Xyntillan Retrospective: The Phases of the Campaign

Spoilers for the dungeon are below.

Attendance 

This, perhaps, should've gone in the stats post. I'm fairly sure the original invitation to the campaign included fourteen people, of whom ten expressed interest, from which seven played, with three stalwarts who showed up to dozens of games. The top player had 48/51 appearances, followed by 40/51, and 34/51. Only one person showed up for only one session and never returned (which was quite different from the Xyntillan I played in, wherein we had at least a dozen one-and-dones). The players weathered two job changes, a cross-country move, and a wife's brain surgery in real life during the year, the last of which took out someone who would've been a stalwart, I think, otherwise (he made 7 of the first 9 sessions). I ran a lot of duets, and three days of solo (with lots of retainers and hirelings), when there was a last-minute back-out from a planned session. The mode of player attendance was probably the duo, the mean 2 2/3 players per session, the maximum five.

Phase 1 (1-9): Prodding and Poking the Entrances

The first session saw a tiny haul, 10 sp/character (on an sp = xp basis + exploration xp awards, not nearly as generous as 3D6 DTL), one PC and one hireling death, and some hiding in the dark and running away after a random encounter snuffed the torchbearer and the torch. The Company was jokingly given the name "Sneak Sneak Boom," which stuck despite one Sneak dying in the first episode, the second Sneak perishing during the 27th session, and Boom only completing four full and three half sessions. The second expedition was nearly slaughtered by a very dangerous room--there was a mid-session roll-up of a new character--but had some success in recovering treasure, although not near enough to level. The party met again the foe that had killed the first PC, but got a 12 reaction roll from her, and, coincidentally, for the rest of the campaign would always get double-digit reactions rolls from that Malévol, the family that ran the place. The third session, "The Value of a Good Porter," recovered the first magic item that was consumed to no effect, and featured lots of hiding (and reasonably so). The fourth session was a haul, despite a load of caution, and resulted in the first two PCs leveling. It had started disastrously, when the new cleric failed to turn skeletons in the very first encounter, and all three hirelings were lost (one to friendly fire, one to enemy action, and one to morale failure). The fifth session started similarly: all hirelings slain, two PCs damaged exactly to 0 hp, aka out cold in my rules, and the situation warranted that the killing monsters (undead servants) buried the bodies when the one survivor fled. Two newly rolled characters, including the one who became the biggest XP-getter of all by the end, "happened by the Castle," and the KOed were recovered, along with a little treasure, including the first magic weapon gained. All expeditions to this point had been taking the same entry point into the Castle, and for the sixth expedition, "The Eyes (or Irish) Have It," a new tack was finally chosen, maybe because five PCs had showed (the acrobat was now 3rd level, too, and one fighting-man 2nd). Here, the party entered the lower level for the first time, came in touch with what I regarded as the central mystery of the module, and killed their first Malévol. The party also used the environment to begin killing monsters. The seventh session entered the third main entrance of the Castle (and found another way to the basement), and the eighth--which had all non-first-level characters for the first time--led to the first face-to-face encounter with a vampire, which slaughtered every hireling. A discussion with ravens on the way out gained some intelligence about the place, since the druid had a spell left during the retreat. The ninth sortie saw a decent return and the use of a discovered loop to flee two different foes.

Phase 2 (10-27): Targeted Looting, Systematic Mapping, Duets Especially

The tenth session saw a return to first-level characters for the first duet expedition, one PC which would never be played again (the only cleric who survived the campaign, and managed to turn ghouls at first level), while the other wouldn't level until the 43rd episode. Duets would become the dominant expedition until the 29th session. Although the players had deliberately aimed a bit for the wealthier portions of the Castle prior to this phase, they became much more oriented toward treasure extraction and mapping Xyntillan's rooms. Maybe this was happening because it was easier to get two to decide on a direction or goal. The sixth player joined the campaign at the eleventh session, for two sessions that were a treasure lull, and non-duets. He left following the twelfth session, "Stuck Doors," after his first-level illusionist was level-drained (my level drain is milder than RAW, but still substantial, especially for a PC with only 127 xp), when the wand of fear he wielded didn't work on a wight. I generally don't run "mythic underworld" doors, except in areas like the greenhouse. The party was initially very careful about their escape route, wedging the first two doors open, but forgot the procedure with the third and crucial portal--which the fighter failed to open (50-50) when they began fleeing from the monster. The wight was actually defeated with some lucky holy-watering, but another frightening encounter showed up at the noise, and the surviving party members scattered. The bard blew a hole in the ceiling of the greenhouse with his musket, then fled into darkness, taking his chances on the Table of Terror, rather than a second fight (and it worked out). The acrobat supped a just-purchased flying potion, and lifted the fighter through the hole in the ceiling to safety. Coincidentally, the party was able to avoid the ambush waiting for them at the entrance of the Castle. 

