Noltere: OSE Hex-crawl Adventures (Part 1)

Old-School Essentials

Intro

I’m running a solo hex-crawl using Old-School Essentials, the setting is based on the first ever solo game that I ran, a Labyrinth Lord hex-crawl campaign, that I was looking forward to moving to OSE.

At the end, I decided to maintain the map that I have already created in my previous adventures in order to have some villages, cities and points of interest already created, but I was going to play with a completely different character and a different campaign goal (aka no campaign goal). The goal is to run a very lightweight hex-crawl, without any high-level mission objectives or anything like that. I wanted to start small.

I’m using the Carcass Crawler Inaugural Issue, the official OSE zine, that has a special class, the Warden, which I look at it as a mixture of ranger and druid without magic.

My PC is named Ered, she is a human and has the following ability scores: STR 13, INT 12, WIS 12, DEX 14, CON 13, CHA 10. She is equipped with a hand axe and a shield, leather armour and also carries a long bow.

The wardens are a secret society that protect their lands, and Ered is a novice in this organisation, so she will get missions from them.

About the setting, we are playing on the Noltere region of the continent, which is mostly ruled by humans. I’m starting on a random hex, which hasn’t been explored before in my previous Labyrinth Lord campaign. I won’t be sharing the full map, since I will be digitalising it as these play reports progress.

Play report

  • C27: Tars-ôl, village.
  • D26: ruins of an old wizard’s tower, damaged from an explosion.

Day 1

On C27: Tars-ôl village

Ered arrived early in the morning to Tars-ôl, a small village of the mostly-human controlled Noltere region, which had asked for assistance to her elder wardens and they had sent her here. The quest is simple, some kind of wild beast is attacking their cattle and with the winter closing by, they need the problem addressed. Ered has been tasked with tracking this wild beast to its lair and uncovering their nature. After this the villagers will think what to do next.

Ered goes where the last attack has happened in order to find tracks that she can follow.

Are the tracks on soft ground? Yes, Have 24h passed? Yes, but... soft ground makes marks still clear [tracking, 40% success rate: roll failed]

Ered cannot find a clear path following the tracks, so she goes west by instinct.

On C25

[No encounter, hills]

Are there tracks? yes, soft, no 24h, hidden [tracking, 20% success rate: roll OK]

Ered finally finds some tracks that she can follow Do they end nearby? No The tracks seem to go East [d8 compass die] Do they go back to the village? No Any other direction? Yes, south-east, but after spending some more time looking at the tracks she realises that there are two different sets, one headed back to Tars-ôl and the other one headed south-east.

She decides to go south-east.

On D26

[No encounter, hills]

She continues following the tracks, Soft ground? No, but.. failure, her hand axe falls to the ground, bumps with some rocks and makes a lot of noise, birds fly away from nearby trees and she mentally curses her clumsiness. Do any beasts come? No [tracking, 22% success rate: roll OK] Do the tracks end in this hex? Yes Ered finally sees where the tracks head to.

More info, d30 companion, trigger: trap There are some odd traps nearby Is there something on those? No, but they haven’t caught anything and they haven’t been manipulated either. But the tracks definitely end here. She is sure of it.

The day is nearing its end after a lot of tracking hard work, so Ered decides to camp and rest until tomorrow, she could maybe see the wild beast during the night. [-1 ration, no encounters during the night]

Day 2

Still on D26

[Encounter]

Since the tracks end here and nothing has happened during the night Ered decides to spend some time investigating this location. Is the lair nearby (very likely)? Yes. After some time investigating Ered finally sees the nest, at the same time she is surprised by a weird looking creature with eyes in their tentacles [Encounter: Otyugh, reaction roll: 12 friendly]. It looks at her very attentively and Ered tries to avoid making any sound or aggressive movement, the creature continues to look at her and she can feel how it tries to convey some sort of meaning to her [monster on the lair, reaction roll: 4 unfriendly]. Then the Otyugh goes away making the weirdest sound Ered has ever heard.

Ered tries to go over to the side, just above some low rocks, to where the Otyugh has come from, and she sees W&W generator, hill: ruins of wizard tower the ruins of an old tower. There are rocks scattered everywhere, which suggest an explosion, and the tower is now just one storey tall. [Dungeon encounter, level 1: Killer Bees (1d10) x10, mutated, they have legs]

Of course, I wasn’t expecting to roll Killer Bees at all, since it wouldn’t made sense since my PC had been tracking tracks which obviously involve some kind of creature with paws, but it kind of made sense if they had their nest next to an old wizard’s tower, which would have strange magical elements that might have caused this. So I went along since it was funny and different.

There are mutated Killer Bees flying and walking around the nest, some have long legs that look flamingo-like, whereas others have wolf-like fangs and looked more dangerous. These mutated monsters explain the tracks and the attacks that the villagers have had, Ered thinks, so she decides to convey this discovery to the villagers and see what they decide to do next.

On C27: Tars-ôl village

Ered arrives to the village and tells the village chief her discovery and which type of creature was the one that has been eating their cattle. The village chief and the other villagers tell her that they knew of the ruins of the tower, they were from a wizard’s tower that lived there decades ago and did business with the village, but after a failed experiment the wizard went away. Some old magic must have reacted with the local wildlife, Ered thinks.

