Marking 24 Months Of Adventuring...

The Chronicles of Cidri has now been running for two years, which is definitely something of a record for the Tuesday Knights.

You can read about our first year of adventuring, in my take on the old Fantasy Trip default world of Cidri, here.

Unfortunately my health was more down than up this year, which resulted in an unforeseen break in gaming over the summer. After a busy April we didn't sit back down at the table until August, even though we'd left things mid-scenario.

As with last year, the games were initially drawn from the work of the industrious Tim Shorts (either from his fanzine The Manor or his Patreon campaign to produce micro-adventures), but then I changed things up by rewriting a very old adventure from an early issue of Different Worlds for the haunted house games, and the current 'dungeon' the characters are exploring is actually an Into The Odd scenario (which would explain why things are a bit... er... odd!).

LINKS TO CAMPAIGN CHAPTERS:

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Marigold Is Cursed: a one-shot ghost-busting adventure that set the direction for the rest of the campaign.

CHAPTER TWELVE: If You Go Down To The Woods Today and CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Lost In The Nexus Of All Realitity: In their quest to remove Marigold's curse, the group seeks out the legendary 'Witch Of The Woods' and ends up lost in the Realm Of Fairie.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: I Ain't Afraid Of No Ghost, CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Hunting Of The Snark, CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Return To The Haunted Manse and CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Manse Raiders Of The Lost Art: after rescuing a lost child from a haunted house, our heroes return for loot and unleash a great evil on the world.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Into The Badlands: The party get a lead on a lost repository of Mnoren treasure and hope to find artifacts powerful enough to take down a tarrasque.

THE TUESDAY KNIGHTS: 

Meredith left us this year to start a new life with her husband Richard in New Zealand, but didn't want to kill off her rogue, Imogen, leaving the character 'in play' should she wish to continue the campaign via email.

After Meredith left we had a gap at the table and Erica (a work colleague of Rachel's) joined us in March as the young scholar Holly.

Clare's trainee wizard Marigold Weaver has become the unexpected focus of much of the 'story' element of the campaign after she was cursed by a ghost, which led to the whole 'Witch Of The Woods' adventure, and now the revelation of her unexplained pregnancy.

My wizard (Marigold's master), Peter Entwhistle, got bumped off during the exploration of the haunted manse (as a key element of the thread that brought the potentially world-destroying tarrasque into the game), and at the end of the year was replaced by the Robin Hood-esque Dirkin as either a GMPC for me or a replacement character for anyone who gets killed.

Pete's Kirchin has become the de-facto leader of the group.

Kevin is playing the group's tank, a beefy dwarven weaponsmith called Davian Battlebeard.

Simon is the group's moral support, morale officer and amoral thief, halfling bard Harry Cobblethwaite. 

Chapter Eighteen: Into The Badlands...

The Western Badlands...

It would be fair to say the members of Cobblethwaite's Companions didn't trust the man claiming to Dirkin, Kirchin's brother, one hundred per cent.

While young Kahl was adamant it was 'Uncle Dirkin', and both Harry and Davian remembered Kirchin talking about his brother, sharing anecdotes of their time fighting shoulder-to-shoulder in the Secession Wars, when the healer had first arrived in Bendwyn, he hadn't mentioned Dirkin since the party explored The Vault Of Viktor Volkov about four months ago.

They were, however, all intrigued by Dirkin's claims to know the location of a lost Mnoren treasure house (a store abandoned by the "gods" when they left Cidri 1,500 to 2,000 year ago). He'd visited it once with three accomplices, but while he stood guard outside all but one of them died inside and the third managed to crawl out of the tunnels, horribly burned, and die at Dirkin's feet.

Drawn by the tales of his older brother's exploits, Dirkin had come to Bendwyn to seek Kirchin out and enlist his aid in a return adventure to the "treasure house of the gods".

The party prepared itself, loaded up their wagon and headed off to the blasted wastelands that lay to the west of Elyntia. The scenery reminded Kirchin of the war-ravaged land around Winterhome, razed during one of the most brutal and protracted engagements of the Secession Wars.

It took the group the better part of three weeks to get to the cave entrance, not encountering a living soul for the last ten or so days as they wove their way through the Western Badlands to the Distant Mountains and the cave that Dirkin claimed was the way in to the 'treasure house'.

On the journey, Marigold - still very clearly traumatised by the grisly death of her mentor - dropped the bombshell that she was pregnant. And yet she was still a woman of virtue and was afraid that she might actually be infected by tarrasque larvae. It was pointed out to her, rather matter-of-factly, that if that was the case they probably would have 'hatched' by now, but she was not wholly convinced.

The party found the cave and saw that the passage into the mountain would require them to crawl, so Harry led the way and the rest followed in the narrow, claustrophobic tunnels.

Crawling slowly through the maze of passageway they found a cave with a strange humming metallic device in, a box with a funnel-like trumpet attached, that was constructed of eternium (much to Davian's delight).

One of the halfling-sized electrical creatures

Where possible they looked for clues as to which  direction Dirkin's men had taken and eventually found that the natural tunnels led into 'man-made' areas, which had humming copper walls, metal doors, and softly glowing white stone floors and ceilings.

But at least they could stand up in these tunnels and had more room to move about.

Very cautious about the walls and metal doors, as they sparked occasionally, the adventurers finally found themselves in a long tunnel which led - through a concealed door - into a room that was the bottom of a well.

Prior to this they had found rooms with pools of oil, a large cyclopean lizard skull, and one hung with owl-shaped lanterns where the floor was covered in scraps of paper scribbled in an unknown language.

Worried about touching the metal doors and being unable to open them, the party turned to Holly and her 'magical doorknob of opening' (acquired in Jerol of Jirrey's haunted manse), which proved to be their saviour as it allowed them access to otherwise impenetrable barriers.

Looking up in the 'well room', through the circular hole in the ceiling, the explorers could see the sky a hundred feet or so above.

Using a copper key-rod they had found in the rubble on the floor, they opened a door from this room and met a number of strange, small, electrical beings that appeared more curious than aggressive.

Fearing they wouldn't be able to take these creatures in a fight, the party managed to negotiate with them - mainly using sign language - and eventually gave the critters Davian's eternium skull ring, which pleased them no end and they headed off further into the 'dungeon', leaving the party to explore where the beasts had come from.

Finding a room with a pile of skeletons in, the party warily avoided that and opened a door in a room bisected by a glowing stream.

To be continued...

CAST:

• Davian (Kevin)
• Harry (Simon)
• Holly (Erica)
• Kirchin (Pete)
• Marigold (Clare)