Hydra Dominatus
17th of Slate
The party consists of Celestia the Elven Cleric, Talus the Half-Elf warlock, and Elrin the Elven monk. The situation in the refugee camp outside Bara-Kraz is thrown into turmoil as the earth shakes violently and tears asunder. Out of the newly formed chasms climb the vile cave lizardfolk who begin to ravage the refugees.
Talus, Celestia, and Elrin push through the panic to check if the Elven priest who has been helping them is okay. They find his tent quickly with Celestia and Talus pushing inside as Elrin stands guard without. Talus and Celestia bear witness to a tense scene: Captain Gerdan has the temple priest by the throat, ready to execute the elven priest with his mace!
Talus deftly uses his whip to disarm the Captain and Celestia levels her crossbow at him. Hearing the commotion, Elrin enters just as a pack of lizardmen cut through the canvas! In the chaotic brawl that follows, the lizardmen are cut down, the elven priest is saved, and Captain Gerdan is incapacitated. After a final ferocious shaking of the earth, the tremors seem to relent. Through the torn canvas and the clearing dust the party looks up at Ormstone mountain to see that it's peak has crumbled: it looks more volcano than mountain now.
Determined to get to the bottom of this cataclysm, they enter the city with speed, dodging looting lizardmen patrols until they reach the grand promenade, a massive stairway that passes by Lord Cholgan's manse on the way to the mines. A sudden commotion at the manse balcony draws their attention: a harem of dwarven women and Lord Cholgan (all in various states of undress) are threatened by a brutish lizardman brandishing a stone maul.
Despite their disdain for the corrupt lord of Bara-Kraz, the party uses precious time to try and save him. Talus blows a hole in the balcony with his magic, causing the brute to fall right into the waiting fists of Elrin. Celestia provides overwatch with her crossbow as sneaky lizardmen attempt to make off with the harem and Lord Cholgan. One manages to snatch Lord Cholgan but Elrin runs him down with impressive speed.
Unfortunately, Cholgan and his harem are both in terror and not sober enough to be of any help. The party presses on to the entrance to Ormstone mine- surprisingly intact.
Cautiously stepping within they discover the interior has collapsed into a caldera of sorts. Yet at the bottom, in place of magma, a pool of green slime surrounds a small island of stone. Through squinting eyes they see a figure sitting in the island's center. They take further stock of their surroundings, noticing crystalline Ormstone embedded in exposed rock and that the pool bubbles and spits slime out into the air in great lazy arcs. Where the globules of slime land the dirt itself seems to come alive and scatter like a pile of mites.
Using flat rocks found nearby, the party plans a hasty descent. Slime globules haphazardly bombard them causing patches of skin to flap away, rations to come alive in their packs, and scraps of armor to turn into metal-shelled beetles. Finally. they arrive at the base of the crater to see that the figure on the island is a dwarf, shirtless and cross legged, whose eyes open wide as they approach.
The dwarf is Dragathum Zragstrak and he plans to scour Bara-Kraz from this mountain using the 'ale of life' before turning his sites on the rest of the Dwarven empire.
His plan revealed, he dives into the slime as lizardmen begin to surround the party. Talus, feeling curious, sends an eldritch blast into the pool. As the blast impacts a hydra rears its many heads and the battle is joined!
Our heroes feverishly attempt to cut off hydra heads and avoid being covered in enlivening slime. Elrin decomposes into a babbling face of slime, Talus is eaten alive, and Celestia meets the same fate. Even when Guts appears and tries to swoop in with a decisive blow, all the heroes face a grizzly end at the bottom of Ormstone mountain.
...so it was that the corrupt heart of Bara-Kraz stopped beating. The survivors of the city fled into the cold embrace of their neighbor Bara-Narz as both populations marveled from a distance at the lush jungle that grew overnight where a dwarf hold once stood. As the years went on many would attempt to uncover the mysteries of that jungle or plumb the ruins of the hold for a crack at the riches left behind there, but that is a story for another time...
F I N
So that's how the open table ended! Before I talk about some of the post-mortem realizations I've had here's some pictures of the hydra I painted up from reaper!
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| I wanted a more grounded scheme so I went with something in more complimentary tones. The acidic vomit it made from plaguebearer contrast paint mixed with super glue and then each strand was glued together. |
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| The previous paint scheme, circa early 2020 or so |
I did end up putting out a survey for my players but only one ended up responding to it. Here are some quick stats for the open table followed by some points that I figure bear mentioning.
The open table saw 13 players total. Two players only played in one session. Six players played in more than three sessions or attended regularly. The other five played in about two or three sessions each. Five players were completely new to Dungeons and Dragons. Only one player had more than one character. There were nine sessions total between February and May of 2021. The highest character level was two.
Play with the rules you want to use instead of the ones you don't want to use OR properly advertise your game: I went into this wanting to have players show up and I felt that if I advertised an open table with something like Dungeon Crawl Classics or Old School Essentials then I wouldn't have many players interested. So I advertised as playing DnD 5e albeit with some house rules. Some of my players definitely expected a more traditional 5e game and their expectations not being met resulted in them leaving. Next time I run an open table I will advertise it as the system I actually want to run instead of the system that I feel will get me the most players.
Pointcrawl not Hexcrawl: I really did not like constantly cross referencing a hex map. It was much more stressful than in the past where I adopted the Angry GM's method. I don't think hexcrawls are inherently bad but if I go back to them I'm going to have to make some changes.
Expectations upfront: "Death is a real possibility, the world does not revolve around your characters, and the answer to most problems will not be found on your character sheet" and "this campaign will be about X your character should be somehow motivated to do X. The campaign will last Y sessions". Establishing goals and time limits to a campaign are something I don't do a very good job of- this is something I need to improve upon.
The most important realization I've had is that I'm due for a change of pace in tabletop RPGs. That might mean GMing a new system or it might mean actually being a player for once. Ideally, I'll be able to do both. In the meantime, I'll be conducting a pretty substantial move and will have some time to reflect and try new things.
Until next time!
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