Revelry on Amazon.com

Just found the Amazon/CreateSpace proof in my mailbox.  Guess it came yesterday without my knowing.  Usually, they leave large and/or awkward packages upon my front door or in the garage.  Luckily, it wasn't damaged by shoving it in and then back out of the mailbox.

Anyway, the proof looks awesome!  I just approved it.  That means a softcover is immediately available on CreateSpace and it'll be 3 - 5 days before Revelry in Torth shows up on amazon.

Now that I know Amazon is covered, I'm 99% sure DriveThru's print version files will also be OK.  However, I'd feel like a real jackass if I approved that shit before actually seeing the proof and then found out that DriveThru somehow mishandled it or there was an error created by Lightning Source's interpretation of the files.  So, probably another week on that.

Still waiting on reviews.  All I've been able to find is a 5 star "Nice job, Venger!" on DriveThru and a longer, so-so review over here.  I considered writing a tit for tat rebuttal of his analysis, but realized that probably wouldn't be very productive.  Not that Merric doesn't have valid points, just that his expectations are probably a bit off in regards to my style, how I write, how I GM, etc.  And what he said about my short short story seemed kind of mean-spirited.

My work is somewhere between my personal adventure notes (before, during, and after sessions) and what a big RPG company usually puts out, like Wizards of the Coast or Pathfinder.  Those expecting more of the latter will most likely be disappointed.  As mentioned in Liberation and Purple, I've put 85% of what's required to successfully run a mini-campaign on an aesthetically pleasing platter (you should see the horrendous scribbles from my actual session notes!), it's for individual GMs to add their personal 15%.  The combination is what makes it magical.

VS

Concluding the Temple of Elemental Evil

Yes, it is finished.  Faced with the distinct possibility of going out with a whimper, I always prefer a bang, instead.  My home gaming group was disintegrating before me, my only hope was to conclude The Temple of Elemental Evil next session.  That being last Saturday, I have a session report for you...

• Prior to the session's start, Daniel (playing Sir Basil) explained his odd behavior last session.  Taken aback by Xar's disregard for human life, Sir Basil uncomfortably "went along with" proceedings even though the holy knight had deep reservations about slitting the throat of that woman cultist/vessel encountered last time.  Basil decided against confronting Xar for the sake of party cohesion and the greater quest of dispatching the foul remnants of the temple.
• As there was a player shortage, the extra characters who didn't have players to run them (X'fritl and Tidillo, specifically) simply vanished before the remaining characters' eyes.  Left with nothing more than a faint, disembodied evil laugh, the "survivors" marched forward to the unexplored areas of the 3rd level.
• Having an hour's preparation, I planned for two special things, unique aspects of my own devising that would make the Temple stand out... that would make it truly mine.  
• 1) a hexagonal room with six doors.  Four of them led to a jungle.  Upon opening those doors, the PCs saw bits of dungeon floor and walls here and there, slowly giving way to an entirely new environment - a mysterious jungle.  Just in case they got curious or needed a break from the dungeon crawl, I provided an escape.  Those doors led to none other than the islands of purple-haunted putrescence.  After their discovery, the players opted not to venture out into the jungle.  That was fine by me, though I had my book full of weird science-fantasy encounters handy just in case.
• 2) towards the end, I wanted a couple of dimensional travelers to interrupt the party's progress.  We'll get to that later.
• A powerful demon guarded this section of the dungeon.  One or more PCs could have died, but near-constant magic missiles and Sir Basil's frostbrand made short work of him.
• More prisoners discovered:  human, humanoid, and elf.  One of the elves became the party thief.  The rest just wanted to go home or stay in the dungeon.
• An illusion made for interesting combat as the characters were almost totally taken-in by were-jackals.
• A bronze pit for a bugbear was easily scouted by Markus the ragged - a templar revenant who joined the party last session.  The revenant is a character class provided in FH&W.  Tricky to play and DM, I let a lot of stuff fly that wasn't specially mentioned in the rule book.  
• A potentially huge encounter with bugbears, ogres, and a hill giant was cut short by Xar's well-placed fireball.  
• Some evocative and Lovecraftian descriptions provided a dank and dreary atmosphere - perfect for dungeoneering.  
• Stairways showed level 4 having collapsed some time ago.  That kept everyone on level 3 where the action was.  This being the last session, it made sense.
  
  
  
• Finally, a purple throne, an inner-sanctum, and a towering spider demon with cyclopean 9th eye shooting burning rays of fire.  Luckily, two out of the three PCs wore rings of fire resistance.  I got most of the stats from Fiend Folio and converted the rest to be the big bad at the temple's end.  When not using its eye ray, it had four attacks.  I pulled out all the descriptive stops for this one.  I mentioned the viscera and slimy entrails yanked out of its abdomen when Sir Basil scored a critical hit - max damage on both dice!  When he finally struck it down, after almost dying (luckily he had a potion of extra healing), I detailed its severed head twitching and wounds oozing a yellow-green substance, etc.  There was nearly an hour left after the creature's destruction.
• Back to Vengerizing the temple, the party decided to rest up before looting the spider demon's treasure.  Nothing happened while they slept.  Upon waking, however, the party heard voices and clanging noises coming from the inner-sanctum (they slept in the throne room adjacent).  They investigated.  Two humans and a magic portal.  The humans told of their mission - to retrieve a sacred object containing the essence or soul of their unpronounceable god.  Using one of the special abilities of his class, Sir Basil detected that the god contained within the silver container was evil.  The party forced the two dimensional travelers to give up the container.  Before leaving through the portal, they promised to return... with reinforcements.  
  
