The player of the paladin decided to condemn his character to the laundry realm as he left his character sheet in the washing. He rolled up a disgustingly offensive chaotic evil dwarf fighter with 3 18's (including 18/93 strength), 1-2 16's and psionics which I had no idea how to run. He was named Edward Hallows after the real world Anglo-Saxon juggernaut.
He was recruited by Fabio the magic-user and Zamzibal the thief from the first session.
Emboldened by stories of high risk high reward dungeon delving thanks to the party from Session 1, more mercenaries flooded Blackbird where the party was more than happy to spend 2 days recruiting. Deciding to reward their success from the Chainmail battle, I allowed two rolls per day spent searching on the man-at-arms table (DMG p30) to reflect the increase in available mercs. I thought it was a neat way to reward victory and the passage of time, let me know if you disagree.
With 15 heavy foot and 5 crossbowmen, they forayed into the dungeon, with no encounters on the 2 day trek there. I immediately thought of a way to punish such a large expedition.
Luckily, the first random encounter were also dwarves, stumbled upon in the ruined court room where the Chainmail battle took place. Edward smooth-talked some info out of them, namely that there were two stairs down, one going down "at a steeper angle than the other", meaning one goes down one level, the other two levels.
Eventually the circus party reached the 2nd level via an elevator, missing out on some cunningly disguised treasure along the way. They reached a stream 30' wide, which was filled with a "tar coloured substance". The first instinct of the PCs was to stick a lit torch in there, promptly lighting the stream ablaze.
After much deliberation and thanks to a fairly high ceiling, the party used some iron spikes as makeshift steps in a bell curve shape above the fire. It took some time and they were lucky no other monsters arrived, but everyone made it across. After a left 135 degree turn, the stream continued (flowing east-west) but only at 10' wide in this passage. Repeating their procedure, they crossed this one more quickly.
Down the passage a door on the right to a room contained 2 shriekers. As the party set up outside the door, listening, I deemed it impossible that neither shrieker would be unable to hear the ~20 men outside and began shrieking.
I designated this level as a hobgoblin patrol area and sure enough 2d4 = 5, of which 20% (I rolled for each, 2 in this case) had bows. They could only have come from the direction the party was heading and the lights of the PCs were dead giveaways. Two shots later and one dead mercenary later, the hobgoblins got surprise and fled easily. The shriekers continued but were soon cut down.
The party continued down the passage reaching one then two X shaped intersections, eventually reaching a door which they opened. Inside was a very young white dragon's throat, which heard the storm of armour outside and was prepared, breathing damage onto most of the ~20 strong expedition. Google suggested the damage to be equal to HP, so a small (MM 29) very young white dragon (MM 34) did 5 damage per breath and 2 on a successful save. This meant a chunk of heavy foot were dead, the others injured, and the party hurt.
The dragon surprised the party for 2 segments, breathing twice more, leaving two PCs very injured and one critically so, but nonetheless alive and 12 or so heavy foot dead. The remaining mercenaries miserably failed their morale check and fled in a panic, where the hobgoblins were unable to miss the sight or sound of scattered men running away. All were butchered.
Initiative was rolled, both sides rolling a 3. The magic-user's magic missile, dwarf's strength, and thief's dagger were enough to fell the dragon but the magic-user dropped to 0 too. Soon stabilised, the party rushed inside and waited for a hobgoblin reaction. None came, assuming the party dead with their man-at-arms.
The magic-user was in a coma for 10 minutes while the party hacked up scales, teeth, the tail, and the horns. In addition, 1000cp and a +2 shield was inside. The dwarf's absurd strength was enough to carry this and the magic-user, albeit at 3". 40 minutes after the dragon's death, the party cautiously left, the magic-user fireman carried by the dwarf. They relied on the dwarf's infravision. The way back to the stream of fire was a perfectly straight southwest-northeast passage. I rolled an encounter as they left and you guessed it, more hobgoblins. Since so much time had passed, only 1d4 = 2 were here, picking up loot from the crossbowmen right next to the stream of fire.
With (un)lucky dice rolls to finish looting, the hobgoblins didn't see the party until they were charged by the desperate Edward and Zamzibal. Rolling for hobgoblin equipment, two shortswords and morning stars meant the dwarf went first. One was cut down while the other reciprocated vs the thief, dropping him to exactly 0, leaving a 1v1. A tense 2 minutes of sparring led to a dwarf victory with 2HP to spare.
Eventually, they escaped, very luckily without meeting any wandering monsters on the first level. Out of the dungeon but into the woods outside, it was 16 hours march to the nearest town. Thanks to STRICT Time Records, it was 2pm outside so around 4 hours of daylight left. The dwarf marched for 4 hours, no encounter, and set up in a tree along with his two companions and their magical loot. Very not chaotic evil... Anyway some very tense rolls in the open later and the safety of the town was reached.
They decided to sell the +2 shield for 5000gp, which I awarded 1:1 XP as it seemed apt. I only awarded 3:2 XP for the sale of dragon parts because it seemed like a good compromise. Let me know if this seems wrong. Everyone had enough XP to level but only the dwarf had enough money to do so. 16 days were required for everyone to heal to full.
This party will probably gain a reputation for successfully leading only 20% of hires out alive across two delves.
As an aside, the party had to make a fantastic decision I have no doubt Gygax fully intended: Do we sell the +2 shield or keep it? It improves someone's AC by 3 and we get 500 XP, but we could sell it for 5000GP (minus fees) and get 5000/3 = 1667XP each. It was about as much fun to watch the players make this difficult decision as it was to watch them fight the final hobgoblin before their escape.
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30/04/2022: Day 22 - Party spends two days in Blackbird recruiting 20 mercenaries for re-entering their dungeon.
Day 24 - Party spends 2 days travelling northwest to dungeon. No encounters.
Day 25 - Party enters dungeon, losing all mercs and Fabio the magic-user falls in a coma.
Day 27 - Edward Hallows drags two PCs and loot to the town of Grove.
21/05/2022: Day 43 - Everyone finishes resting.
Edward Hallows the Fighter (Veteran 1 --> Warrior 2). HP: ?
Zamzibal the Thief (Cutpurse 3 - XP CAPPED). HP: 17
Fabio the Magic-user (Evoker 2 - XP CAPPED). HP: 11
Graveyard:
20 heavy foot (pikemen)
Another 7 heavy foot
Samir al-Haid the Cleric
Zarkaos the Assassin
15 heavy foot (this session)
5 crossbowmen (this session)
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