A D&D - Old West mash-up adapted from Lost Mine of Phandelver.
Starring
Dirty Sanchez, human fighter
Delnor "Doc" Rockspear, dwarf wizard
Reverend Willie Cheatem, human cleric
Raen "Chance" Encauntarr, human rogue
Roguish adventurers of questionable reputation took on a job to escort finished goods and provisions from Hit Pointe to Ol' Bart's Dry Goods in Fandango. Hector Landscape was paying well and hinted at further opportunities - "something big" - at this trip's terminus. The adventurers set out a day or so after Hector and a tiefling agent of Hell's Cargo, Sildar "Snowball" Hellwinter.
They found trouble on the road - two dead horses blocking the way signalled that something terrible might have happened to the adventurers' patron and his companion. Savage goblins of the Duende tribe attacked from the dry brush, peppering the oxen with arrows, causing them to panic. As the adventurers scrambled to keep them under control and counterattack the Duende, goblins streamed in from the flank to steal a sack of crowbars and a rope-bound bundle of mining picks. It was all the adventurers could do to keep them from getting away, killing the last of the greenjuns only moments before it escaped down a hidden trail.
As the fury of battle died down, the adventurers considered their options. The evidence indicated that Hector and Snowball were abducted and a map of some import stolen. There appeared to be more to the story than Hector led on back at Hit Pointe. With wounded oxen and not a great deal of desire to deal with the logistics of the cart while pursuing Duende in harsh, unforgiving terrain, they opted to go to Fandango rather than go immediately after the goblins. (Note: It may be the value of the wagon and its contents that caused both this group and a later pickup group to go to Fandango after the opening scene. In my setup, they have to pay back any losses out of their fee, so maybe that's why they're going for Fandango first. Most podcasts I've listened to have the players hiding the wagon and going down the goblin trail. What about in your games?)
In Fandango, the group was well received by Ol' Bart Olamieux of Ol' Bart's Dry Goods. While his boys unloaded the wagon, ruffians of the local protection racket turned up to shake him down. The roguish adventurers did nothing about this, but asked some questions of Ol' Bart, discovering that these red bandanna-wearing folks were called Redbrands and that they are known to frequent Mustache Sally's bar, The Grubby Tap. The adventurers told of their trouble on the road and Ol' Bart mentioned that the Redbrands weren't doing anything to stop the growing goblin threat for all the protection money the townsfolk were paying. This is when the players, three sheets to the wind and full of schemes, settled on a sketchily awesome plan.
The adventurers took up residence at the Hotel Stonemeal, picked up more of the local scuttlebutt, and managed to find that the Redbrands were said to be run by someone they called Glasstaff, only nobody had ever seen him. El Cucho, a gnome that runs a tequila distillery but was once an agent of the Tinkerton Inquisitive Agency told the adventurers they were operating under the ruins of La Hacienda. From Billy Goodbark, a local farmer's son, they learned of a secret tunnel in the cinchona tree forest that led to Redbrands' hideout. Armed with information and a sketchy plan, they headed for the Grubby Tap.
There at the Grubby Tap they met Mustache Sally, the proprietor - she got along famously with Doc Rockspear. Dirty Sanchez started buying rounds of the good stuff for the four Redbrands that were in the bar, trying to get in good with them as a fellow scumbag (Dirty Sanchez has the Criminal background). Two were pounding drinks and the other two were playing poker. Reverend Cheatem took a seat at the piano while Chance - an inveterate gambler - bought into the card game. From his position, the Reverend could see one of the Redbrands' hand and used musical cues they had worked out in other towns to signal this to Chance.
After a couple hours of heavy drinking and card sharking, Dirty Sanchez has gotten Pablito to put in a good word for him with Glasstaff. Pablito agreed that he would and said Glasstaff would likely seek them out the next day. Then come the complications... The tab is way more than anyone in the party is happy (or in some cases able) to pay. And Kit, one of the Redbrands losing his ass at poker, has just taken a handful of chips out of the pot, daring Chance to do anything about it. Tensions start to rise in the Grubby Tap.
Dirty Sanchez ushers Pablito and his passed-out comrade out of the bar while Doc Rockspear is given an indecent proposal by Mustache Sally as a way to take some gold off his tab. Minutes later, a fight breaks out with the two remaining Redbrands and three of the PCs with Doc Rockspear occasionally casting spells through a window all while otherwise "occupied" in the alley behind the bar. It was a hard-fought battle, but the adventurers prevailed, knocking them out so they show respect to the Redbrands and Glasstaff. They even put them up for a night so Kit and his pal can sleep it off.
