more fun. I was glad to hear that Nick enjoyed the session as much as I. Hopefully we can get another session in this weekend. Next weekend we might do a test of his self-made fantasy rpg instead of playing LL. Should be interesting.

Moathouse artwork by Dave Trampier, copyright TSR