Zandan Megadungeon, Session 9 - Too Many Bandits
Characters
Hoot (Owl Primal Chaos Worshiper)
Brick (Ogre Bogatyr)
Reynaert (Fox Journalist)
Bruno (War Bear Beggar)
Session Recap
Recruiting Bruno the beggar, a down on his luck war bear that had found its way into the Domovoi camp, the group decide to explore east and see if they can figure out what the Pesoglavi are up to. On their way there however they in fact run into a patrol, which immediately charges at them. The group expands some magic and easily dispatches the four dog-headed fiends, but are left tired and drained. As they rest up a shadow flickers just beyond Brick's vision.
As he and Hoot start shouting that it is a vampire the undead descends upon the bogatyr, beating him down into unconsciousness with its hits, the ogre only surviving the attack because the vampire apparently has no interest in killing him outright. With Hoot using magic to see the barely visible vampire, the party push back against it, and sensing the risk it runs away after a round of fighting. The group decide not to pursue it, but instead drag Brick's unconscious body back to camp and leave him with Anya the Healer to patch him up.
Heading out once more the group run into yet another enemy, a giant snake seems to have found its way from the Deep Forest below, and while the party try to just get away from it, it had clearly taken an interest in them and kept following them, so they had no other recourse than to kill it.
Deciding that with just three people it was likely unwise to try and storm the well defended position of the pesoglavi, and instead head down through the giant crevasse in the caverns and into the Deep Forest. Doing some some exploration they find a "room" of the forest with a clearing and an enormous stump, clearly used to leave offerings to the forest's Leshi. The trees grumble in discontent at the open flame of the torch entering this sacred place, and so the party put it out and decide to leave.
They stop by the hunters' camp and tell them about the snake upstairs as well as just check how everyone is doing, then proceed south into the mushroom cave.
As they enter, the group senses that they are being watched. Eventually they discover a group of nine short fellows, none the same as the others, but all armed with pickaxes and knives and wearing some kind of red felt cap. The two groups have some tense negotiations, as the small folk have no interest in picking fights they don't know they will win for sure, and the party do point out they've been friendly with other groups in the past, and have been fighting the pesoglavi.
After the party learn that Smelly, the leader of the other squad they had ran into, was killed along with his men during an attack on the pesoglav outpost on depth 1, the group offer this new group to participate in a joint assault on that outpost in the future. After some assurances that the party is not, in fact, made out of random magic weirdos and that they do also have actual warriors they can bring, the small folk agree and wander off, the plan being to send messages via the camp's hunters in the forest.
Heading into more unexplored territory the group find a slope heading up, seemingly connecting back into the dungeon proper. As they ponder whether to take that route they get ambushed by a concerning large force of bandits (20 of them, in fact), led by a woman with sharp, angular features and a sharp beak-like nose who introduces herself as Rona, daughter of the famed robber Slavej (Nightingale).
She offers the trio a simple ultimatum - give the bandits everything they have, and they will let them leave. The group instead decide to just book it up the slope instead. The bandits follow suit, though curiously not making any concerted effort in actually catching up with them. Soon the characters find themselves back in the dungeon, and eventually realize why the bandits were in no rush, as they run head first into a smaller camp of bandits waiting for them.
Hoot decides he's had enough of this nonsense and disintegrates the bandit pointing a gun at the party, before Bruno simply throwing the rest of the bandits to the ground. As the group continue their desperate attempts to flee, they also see the bandits had a captive, a woman with a gag in her mouth and tied limbs. Bruno sweeps her up as they run, with the bandits on their heels.
Unfortunately, the group find themselves at a seeming dead end - a room with a locked heavy bronze door, 26 bandits now right behind them. Fortunately, however, they also find in the same room Branimir the Bogatyr, their ally whom they helped with defeating the Basilisk. Seeing the party in distress he takes guard of the choke point into the room, keeping back the bandits with wild swings of his might two-handed club.
The party untie the woman, who introduces herself as Vanya the Magician. Rona offers the party a choice - they can either surrender their captive and give Hoot over as a captive, with the rest being allowed to leave, or the bandits will bring their full force to bear, along with Rona's father if need be.
Not looking to face the full force of the bandits, Branimir and Bruno work on breaking down the heavy door, finding themselves in a ritual chamber illuminated by candles and guarded by a strange golem made of bone plates and sharp bones. It rushes at the party and is quickly dispatched, but not before a splinter of it jams into Branimir's neck. On the floor of the room the party also find a copper magic circle, which their own spells tell them is a teleporter. They all jump into it, preferring the uncertainty on the other side, over the certain death at the hands of the bandits.
They find themselves in a small, cramped room. After making sure the bandits are not going to follow them through (they don't), the group explore a long and narrow hallway, eventually leading into a room that is familiar - the walls are lined with bones and skulls, and clearly donate the domain of the Patriarch of Bones. Even more concerning however is the person waiting for them in the room - Leda, their comrade. The group are both relieved to see her and concerned about her, however she offers to lead them out and they take the offer.
As they head back up into Depth 1 of the dungeon, the group manage to lose track of Leda, and she simply vanishes, but they do make it back to camp in one piece, with Anya now also having another bogatyr to try and heal from the misadventures of the party.
Observations
Holy shit this session. Only two players (a recurring issue with the campaign), but a lot done. It was meant to be a shorter one, but ended up actually running longer than normal, as the party kept finding themselves in unexplored territory and I wanted to give them the chance to try and find their way out, rather than simply saying "Well the bandits just kill you."
And they did! It was risky, and it involved a lot of insane luck, as the encounter rolled as they ran into the room with the metal door could have easily been another enemy and spelled the end of the party. But through just improbable chance it ended up being not just a friendly encounter, but in fact their friend Branimir, who is quite the fierce fighter and helped the party stave off the bandits for long enough to escape.
The last twist of running into Leda was also just wonderful timing on the side of the random encounters roll. Speaking of, man there were a lot of those this session. I switched to 2-in-6 chance, but it felt like a lot more of those happened now than, say, last session. Also I keep rolling the vampire encounter, which is incredibly rare yet the party just keeps running into them.
Unfortunately this is likely the last session of the campaign overall. It is the last one of the year, at least, as two of the regulars (the ones in this session) are going to be traveling for several weeks, and that leaves me with...not a lot other players to run this for.
I have also been rather dissatisfied with the campaign as a whole, despite individual sessions being fairly cool (this one was a great example!). The players have shown interest in playing anything else I run, so I have some time now to try and figure out what it is I even want to be doing. But likely something using classic D&D, rather than Tunnels & Trolls. Between the base issues of the system and my own tweaks to it, I have not been happy with some of the patterns of gameplay that resulted because of it.
Session Stats
Rooms Explored: 7
Enemies Defeated: 4 Pesoglavi, 1 Giant Snake, 1 Bandit, 1 Bone Guardian
Characters Dead: None, though Brick was fatally wounded.