• This led to an amusing, though brief, chase through the third level.  The PCs hid in a large crack where they left off at the end of last session.  After a DM reminder (I usually refrain from that sort of thing, but couldn't resist), Xar used his limited wish scroll to destroy the evil god trapped in the silver vessel.  Not finding any easy loopholes, his wish was granted.  And not having any way to see if their god was still in the container, the dimensional intruders took back the container.
• Amongst the spider demon's horde of gold and gemstones, the PCs claimed a dragon orb and a few other random magic items from the 1st edition DMG.  At that point, they marched back up to the surface, away from the misery-infused stone of this particular dungeon.  
• Not that it mattered, but everyone leveled before going home.

I was pleased with this session and The Temple of Elemental Evil as a whole.  However, I'm confident that next time I run it, things will go three times as awesome!

VS

More Evil Elements in the Temple

We finally got to resume our dungeon crawl through the Temple of Elemental Evil (see here for last session).  Below is a bullet-point snapshot of what went down...

• Harold returned to the fold.  For awhile there, he was spending every weekend with his girlfriend Carrie.  Luckily, there was space at the table because he brought her to play with us.  She'd never played D&D before but had played Changeling.  Not sure exactly how that happens, but ok.  Carrie played Melanie's character: X'fritl.
• There was a moment where I thought I'd lost everyone's character sheet (again!).  Thankfully, they were tucked in some RPG book upstairs.
• We all went through a re-cap and re-introduction because it had been so damned long since the last time.
  
• Monsters were killed (owlbears, bugbears, trolls, etc.) and humanoid cultists were either tricked or hypnotized.  Speaking of evil priests, I changed a few things around so that one of the lesser head priests had just murdered the high priest of that level in order to have his way with a nubile envoy from another temple.  It was an interesting diversion for a minute... until both their throats were slit.
• Sure enough, the party wanted to descend into the 3rd level of the dungeon before they'd cleared out the 2nd.  Not having read that far ahead, I did my best to wing it.  Either porting parts from the 2nd level to the 3rd or reading the boxed text for the first time... aloud to the players.  At least there was only an hour of game time left by the time they explored that 3rd level.
• Fire's a bitch.  A temple space devoted to the elemental evil of fire contained several salamanders which took awhile to kill.  Kaazor took another PC's life.  Harold's old character Verdilo was chewed up and spit out (or possibly swallowed).  
• After the salamanders, an iron box containing a super-powerful magic sword was discovered and went to Sir Basil, the paladin.  Incidentally, every battle Basil would try to throw himself in harm's way as a monster or humanoid was about to do damage to another party member.  This happened about 5 or 6 times.  From then on, I decided he'd have a 33% chance to take the hit for another PC or his hireling Milo.
• Harold created a new character - Murak the dwarf.  He picked up a trident of yearning and attempted to drown himself.  Luckily, he was saved.

Even though interesting things are happening, I'm ever so slightly starting to get bored with The Temple of Elemental Evil.  It's my own fault, really.  Never made it my own.  I'm going to introduce something weird into the mix... something I've been meaning to do for awhile, but time just gets away from me towards the week's end.  

Because next Saturday is Ben's last game for a couple months and it's difficult to keep a diverse and newly formed group together around the holidays, I think next time will be our last session with the ToEE.  Plus, I'm itching for something fresh.  Who knows, maybe Bell Bottoms, Black Sabbath, and Beltane (here) or the newly compiled and modified WEG Star Wars d6 RPG (here).

VS

P.S.  Oops, I forgot about something.  I did have a chance to use my new O5R Advantage/Disadvantage system.  Just once.

After opening a door and getting attacked, Verdilo (being a gnome) scurried between the troll's legs and stabbed him in the thigh.  It was inventive, cinematic, and tactically sound.  For me, it goes to show that little things aren't really worth worrying about.  But when something is noticeably advantageous (or the reverse), it should get special treatment.  Verdilo hit thanks to the +4 and did a small amount of damage (due to his size, naturally).

Temple of Elemental Evil continued

I'm just going to put all these stray thoughts into bullet points.

• I'm almost finished reading through Dungeon World.  I'm sure I'll write an actual review of it soon.  My overall opinion: interesting.  One thing I like is the rolling 2d6, adding ability score modifier, maybe a +1 or -1 depending on miscellaneous factors, and comparing the result with 10 and above success, 7 - 9 partial success or success but with some additional drawback, and 6 and below yielding failure.  This might trump my roll 3d6 vs. ability score and VSd6 for efficiency and simplicity.  
• Even though we're all enjoying FH&W, I think we might switch over to 5e when the DMG finally comes out.  The extra HD of healing for short rests, PC abilities/do-dads, and everything else a monster RPG franchise can bring to the table will probably be worth the extra 10 minutes per player at character creation.
• Instead of giving out inspiration on a per roleplaying per scene basis, I've been giving everyone a point of inspiration (just a re-roll, actually) at the start of each session.  If they don't use it, they can add it to next session.  Personally, I think any kind of inspiration or action point should accumulate.  
  
