The Baltimore Undermountain Dungoneering Society, pt. 2 ( OSR x 5e )

 

Our open table game is expanding with supplemental recruiting on social media. I was forgetful of Mother's Day here in the states, which made me reschedule delve four as pretty much everyone was unavailable. I was able to run a session 0 with a player who was new in town, and we were more or less able to comfortably scope out how busy the local food hall is as well, so a full-on session is in planning there. We also had a successful delve and some new high scores!

B.U.D.S. Primer Zines

In order to further expedite the character creation process, and not carry around so many digital objects to run the game, I decided to print out some zines that have the house rules in them. This is my first attempt at making zines, and I totally messed up the margins and just printed them at Staples, but I'm still pretty happy with the outcome.

Delve IV Flyer

 I guess if you plan on running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist or Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage there may be some spoilers here, as I ran this session a lot closer to the 5e book.

Instead of cooking, we decided to get two big pizzas from one of my favorite pizza places around here, and the party immediately got to trading gear, picking up rumors, and hiring other characters to go on the delve. The Orc that wound up with a cursed sword was nowhere to be found, but he has made it known that he's none too happy and feels deceived by his former employers (namely the man named Deerjohn who hired him.) A different strong Orc bodyguard was here with a cloaked and masked companion, and the two were picked up by the party again (hired directly by Deerjohn, again, given a substantial day's wage instead of a treasure share.) Rumors indicated that vampires had been seen below, so the characters loaded up on garlic and wooden stakes. Other rumors indicated that Durnan, the proprietor, had fought a troll that ascended the well in the tavern since their last delve, revealing that he's probably a lot stronger than he looks. Other parties who had descended in the weeks prior had not returned. True to his roguish nature, Deerjohn also wanted to pick pockets in the Yawning Portal to cover his party's lift costs. In doing so, he misjudged finding a person down on their luck, and accidentally found himself pick-pocketing from someone with a large amount of Baldur's Gate trade bar currency, and stuck to taking one gold coin. He then left, found a passed out drunk, took his remaining coppers and weapons, and pawned them for quick cash. (Referee note: I was able to run all the pick-pocketing stuff really well using "City System", a 2e Waterdeep supplement that has a surprisingly detailed thievery table.)

Upon descending into Undermountain, a member of the party was able to detect spies closing a secret door and running away.  Knowing that this northern way is a passage other parties hadn't explored yet, a new silent Dwarven companion took a warhammer and destroyed the stone panel over some time while the party guarded the entry site. What followed was the party encountering the bandit gang known as The Undertakers, who were tipped off to the approach of the noisy expedition. They posed as vampires, demanding gold; the party offered blood, and became suspicious when the "vampires" didn't seem thrilled with the prospect. Negotiations broke down, and a fight ensued, where the acting captain was taken hostage and incapacitated, while three bandits were slain, and five ordered to strip naked and march to the lift as humiliation. It was also at this point the party discovered the cloaked companion was a Skeleton, but it didn't seem to bother anyone as the Skeleton didn't talk and was mostly accompanying the Orc named Fender.

The party did not follow the five ordered to ascend the lift, choosing to interrogate the captain instead. Interrogations broke down, and the Deerjohn killed the captain. His corpse was dragged back to the entry well while the party looted the southern end of the bandit headquarters. On the northern end, the bandit leader plugged the hallway with a Flesh Golem, and when the party advanced they found they had little prospect of defeating it, so they disengaged and decided to hunt the Grells they'd heard about/seen on the previous expedition.

While en route to the Grells, two Crab Spiders were randomly encountered, which rolled favorably in reaction. The Drow bard Chuk used Speak with Animals to communicate their intent to kill the Grells and allow the spiders to eat them, and the spiders again rolled very favorably in reaction, completely game for the antics of the party. Following along the ceiling with a party of six, as well as some crows and a Quasit, the party desended on the Grells quickly for revenge, then left the spiders to take over the room instead. (Referee note: Rarely do you get such an opportunity for the dungeon to restock itself through emergent gameplay. Truly a chef's kiss moment.)

The bandit encounter had drained a lot of resources, though the party had only been down for a couple of hours. Laden with some treasure and combat experience, as well as some new information on the map, the party decided to head back up the lift to the Yawning Portal. The members of the party earned 926 experience each.

High Scores

Chuk - Drow Bard 2/Fighter 1 - 1436 XP
Silkie - Dragonborn Paladin 3 - 1436 XP
Deerjohn Lastname - Changeling Rogue 3 - 1436 XP
Saer Glanhig - Dwarf Cleric 3 - 926 XP
Fender - Orc Barbarian 3 - 926 XP (NPC)
Gibson - Skeleton Fighter 3 - 926 XP (NPC)
B.C. "Bob" Rich - Orc Fighter 2 - 510 XP (NPC)