• 09 Nov, 2025 *

Characters

Hoot (Owl Primal Chaos Worshiper)

Varg (Wolf Troglodyte)

Brick (Ogre Bogatyr)

Flake (Owl Village Spirit)

Leda (Human Vampire Hunter)

Ripper (War Bear Imperial Mercenary)

Session Recap

Determined to finish what they started, the characters head back to the caverns haunted by the Goat to kill it and get this over with. Unfortunately as they enter a shadow lunges at them, just outside their field of view and attacks the party. Leda, being a Vampire Hunter, recognizes her chosen enemy - a vampire, in the form of a shadow. She tries desperately to fight it off and warn the others, but it is too late. Unable to see their enemy, the vampire knocks Varg out, deals a lot of damage to everyone else, and Leda sacrifices herself to protect Flake, getting in the vampire’s face. It knocks her out too, and drags her limp body away.

Hoot, able to perform magic that allows him to perceive invisible things, is able to barely track the vampire as the party give chase, but they lose it after it runs down the stairs to Depth 2. They follow the best they can, but the track runs cold. Some skeletons hanging out near the ossuary-like domain of the Patriarch of Bones chat with the party for a while, but can’t offer any real help.

Defeated and uncertain about the fate of their friend, the party regroup the best they can and head back up, trying to finish what they started. Unfortunately, the vampire had decided to return the favor, stalking the group in turn and attacks them once more when they reach the cavern of the Goat. It deals some hits, but the party go invisible so the vampire decides to just run away once more.

Properly on edge from the constant attacks, Ripper the Bear starts to shout for the Goat to show itself, which it eventually does. As everyone’s heartbeat turns into a panicked thump from the aura of fear around the fell beast, Hoot and Flake unleash their combined Chaos Blasts, ripping apart the Goat in a single round, its head disintegrating mid-sentence. All that is left of it is its bloody and magical skin. The party take their trophy and bring it back to camp, then decide to go explore some more.

Initially they head east, finally making contact with the Pesoglavi that they had heard about before. The Pesoglav attack, but a quick application of “Shotgun to the face” solves that problem quickly. Deciding not to see how many more of these things are around the party run back to the Goat’s caverns and decide to finish exploring it.

They eventually find its lair, a series of foul smelling caverns. Varg again uses his shotgun to dissuade a wriggling mass of giant pale maggots from devouring him, then the group find the Goat’s resting spot - the hazy and quickly fading memory of a goat pen, the walls and straw of it all glistening with blood.

Exploring some more they find a strange pile of decomposed goop, a dull butcher’s knife radiating magic from it. Retrieving the knife they head back out, though Brick does not heed his senses and the cavern filled with built up gasses from the Goat’s excrement ends up bursting into flame from the fire of the Chaos Lantern he was using, shattering the thing (though luckily leaving the ogre himself unharmed).

Deciding that enough is enough the group head back to camp, a bloody and horrific adventure done.

Observations

This was a slightly longer than usual session, as we played at my place instead of the usual spot at the LGS. The increased encounter chance struck again, with the party facing against a vampire. It was a bit for naught though, as the vampire managed to surprise all of them, including Leda (who got a big bonus for spotting it, being a vampire hunter and having a magical icon that rattles if vampires are around). That could have lead to a TPK, however the vampire also has no real desire to simply kill people. Instead it took the unconscious Leda away for nefarious means that the players enjoyed speculating on.

The fact that after the chase the party managed to roll the exact same encounter again also made for a wonderful emerging narrative - the same vampire, in effectively the same spot in the dungeon? The odds of that are were shockingly low, and yet it happened!

I am not kidding, btw - the chance for an encounter is 2-in-6. So you needed to have the encounter happen the same turn as the party reach that exact spot. And then the vampire is only on a result of 11 on a roll of 2d6. That is only a 5.55% chance. But then to have that happen twice becomes downright silly.

However it helped build a good narrative of the undead from Depth 2 starting to encroach more on Depth 1, now that the balance power had slightly shifted as a result of the players’ actions.

The “fight” with the Goat itself was as expected. The party knew they could one-shot it, so they one-shot it. I was fine with it this time, unlike with the Basilisk fight, since they had a brutal brawl with this same enemy last session, so this was their chance to get payback.

They also finally explored their first sub-level, the Lair of the Goat. Since the main enemy of that sub-level was already defeated, it was more about trying to piece together what was going on in there, rather than trying to find and kill the Goat itself, which honestly still worked. Players speculated about what had actually happened to this animal, and why it was the way it was.

All in all a very good session. Leda’s player already has ideas on what her next replacement character should be, and how to tie them in with Leda, which I love and I look forward to!

Session Stats

Rooms Explored: 9

Enemies Defeated: The Goat, 2 Pesoglav, 7 White Corpse Maggots

Characters Dead: None

#Campaign #Megadungeon #OSR [#Session Report](https://gorgonbones.bearblog.dev/blog/?q=Session Report) [#Tunnels & Trolls](https://gorgonbones.bearblog.dev/blog/?q=Tunnels & Trolls) #Zandan