Dungeons & Dragons Game post – “Dance Hall Days”

The game continues, as the players once again tackle the Keep on the Borderlands module. I’m not sure I mentioned this before, but this is one of the most popular and well known D&D modules. It was included in the original D&D Basic rules box set, so everyone had a copy and played the hell out of it. Especially if they never bought any other modules. It’s also interesting because it acts like a sandbox. Giving the Dungeon Master enough information to run a game, but also leaving a lot of areas vaguely fleshed out that can be expanded into something more to keep the adventures going.

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Last we left off, the party had ended the session just outside a Gnoll cave. My son wasn’t present, so we dismissed his character as having to run off to deal with a sickness in the family. My daughter’s friend met up with the party, and brought four more hirelings with her.

The party consisted of:
Hera the Ranger – my daughter
Helen the Paladin – daughter’s friend
Hirelings: Brie (Halfling Bard), “The Archer” (Human Fighter), Drep (Human Fighter), Birog (Human Druid), Twilidon (Human Fighter), Murtran (Halfling Fighter).

After entering the cave, they ran into a room (46) and encountered a Gnoll setup.

There were 2 Gnolls with melee weapons at the end of the hall (sentries) and 2 Gnoll archers behind cover. D&D doesn’t have any pinning rules, so usually the opponents will just run up on the archers and close. Thus negating their ranged attacks.

Since the archers were hunkered down, ready for an attack, I decided to make things a little more dangerous. I told the players if they charge up to the archers, that the archers would get a free attack.

This resulted in the players cautiously moving up and spending a couple turns exchanging missile fire.

Finally they decided to just run up and attack the archers instead. They started fighting them, and the other 2 Gnolls (sentries) decided it was time to run off.

The players took a couple turns, but managed to beat the archers and then wondered where the other 2 Gnolls got off to….

Oh! They were just going to get reinforcements!

A large fight broke out in the hall, but the heroes held their own pretty well. Twilidon died during the fight. But the last surviving Gnoll threw down his weapon and surrendered. This was a new one to the players and they weren’t quite sure what to do with him. After much debate, they ended up tying him very tightly to one of the tables.

They continued down the hall and found an empty room (47 – where those reinforcements came from). They discovered a fur cloak in good condition on the wall (ka-ching!). Across from the room was a locked door, that they decided to investigate.

They didn’t have a key and thought about burning the door down. The Druid tried to light it on fire with a spell, but the wood was too moldy and damp. Drep pushed forward and said “I know what to do!” and started chopping at the wood with his axe. Loud noises rang down the hall, which made the heroes a bit nervous. But it was working and he nearly had the door splintered…minutes later, the door was busted and they could push through to the room beyond.

Inside was a storeroom (48). They found a few good weapons and pieces of armor, also some provisions.

They also noticed a barrel that was leaking some delicious smelling liquid. While debating what to do with it, one of the hirelings barged forward and tried it. “YUMMM!, that’s some good ale!” he said. Soon it was passed around to all the hirelings and after a few sips they were all drunk. They started dancing around the room and singing! Hera decided she better hide it from them, as they wanted more. She poured the remainder into a non-leaking barrel and stored it away. The players then decided to camp for the night before pushing on. They setup camp in the first room and took turns keeping watch on the captured Gnoll and any other surprises that might come about.

Next Time: White Stripes

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