Journey to the Tomb of the Spider Princess

I'm on a four day trip to Prague, visiting my brother. I had a 10 hour train ride ahead of me and so inspired by technoskald's Stygian Library solo campaign , I set out to improvise a sci-fi depth crawl. Welcome to Station Δ. An abandoned space station orbiting an unnamed planet. It is of great interest to the Space Federation as it is the last recorded location of the Important McGuffin. The station doesn't have the best reputation. Allegedly, due to unknown planetary influences, the internal structure of the station is in a constant quantum flux, rearranging and altering. Thankfully, through the wonders of modern technology, there is a way to locally stabilize the quantum field. Temporarily anyway. And its still not exactly safe. Rather than dirtying their own hands, Space Federation decides to hire a crew of freelancers specialized in voidship salvage. Que the Fragmented Leap. It is a hauler class inter stellar vessel (ISV). It's crew is as follows: Captain Percival ...

Over the past week I slowly continued to unfold the story of our intrepid party. I started with some downtime activities. For prices of various items I'm using the  Basic Fantasy Equipment Emporium . I got to do couple combats and I'm quite pleased with how dynamic they feel while only using a series of coin flips (e.g. will the attack land, coin flip , will the injury be substantial, coin flip ). I also got to use ChatGPT for the first time, specifically to generate a short little poem. Nothing groundbreaking but it saved me some time. Intermission Rechthorst, a town of 5 000 straddling the river Ganz. Once an important trade centre, now a shadow of its former self after the resources of the Keferhals Forest have been depleted. It remains a cosmopolitan town and a temporary home to many explorers, opportunists and swashbucklers. Other than that, it is known for its beer brewing, with some breweries exporting their products as far as the Coast of Smiles. Town is led by a daring...

 I enjoy reading actual play blog posts. Of osr style games in particular. I find the emergent stories these game often generate quite entertaining. For some time now, I wanted to recreate this experience or at very least the format of the output in a solo rpg game. I've made few attempts using various rule systems as well as more free form solo journaling. None of these succeeded in what I wanted to achieve. Not until now. I set out to recreate a journal of a dungeon crawling experience. I started by rolling d3+3 for the initial party size. I then generated a gender and name for each. Mixed results from couple tables and generators to get an idea for the dungeon they're delving into. As is often the case for a first session, I decided to drop them right at the doorstep of the dungeon. From then on I mostly used  this generator  as a spark table for locations. I occasionally leaned on some  random words . When I needed a character to do something, I rolled a die to s...

    <- Previous session. Party returns to  the Three River Coast. The Story So Far October 20th 2021 Radish, Druid 2 Sorbo, Half-Elf 1 Grudge, Fighter 2 Milo Crest, Fighter 1, Retainer Ezrus Farmer, Paladin 1, Retainer Pumba, Adult Boar, Pet Not willing to take up the Duke on his offer of a job, party decided to head back to Zelkor's Ferry. They renegotiated a deal with Milo and Ezrus. Ezrus being convinced only by the promise of purging evil cultists of Orcus from Castle Calaelen. On their way back they passed through the village of Raudlam. A stop they've made once already. On a muddy square in front of the local tavern they noticed hastily built gallows. Hanged by a noose, there was a corpse of a young girl. One of her legs was a wooden prosthetic. Her hair was crudely cut/shaven and her arms and face was covered in bruises fresh and old. Party surmised it must be one of the people they saw entering the forest couple days ago. Mood at the tavern was sombre and ...

    <- Previous session. We've had somewhat irregular more rp based session this time. The Story So Far October 13th 2021 Sorbo, Half-Elf 1 Radish, Druid 1 Bogomir Gotfridovich, Dwarf 1 Grudge, Fighter 2 Milo Crest, Fighter 1, Retainer Ezrus Farmer, Paladin 1, Retainer Pumba, Young Boar, Pet With several members afflicted by the mark of Orcus, the party decided to seek out spiritual help. Asking Ezrus, a local adventurer, they found out the Church of St. Octave in Newthorn, the capital of the Duchy, might have answers. As they were buying rations and equipment for the four day trip, Rasmus offered them a job of delivering a shipment of goods to his business partner in Newthorn. The shipment even included some pieces, party itself recovered from the dungeon. The first couple days passed without an incident. As they entered the more densely populated area of the duchy, they even managed to find an inn to sleep at. Local villagers were greatly impressed by seeing an actual gro...

   <- Previous session. The Story So Far October 10th 2021 Grudge, Fighter 2 Radish, Druid 1 Bogomir Gotfridovich, Dwarf 1 Ganon, Magic-User 1 Sorbus, Half-Elf 1 Kip Kilgaughan, Halfling 1 Naemo Scales,  Outlaw 0, Retainer Pumba, Young Boar, Pet It was 27th of Figver, year 789 CL. 10th day since Grudge and various other adventurers started exploring the area around the Zelkor's Ferry. After a day of recuperation following their night raid on Castle Calaelen, they party has awoken to a sunny day with clear weather. Only thing ruining their breakfast was loud complaining of Gaebriel, the elven adventurer, about the quality of their porridge. Odo, the barkeep, was nowhere to be seen and as such Gumbel, the cook, had to bear the brunt of the Gaebriel's derision. As they found out, Odo was handling a bit of an situation. Duke's men doubled down on hunting outlaws in the easternmost parts of the coast, closer to the Coast Road. Some of the outlaws managed to flee westwards a...

