Hexenburg Session 3: A Megadungeon for Shadowdark

 The session opened with the characters take a bit of time to check on "astrological frequencies" after their weird trip to another Plane last session. Things looked normal so they entered the wizard school.

They started moving South and West since they had not explored those areas yet.

As an aside, I've been a member of Mike Mearls' Patreon for awhile. Over the years he's been working on new math for building Encounters and redesigning monsters, a 5E variation called Odyssey, a 5E version of B/X called Moldvay, and an alternative system for high-level play for 5E. One of the subsystems of Moldvay is his Threat System. Every 10 minutes of real time you roll a d6. If a 6 is rolled something happens. If a 6 isn't rolled that die is set aside and rolled when the next Threat timer sounds off. I used this for the first time this week and combined it with the Torch Timer. I rolled the d6s out in the open so the players could see.

As the group encountered a hive of stingbats I got a 6 on the Threat timer so two goblins entered the scene and were chasing a Wizard's familiar a fight ensued. The characters defeated the goblins and the cat ran off. The characters then debated tracking down the cat when the Threat timer went off again and a different group of adventurers moved into the area. 

The character's negotiated with the other group and learned of a second entrance to the school through a local cave that led into the 3rd sub-basement.

At this point the characters, who began to react when the timer went off, started moving faster and with more purpose. One last fight with goblins saw the Threat timer go off and introduce a few more goblins while their torch and the light spell went out. That was the most tense fight of the session with one player focusing solely on lighting a torch for 2 rounds. No one died but they were battered and nervous.

Soon after they decided to leave the school to regroup.

As a DM sometimes things slip my mind and I can easily get caught up in the momentum of play. The Threat Timer really helped me focus and the alarm ratcheted up player tension and reminded me to check for random encounters. When it would go off I'd just make a tick so that on the 6th Threat Timer I'd also remember that lights went out.

I've designed Hexenburg with donjon.com and while I appreciate the map I think I'm going to move to a more abstract model that probably is best described as a point crawl. I tend to think more in set pieces so I think this will suit me better.

I'd Really Like to Know D&D's 2026 Schedule, Wouldn't You?

It's January 2026 and currently we do not know what Wizards of the Coast is releasing in 2026. We think Dark Sun is on the way but we don't know for sure. I've seen some discussion of this on ENWorld where people are saying, "Its not that unusual", but this is like entering 2026 without knowing what DC was going to do with Batman or Marvel was going to do with Spider-Man. 

I don't want to apply anything sinister to this because, sadly, the people running Hasbro and WotC just aren't great at marketing. They are great at making money and laying people off but not marketing and especially not understanding the DnD consumer.

I've run a Wizards Premiere Network store since 1999 (we opened in 1981) and DnD fans are far more responsive to unpopular decisions made by WotC than Magic players. DnD Fans will very quickly take action to demonstrate those feelings (like cancelling DnD Beyond subs during the OGL fiasco).

I hope we know something by February and I'm looking forward to know stuff especially after truly enjoying the new DnD starter box and both Forgotten Realms books.

Hexenburg Session 2

Art by Scott Ferguson

Yep, it took this long for the second session of my Open Table Megadungeon for Shadowdark because I chose to start it in December. We were only missing one player from the first session so I view that as a good sign.

We have a Wizard, Cleric, Plague Doctor, Warlock, and 2 Fighters.

Things took a turn because Mike Mearls has a Patreon where he is designing a Basic version of 5E he's calling Moldvay and we got a bunch of playlets material for last week. He talked about his secret is that he makes things he likes so I worked up a minidungeon inspired by Gamma World, Kamandi, Thundarr, and Masters of the Universe. I ran Moldvay with it on Friday night with that group and I decided to give it a run using Shadowdark but made some modifications to the floor plans.

To facilitate this, Zebulon of Thane the expedition's sponsor warned the Characters that strange astrological phenomena occurred in the last few nights and it could have an effect on the magic school because of. how much magic saturated the location.

Sure enough, when the entered Hexenburg the came to a corridor completely unfamiliar to them. The stone was worked and had a pale white color and their torchlight reflected off of it to shed light out to double near. The first room the went into had a very flattering stature with a placard depicting a well-muscled human dressed a lot like He-Man but he had a third eye. One of the players touched it and a secret door was revealed.

Let me take a minute to share that I used Donjon again and while I love it I need to get more comfortable building my own because even with the modifications that secret door took them almost immediately the dungeon's master Osh Keldar, the Mind Mage of Mal'Mordo. A much older Keldar was almost unrecognizable as his much older head was attached to a warforged's body and it looked like it had seen better days. 

I don't know who was more curious, the Characters or the Mind Mage. They ended up eating dinner with him where the met his Thri-Keen bodyguards, and his staff who all wore shock collars to prevent them from leaving his Sanctorum. The Warlock read the mind of the halfling woman who manage the kitchen and alerted his comrades that this guy was bad news. Keldar was very curious how they got here and where they were from and mentioned that he was charter member of the Rings of Saturn and was shocked to find out they were unfamiliar with any of them. They also learned that this world was nearly destroyed by an "Atomics Exchange" a millennium ago and the Rings ruled this region with their own fiefdoms.

The Characters got lucky and killed Keldar quickly and discovered that everyone who served him were under his psionic control or had shock collars. From there things became a rescue mission while looking for any treasure and books per Zebulon's request. Keldar had a Ring that grants a +1 to AC and once per day can reduce all damage from one source to 0 and the Wizard now wears it. They also found three books: The Filbeau Verses a survivors account of the Great War that ravaged the planet one-thousand years ago, the Inquest of Amber Dogstar, the file of the investigation of her death, and a children's book,  Calliope the Scallop Missed Her School Bus.

The characters were glad to see if they could find their way home when they left the dungeon and once they reported to Zebulon he had many questions for them.

This adventure helped expand my ideas for the Friday game and will have some lingering effects for Hexenburg because I want to communicate that the school is saturated with Arcane energy and is unstable in many ways. It also gave me a new faction for the game.

The characters hit 2nd level at the end of the first session and are about halfway to 3rd. I'm thinking I'm going to slow things down as I work out the ins and outs of the XP system, carousing, and downtime system.

We are schedule to play next Saturday.