The players resumed first level characters at session thirteen, presumably sturdier ones, a barbarian and a dusty cleric, who would level with the xp from the mission.  The next few sessions accrued large amounts of xp--one with almost 3000 per character, and more for those who caroused, including the returned Irishman who ended up with a blasphemy tattooed on his member. A potion of treasure-finding was not deployed as well as it might have been by the players, but they located a half-dozen serious distinct hoards (that they wouldn't get to until much later--but they got four of them). For a while, Brother Barry and the barbarian ranged across the basement and then an unexplored portion of the main floor, hoovering up treasure, cutting a swath through lesser foes, and gaining levels rapidly. The party were finally ambushed by "the Glad Lads," as I'd dubbed the men of the Robin Hood-ish Malévol, as the dice decided. On the first exit under fire, a porter with paintings went down, left by the characters. During the second ambush in consecutive weeks, each PC came within an arrow's impact of dying. The players wanted to hunt the bandits, and a couple sessions later got their wish, getting ambushed on the way in for a change. The fresh party killed the leader and routed the others. The Company was now choosing to fight, and were mostly successful with the strategy, and pulled more than 4000 treasure xp per PC during session twenty-one, "Leave a Goat, Take a Goat." Then the Bar-Barry-an duo ran into a succubus, which drove the cleric temporarily mad. An alternate duo--the mid-session replacement druid, and an up-jumped retainer (when his boss was petrified)--found the Indoornesse, the secret extra-dimensional forest. They were repulsed quickly by a random encounter in the pocket dimension, but the elevated paladin often became the center of the story for a while: Episode 24, "Hans Thrice Defeats Death." The repeated success during combat led the players to get sloppy, and the cleric-acrobat duo--the highest leveled characters in the campaign at that point--met their end in session twenty-seven, with a bit of bad luck (a couple criticals against), but also lackluster deployment of their abilities and magic items (including one that might have one-shotted the foe). The PCs were surprised by a random vampire--which they had defeated before, but not staked--while looting a different vampire's bedroom. This was the only true TPK of the adventure, and they were the only non-level-ones killed for good. I left the bodies as recoverable, tossed out of the bedroom by the servants, but the players opted to bury the dead, not try and find a way to revive them. (The vampire had only claws, no head, so there was no chance the dead would turn.)

Phase 3 (28-39): Successes on a Razor's Edge

The next phase was feast or famine, and seemed to be just on the cusp of disaster at all times. The first session ended with an ambush by a reconstituted bandit crew (now the "Cheery Chaps," led by a former hireling). The druid, who had been feeding the ravens a goat every mission, was knocked unconscious during withdrawal, and being wheelbarrowed out when the Company was waylaid. I ruled that the ravens would not try to eat him. The unarmored NPC rescued during the excursion was within one bowshot of dying when the bandits were dispersed. The NPC then rewarded the party with a useful item for the druid. At this point, the party had caused enough mayhem that the Malévols began arranging ambushes that greeted the party, though there was usually an untrapped entrance. A lycanthropic mauling and harpies' songs did not lead to a TPK, nor did a recurring specter, which killed a first-level PC and hirelings, and drained some others. The giant skeleton cracked one character's skull and the most powerful vampire led an ambush--though she was slain almost by happenstance. The latter half of this phase was marked by finding a magic item that could summon a shambling mound, and this "Sir Charles" (mocking the Holy Roman Emperor, see) became the lifesaver, even defeating more than one reaper.

The Company got more powerful though. They found their first family heirloom in session thirty-one, "The Pickled Mind Pays Out." They made awkward friendships with family members, Eustace, Girolamo, Gregor, and "Uncle" Montfort, whose hallucinogenic candy they sampled. The seventh player joined for a single session that recovered not a single silver piece: "Money Sling (But No Money)." He did not enjoy the playstyle focused on resource-gathering, the encumbrance, the crawl. The players revisited a bunch of areas left uncleared and went a whole host of directions, and by the end of this they finally made it to the lake tower, to receive a quest from the Crusader Malévol, promised back during the thirtieth session. The party had crossed over the threshold of insulting the family further, and the family council had gathered to repulse them.

Phase 4 (40-51): Defeating the Anti-Druid, Finding the Grail

Just picture a *very fancy* crown atop this guy.

"A Bad Idea, But A Fun Idea" led off the home-stretch, with a stealth mission into the lake tower, and a the second battle (and fourth encounter) with the anti-druid Runcius, who had now become a recurring foe. In the subsequent mission, the rezzing specter was killed for a third time, and the party focused on the northeast of the Castle and the Indoornesse, where Runcius resided. During the forty-second episode, "Sometimes You Get The Owlbar; Sometimes The Owlbar Gets You," the party's druid ended up hiding and invisible among rotting hams, as Runcius' crew got the better of the Company. There was a short vengeance tour of the upper floors, and then the party focused on the basement and the beyond. They killed Runcius twice and with some finality (taking the third heirloom), and found the specter's great treasure and heirloom (fifth), which destroyed him, sandwiched around missions to recover the dangerously locked-up fourth heirloom. Hans finally had a retainer survive beyond first level. Session 50, “Pits, Pervo Priests, a Piper, and the Pendulum," held on the year anniversary of starting the campaign, was a failed search for the grail, the party trying to solve a puzzle they didn't need to. During the next mission, they found the artifact's location, aced the four major traps (failing a minor one) and crushed the ultimate guardian, obliterating a 60-hp, AC 19 creature in a single round (with no direct magic). The grail was recovered, but the Company had to make it past the final encounter, a 1 in 6 I let the players roll. This was Aristide, the Lich of the Castle, whose reaction roll was a 4 on 2d6, modified +1 for average party Charisma, still a negative result. The creature, however, per module rules, had a 1:3 chance of ignoring the party anyway, and another 1 was rolled. Perhaps I should've made him note that they had the Grail, and resisted their exit, but I did not. The party ended the last session of the campaign as they had the first, fleeing the Castle full speed.