Do the villagers want to get rid of the mutant-Killer Bees (likely)? Yes Ered negotiates 10gp for tracking the lair of the monsters and she will receive 10gp more once they have been slayed, but the villagers will be in charge of hiring at least 3 adventurers that will join Ered in the subjugation, plus the property of anything valuable inside the wizard’s tower is given to Ered and the adventurers.

Ered accompanies the village chief to the tavern to see if there are any adventurers available for this mission [OSE Adventuring Party Generator]:

Adventurer A:

Level 3 Dwarf (Adventurer)
Armour Class 0 [19] (plate mail + shield) 
Hit Points 14
Attacks 1 × sling (1d4) 
THAC0 19 [0]
Movement Rate 60' (20')
Saves D8 W9 P10 B13 S12
Alignment Lawful
STR 11 INT 13 WIS 10 
DEX 16 CON 12 CHA 12 
Items piece of jewellery (1400gp)

Adventurer B:

Level 3 Fighter (Adventurer)
Armour Class 4 [15] (chainmail + shield) 
Hit Points 11
Attacks 1 × dagger (1d4) 
THAC0 19 [0]
Movement Rate 60' (20')
Saves D12 W13 P14 B15 S16
Alignment Lawful
STR 14 INT 9 WIS 7 
DEX 12 CON 6 CHA 5 
Items piece of jewellery (1300gp)

Adventurer C:

Level 3 Magic-User (Adventurer)
Armour Class 8 [11] (unarmoured) 
Hit Points 6
Attacks 1 × dagger (1d4) or 1 × spell
THAC0 19 [0]
Movement Rate 120' (40')
Saves D13 W14 P13 B16 S15
Alignment Lawful
STR 12 INT 9 WIS 14 
DEX 14 CON 7 CHA 13 
Spells ventriloquism, floating disc, knock
Items piece of jewellery (1300gp)

Adventurer D:

Level 3 Fighter (Adventurer)
Armour Class 6 [13] (leather armour) 
Hit Points 4
Attacks 1 × short bow (1d6) 
THAC0 19 [0]
Movement Rate 90' (30')
Saves D12 W13 P14 B15 S16
Alignment Lawful
STR 12 INT 10 WIS 9 
DEX 13 CON 8 CHA 11 
Items piece of jewellery (1300gp)

Adventurer E:

Level 3 Cleric (Adventurer)
Armour Class 7 [12] (leather armour + shield) 
Hit Points 9
Attacks 1 × war hammer (1d6) or 1 × spell
THAC0 19 [0]
Movement Rate 90' (30')
Saves D11 W12 P14 B16 S15
Alignment Lawful
STR 7 INT 11 WIS 15 
DEX 7 CON 7 CHA 10 
Spells detect evil, remove fear (cause fear)
Items None

Ered explains the details of the mission to the five adventurers that will join her and they agree to go to the ruins tomorrow morning.

Ered spends the night in a local inn to get ready for tomorrow [-4sp].

Day 3

Still on C27: Tars-ôl village

The adventurers and Ered gather in the center of the village and Ered leads them to the ruins of the wizard’s tower, the lair of the mutant Killer Bees.

On D26

[No encounter]

They arrive without any incidents and they see the mutant Killer Bees x10 in the distance, one of them seems to be the Queen and it is accompanied by a Guard.

I made some mistakes during the combat, the Killer Bees are supposed to die when they sting someone (unless they’re the Queen), but I forgot about that. I also decided that there was going to be a single Guard.

The encounter starts, the Bees aren’t surprised, the Dwarf (A), a Fighter (D) and Ered ready their missile weapons while the rest of the adventurers hurry to melee range, all the missile weapons fail on this first round, but the melee Fighter (B) manages to kill a Bee and the Cleric (E) does the same.

The Bee Queen and the Guard stand back and the rest of the Killer Bees start to attack the adventurers on melee range, all the attacks fail.

On the second round the Killer Bees go first and some of their attacks fail, but a Bee stings the meele Fighter (B), poisons her, and she falls [save VS poison unsuccessful], the same happens to the Cleric (E) and the Magic User (C), which are both also unable to resist the poison.

The adventurers’ spirit is miraculously still strong and the Dwarf (A) and Ered both kill a Bee each.

On the third round the adventurers go first, and Ered kills another Bee, however the Bees also sting her, but she is able to resist the poison [save VS poison OK].

On the following round Ered falls back and tries to remove the stinger while the Dwarf (A) and the Fighter (D) continue the now very bloody combat against the mutated bees.

On the last couple of rounds the two remaining adventurers and Ered manage to kill the remaining Bees, but their victory is not celebrated since they have lost three companions.

[+28XP each]

Outro

- Notes and house rules

  • Hexes are 6 miles.
  • The cap for encounter rolls is 4 per day, at most 1 per hex.
  • 10XP per first visit to a hex, no need to explore it thoroughly.
  • Prices from OSR: Medieval Price List, I’m looking forward to getting Carcass Crawler Issue #2 that will have guidelines and prices for town services.
  • I usually struggle to know how much gold to give per completed quest/mission, so bear it with me as I am still exploring what to do.

- Resources