The next day is when it gets sketchy: Instead of waiting for the meet with Glasstaff, they take the secret tunnel into the Redbrands' hideout. (I figure, okay, so Glasstaff won't be in the lair because he's going to try and observe and/or reach out to Dirty Sanchez.) At the crevasse, the adventurers run into Glim the nothic who is interacting with them and trying to steal their secrets. They decide to cut a deal with Glim - it looks the other way on their incursion and they'll throw Redbrand corpses down the crevasse for it to eat. Glim agrees on the condition that it prefers corpses that still have some lingering memories trapped in their brains, so they have to bring the body immediately after it falls. (You can imagine how interesting that makes combats.) So fair enough, now they have a deal with the nothic.
Into the store room they go and find the secret door on the east wall. It's on to the armory next from which they take a number of weapons. Then it's into the crypts where they fight three tiefling skeletons and recover a platinum signet ring from their bones. Now they head into the slave pens and find two Redbrands who assume they're here for them, so violence ensues and it does not go well for the adventurers. Some devastating attacks from the Redbrands (criticals!) kills Dirty Sanchez. The rest of the party started to fall, one by one until Doc, Chance, and the Reverend are captured.
That is the cliffhanger at which we called the session finished. So Glasstaff was going to meet Dirty Sanchez, only now he's dead and the rest of the party is in the slave pens. It will be interesting to see how they get out of this one!
The next day, I ran the same scenario for a three-person pickup group of people I hadn't played with before. The session I described above was 4 hours. The one I ran the next day (and will put up a post on later) was 6 hours. They ended up in a similar position oddly enough but came at it in a totally different way. More on that later...
Boy that look like it was quite a fun (and deadly) session! Thanks for sharing after all the previews its fun to hear the tales. I like the cow-boy flavor man! Saloon, poker, tequila etc.. Fandango is a real Wild Wild West hole!
Great write-up, but... Dirty Sanchez? Really?
Tinkerton Inquisitive Agency... I see what you did there!
Plaguescarred wrote:
iserith wrote:
I guess telling the players about a penalty for losing the stuff, and having some goblins try to steal it even during a battle, might look a lot like a DM Hint to NOT leave the wagon behind, I dunno.
BTW, I had three players (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric) who, again, were aged 6-9, and I had intended to go easy on them. The first fight was just two goblins, rather than 4. But for the cave I just figured I'd keep the standard numbers until the party got beaten up a bit, then reel it back in a bit. They absolutely slaughtered the goblins. Their dice were on FIRE. I kept everything at full strength, and it wasn't until the bugbear that they actually had trouble. They even did a lot of smart stuff, which was cool given it was their first game ever. They surprised every encounter (the fighter is a Dex-style, with leather armour, and they leave the clanky cleric back a ways). The Rogue has missed once, ever (when he switched targets to the Bugbear, after said Bugbear knocked out the fighter, which worked well in the narrative), and almost every shot has killed. They left the wolves alone, and were really worried about the unstable platform collapsing (I swear, they haven't read the adventure!), so they sent the light Halfling Rogue up and threw him ropes to secure the platform and help them up, THEN hid most of their gear in the thicket before climbing.
I was slightly gobsmacked.
Happily the bugbear nearly got 'em all, which gave it a nice dramatic end.Oh yeah! Ride'em cowboy.
Great session write up, Iserith. I love the western flair.
Cheers.
Plaguescarred wrote:
iserith wrote:
Leugren wrote:
Leugren wrote:
That is an extremely clever and creative approach to the adventure, and an excellent write up. Well done.
Did you consider adding "hand crossbow" to everyones weapon proficiencies and making them widely available? For the inevitable classic "gunfight" showdown?
DemoMonkey wrote:
Love the Fandango map twist way to go brother!
iserith wrote:
Color me impressed. Well done!
Thanks guys! You reminded me that I have to finish writing up and posting the second group's recap. (Argh, I keep putting it off. I hate writing these things.) But it gives me motivation to see that people actually like to read them, so I'm going to endeavor to get that done tonight. Cheers!
Awesome write-up! The western flavor is fantastic.