S&W Sessions Journal: Ghoooowels

We picked up our Swords and Wizardry game again last night with an additional player who will be with us on and off again as time allows him. I gave him the option of playing one of the existing backup PCs/NPCs or else rolling up his own from scratch and he chose to play Gulch the assassin (we’re playing with Macri’s Supplemental Lore.)

Like our last OSRIC game, there was a lot of catching up to do. I’d originally intended to role play a number of developments following the party’s capture of the warehouse burglars but so much time had passed that I felt the excitement and inertia of those events had been lost. Instead, I just explained how there had been some controversy initially about what had happened - the burglars’ father was a shopkeeper himself and had accused the party and his competitor who’d hired them with conspiracy. In the end, the party’s reputation (due to recovering holy books from the abandoned temple across the river) got them off the hook.

On a side note, Frederick Charles, the local hireling who the party had pushed to the front and who’d been slain by skeletons, has become a minor celebrity and martyr in death. His reputation has grown so that now it was widely believed that he’d originally been the leader of the party. The party has taken this in good humor and perhaps wisely chosen not to contest the notion. Of course a few of the village elders and local clergy know better, but for political purposes are not discouraging the rumors. On a less positive note, Frederick Chuck's mother in mourning has overcome her hysteria and grief to an extent and has begun telling anyone who will listen that the party hadn’t even seen fit to give her and her husband a share of the treasure that they’d recovered as an inheritance. This was true…

For many weeks now, the party had been lounging about town and enjoying spending their new found wealth (mostly on food and drink.) One morning they awoke and it just seemed to click with all of them it was time to set out again, either to finish an enterprise or begin a new one. Wagstaff thought they should complete the job they’d started in the employ of the church, so they hired some fishermen and were transported to the other side of the river where they hiked up to the abandoned temple.

It wasn’t long before they were once again engaged in combat with the undead - first more skeletons, and then several ghouls. Upon first seeing these, Agnal had shouted “Ghouls!” which was misheard by at least one of the players as “Jewels!” It was only after Agnal had been wounded and fled, and one of the dwarves became paralyzed that Wagstaff realized what these creatures were. Nevertheless, the party fought on, Olav the dwarf was unconscious when the last ghoul was slain, with great aid given by Frayse who had discovered that his sword seemed to have a magical ability versus the undead after saying aloud the inscription on it in their presence. After the battle, he ran as fast as he could after the limping and fleeing Agnal, and retrieved him to where the rest of the party was crowded around Olav. Agnal has no magic power at first level, but he was trained in first aid at his original seminary school (which he was was eventually kicked out of) and was able to restore Olav to consciousness. They left the basement of the temple again and went back to town, scarfing up what items they could on the way including some ornamental silver swords and war hammers, candles, and robes.

They flagged down fishermen from the beach and returned to town across the river. Barely back, they were accosted near the docks by the harbormaster’s wife (Frederick Charles' mother) who accused them of being evil and selfish men. Gulch offered her one of the recovered silver items and she seemed satisfied. He also offered her a black candle, which she found repulsive and quickly went away. The group began to make their way back to the tavern for a hard earned rest.