Swords and Wizardry White Box City Campaign: The Entrance to Hollowheim

RECAP from 8/19/2011 S&W Session

We played Swords and Wizardry White Box last night at Scadgrad's house since we were missing too many key players to continue in G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl in our usual Friday night Labyrinth Lord Game. It was the same campaign I played in a few times at Gen Con in the Devil's Breakfast Table neighborhood (a really rough part of town) as the Weaselly Ferrets gang with a slightly different cast of characters. The events take place in a large city setting that is heavily influenced by Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing's default setting (flint lock firearms, chaos enemies, Skaven, Beast Men etc.).  It was a blast like before at Gen Con and below are the hilarious and gruesome results.

A contingent from the Weaselly Ferrets Gang consisting of Franzen Conner the Cleric, Vortigern the Wizard, and his henchman Snit the halfling (amongst others), descended into the depths of the Sikorsky Delve (SPOILER ALERT - this is actually Dyson's Delve modified for the setting) and retrieved a huge sum of loot which was distributed afterwards to those present and a generous cut was given to the two bosses in the interest of full disclosure. 10% was given to Big Slick, our Ogre boss, and 10% was given to the Big Boss Oranishi (also an Ogre) so that they wouldn't think we were holding out on them (which could have gotten us concrete galoshes). We also discovered what we think is the entrance to Hollowheim which was a set of stairs leading down from the Arch Wizard Sikorsky's abandoned lab which is where a good portion of the loot was found. Following is a brief recap of events:

The group descended through the abandoned tenement and into the sewers without a hitch after evicting a few homeless vagabonds from the tenement while en-route. When we descended into the first level, we encountered a large group of Skaven accompanied by two Storm Vermin which we quickly overcame. We descended the stairs to the next level below. The halflings were scouting ahead of the group (we had another one now) and when they got to the intersection where we had previously fought the fire beetles, they were attacked by four of the tough chitinous critters. The halflings tried to flee back to the group but were caught in the hallway by the beetles and a fierce melee ensued. The beetles were dispatched and then we searched their lair (the room with all of the junk in it) and found a locked coffer with 2000 g.p.!

We went back out into the hall and instead of heading back to where the other group had fought the Skaven, slave rats and Storm Vermin, we went the other way instead (down the left hand hallway). We opened a door in that area and were attacked by an old Skaven Sorcerer! He zapped a couple of the front line guys with some kind of lightning spell and we pounced on him and killed him. He had some loot and a +1 suit of halfling sized leather armor that went to Snit. We also fought a large group of giant rats which were quickly overcome and went through a temple which had been re-dedicated to a Skaven god. There were bodies impaled on pikes all over the place. We went back into the hallway and it led to steps down! We went down to the third level and ended up in a catacomb with niches every so often that held old mouldering and dessicated bodies. We searched them methodically and found a large sum of loot in one and lesser sums in several others (we searched about eight of them) and also found a secret door in one of the catacomb burial niches. While searching a few of the last niches, we were attacked by four ghouls. Since we had three clerics in the group, they had no problem turning the ghouls and we decided to head into the secret door before they returned.

The secret door turned out to lead into a tunnel that went on for about a half of a mile. At the end we found the Arch Wizard Sikorsky's lab! There was all kinds of equipment all over the place and two tables. One table had what looked like some kind of watermelon like pod thing on it and the other had a similar pod that had been opened and was empty. Then we were attacked by a spider like crab critter that was hiding under the table that looked like the thing in the first Alien movie! (This was actually a Xenomorph Face Hugger from Digital Orc's Blog) As it attacked, the other pod opened up and another one attacked Snit too! As the first one attacked, its victim tried to disengage from melee but it was way too fast for him and scurried after him along the ground like a crab on crack - there was no escaping these nasty little tick like parasites!  We were horrified at the prospect of what would be birthed from our stomachs should they attach to our faces so we did our best to defeat them as quickly as possible.  We killed them fairly quickly (in one round really) but they sprayed us with acid as they died and a couple of our weapons got damaged and were useless (they required repairs) and snit and the other fighter henchman got burned badly as well.

Then we searched the room and found 4,000 g.p. and a nice stash of gems including five that were worth 500 g.p. each! That was a major jackpot. We also found stairs leading down through the door on the other side of the room which we presume is the long hidden entrance to Hollowheim! Hollowheim is the massive and ancient dungeon below the city, that was previously only accessible from several other gang's turf. If our assumption is correct, it can now be accessed from Weaselly Ferret turf for the first time! In the interest of full disclosure, we told both bosses about our discovery but nobody else outside of the gang.

Afterwards, we threw a big block party for our little four block area to try and win over some local support with our new found wealth. The next day as we were recovering from our revelries, we were summoned to Big Slick's office where he promptly told us that Goldfag was a problem and should be dealt with at our earliest convenience (meaning immediately). Goldfag was the Ogre mercenary who originally told us where the entrance to the Sikorsky Delve was, and that it probably contained an entrance to Hollowheim. Obviously, the bosses thought this was a problem now and decided that he needed to be permanently silenced lest others discover our new found secret. We consulted our information sources and found out where he was likely to be found and where he was last seen.  We then went out into another portion of our big boss's territory that was outside of the Weaselly Ferret's turf and beyond our four block area of control to look for him. We found him arguing with a street merchant over the price and quality of goods he had eaten and was refusing to pay for. One of our hirelings decided to talk to them in an attempt to try and mediate the dispute while the others maintained a low profile elsewhere on the block.

The fighter hireling and our other wizard offered to buy him a drink and he gladly accepted so they headed off to a tavern. We quietly slipped in, two at a time to avoid his notice but he was obviously suspicious of the offer. While he was greedily gulping down his ale and ordering food to try and make the most out of his benefactor's offer, one of our compatriots just outright clocked a nearby bystander and started a huge brawl. Most of the women and others that didn't want to get involved fled out the door, but a good twelve or so tavern goers, along with our group of 9 thugs got into a robust tavern brawl complete with breaking chairs and mugs over each other's heads and general fisticuffs - it was a downright donnybrook! One of the tavern wenches went outside and blew a whistle to summon the city guard as well.

In two rounds, we slowly managed to coerce the brawl into Goldfag's direction while he was still eating and drinking at his table and then we let him have it! Two of our group fired their flint locks at him but both missed (and one accidentally killed our fighter henchman that had started up the conversation with him), the two wizards fired magic missiles at him and Snit threw a dagger at him as well wounding him badly. He struck back hard though and walluped one of our number before we finally jumped him with daggers and rapiers and dispatched him. Meanwhile, the bartender had pulled out an blunderbuss to keep people from trying to rob him in the brawl and once we started attacking the fat ogre, he let us have it and killed the other halfing hireling with his gun (not Snit, the other one). With our foe dead and two of our henchman also lying on the floor in pools of blood and obviously no longer with us, we beat a hasty retreat back to our turf before the city guard showed up. The GM told us aftewards that the bartender was actually a 5th level fighter and not one we wanted to tangle with so much.  And that's where we ended the session...