  <- Previous session. Bringing you the report of the fifth session of our open table campaign. The Story So Far October 3rd 2021 Radish, Druid 1 Grudge, Fighter 2 Ray, Fighter 3 Ewly, Cleric 2 Marius, Elf 1 Pumba, Young Boar, pet After few days of drinking, fishing and proselytizing, the party was ready to head out into the dungeon again. Making their way down to the common room at the Bristleback's Inn, they saw a newly arrived elven adventurer being accosted by a pet meerkat. Radish tried to get the meerkats attention but it was swatted away by the elf before he could do much. Party sat a table and discussed their option. The way to the second level was barred by iron constructs in shape of insect-snake hybrids. Not liking they chances with mundane weapons, they decided to see Old Ulman and ask him for some potent acid. He had two bottles at hand and agreed to prepare two more for them in two days. He also offered them coin should they bring him glands from fire or oil spewin...

<- Previous session. Another week, another expedition into the ancient dungeon. The Story So Far September 26th 2021 Grudge, Fighter 1 Ray, Fighter 2 Radish, Druid 1 Milo Crest, Fighter 1, retainer Pumba, Young Boar, pet In the downtime before the session, Radish the Druid ventured into the nearby forest looking for an animal to tame. He came upon a young boar which very nearly gored him, before he was able to enchant it with his druidic magic. Party rehired Milo, who bought himself a shield and an axe between the sessions, intent on following Grudge's martial example. They agreed to try again for the bounty on the River Rats bandits and so ventured into the Mouth of Doom. After some initial confusion about which door to take, they arrived at the entrance to the bandits' hideout. Making a good use of surprise, the party killed two bandits and knocked one unconscious. The remaining bandit thrown his weapon down and surrendered. After some quick interrogation the bandit reveal...

Soggy Bowler Hat  - Immediately teleports the wearer to the closest body of water large enough to fully submerge them. Has d4+1 charges. Leave overnight in a marshy pond to replenish charges. Unfashionably green and constantly soaked. Battle Surgeon Banner  - When planted, summons a grumpy battle-hardened surgeon. They randomly pick d4 wounded or recently deceased creatures within 60' of the banner. Spending one round on each patient, they restore d6 hp to them. Has d4+1 charges. Charges cannot be replenished.  Off white, torn up and stained with blood. Glove of Challenge  - When thrown at a creature, you challenge them to a single combat. They cannot refuse. They set the terms (to death vs to first blood, weapons, etc.). If defeated, they'll do one thing for you. No one considers the challenge socially inappropriate. Cannot be used more than once on the same target by the same person. Made of garish purple velvet. Flowery Comb of Untangling  - When swiped in a ...

  <- Previous session. Scheduling difficulties have finally caught up to me. Due to several people having to cancel at the last minute, this was a rather short session with just two players. The Story So Far September 19th 2021 Grudge, Fighter 1 Oleg, Fighter 1 Eli Wax, Half-elf 1, retainer Milo Crest, retainer After arriving at the Bristleback's Inn, party noticed a hastily built notice board hanging on the wall next to the counter. Pinned on it was a parchment proclaiming monetary reward for the bandits they met inside the dungeon yesterday. Enticed by the possible reward but not liking their chances, Grudge and Oleg hired on Eli as an additional muscle and Milo as a torchbearer. As they were nearing the ruined cottage, that lies north of the Mouth of Doom, Grudge noticed several figures trailing them. They kept their distance and tried to hid behind trees and bushes. It was hard to tell from the distance but it seemed they had unusually long necks and limbs, had four arms and...

<- Previous session. Adventures of brave heroes delving into the vile lair of Demon Lord Orcus continue. The Story So Far September 12th 2021 Thuban, Cleric 1 Grudge, Fighter 1 Ray, Fighter 2 Tiberius Stone, Paladin 1 Radish, Druid 1 Spending the night at the Bristleback Inn, Tiberius had an uneasy rest. In his dream, he was child again. Standing in a crowd at a town square in his home city. Figure in priestly robes stood in the middle of the square, falcon perching at their forearm. In front of them three unfamiliar men were tied to wooden poles. "Tell me your name!", spoke the priest. Though they were facing away from Tiberius with hood over their head their voice was feminine. "Tiberius Stone.", spoke first of the tied men. "You speak lies!", replied the priest and the falcon swooped in to take man's tongue. This repeated for other two prisoners. Both calling themselves Tiberius Stone. Both being accused of lying. With that nightmare over, party ...