• However, I did grant Sir Basil an extra point because of his elaborate and daring maneuver of jumping over a pit, kicking in an open door, and slashing at the enemy with his sword.  
• By now, I'm sure the players have realized that much of the campaign is driven by percentile dice rolls.  Well, guys, here's the secret.  If there's an unlikely but possible chance of something awesome, terrible, and/or interesting happening, then I'll roll.  If the result is between 01 and 33%, that unlikely possibility occurs!  That's pretty much it.  Solves a lot of the background probability grey areas that can wear a GM (or campaign) down.
• I seem to fall into a pattern.  Every other session, there's a deluge of magic items.  Those alternating sessions, hardly anything at all.  Does it just work out like that or am I subconsciously making it happen?  In any case, see below...
• Scroll of mirror image, ice storm, and slow.  Ring of fire resistance (5 points).  Evisceration dagger +1 that does exploding damage.  Wand of illusions (12 charges).  Axe of regeneration (doubles the normal rate of healing for the wielder).  Ring of free movement.  Lightning Javelin.  Yeah, I added some cool loot to the temple.  A couple gamers warned me it was a bit stingy on the magic items.
  
• Speaking of that last one, when badass magic items are first acquired, caution goes out the window.  Luckily, X'fritl only killed the high priest!
• NPCs started dying like flies.  One was planned, the other three happened by accident.
• The party's elf died.  Moloch was an eldritch archer by trade.  Mostly an archer.  I think he only cast one spell in two sessions.  Yeah, it was a good day for Kaazor.  
• Gnolls and human guards were pedestrian enough that I felt the need to break out TWO different demons from Fiend Folio.
• Roleplaying and subterfuge won the day rather than brute force.  Well played... and sorry about your untimely death, Grog Barg (one of the unlucky NPCs, a half-orc).
• The first dungeon level of the temple has been cleared out and now the PCs have a key which probably unlocks the bronze door to level two.  
• Everyone leveled and I think the next session on Nov. 15th will be epic!
• Oops, one last thing... Ben created a new character to replace his assassin.  This session, he started playing a wizard named Zar.  The name was remarkably similar to his tiefling (half-demon) warlock Zatar here, so I asked if the two magic-users were related.  His response was: "Maybe, but not that they're aware of."  That led to us theorizing that Zatar's father was a demon while Zar's father was human and they were separated at birth - Zatar sent to Torth and Zar to Greyhawk.

Ok, that's about it.  Will be running Purple at a local con this Saturday.  Wish me weird!

VS

Temple of Elemental Evil with FH&W

So, this past Saturday, continuing from last week, I decided to bring out the big guns - one of the awesomest dungeons of old school D&D.  Yes, The Temple of Elemental Evil!  A little history first...

The first time I played this, I really can't remember much - just bits and pieces.  I was probably in 6th or 7th grade and my favorite non-paper and pencil RPG was The Bard's Tale.  It was just the DM (who was more experienced with D&D than I was) and me over the course of a couple weekends (days and nights).  I was playing at least six PCs and my magic-user had some kind of demon familiar like a Quasit.  All the characters were high level and though there were dangers faced, I don't recall any TPK moments or even getting close to that.

The second time was about 15 years ago.  For some strange reason, the DM decided to soup everything up, beefing the encounters and generally making all the monsters nigh unkillable.  In exchange, he gave our characters a plethora of "resurrection moss" (patent is most definitely not pending).  This moss allowed our characters to pretty much get right back up after being slaughtered over and over again.

As I explained to Daniel before Saturday's session started, if your PC only died once per session in that game, you were doing something right.  After the 4th session or so in The Temple of Elemental Evil, all the players had had enough.  Eventually, we just started attacking each other because then at least we had a fighting chance of surviving the combat!  After the inter-party brawl, we all had a long talk.  The upshot: our DM got all butt-hurt because we wanted him to adopt a different style of running ToEE and the entire gaming group broke up.  What I remember most about that trip to the Temple was the archaic and grim descriptions at its start.  Reminded me of H.P. Lovecraft meets The House of Seven Gables or something equally 19th century in language.

I had never run ToEE myself and I knew that would have to change.  Especially since +Frank Mentzer signed my copy about this time last year at the first Game Hole Con in Madison, WI.

As I worked on getting the new player up to speed with his character, I asked each of last session's players (except for Ben, who was out enjoying one of the few really nice days in this accursed state) to come up with the following...

• a motivation - basically, what's their reason for adventuring.
• an allegiance - who or what do they care about or owe, specifically.
• one unique thing about their character - something special about their PC that is theirs alone.
• and a henchman, follower, apprentice, or some other traveling companion.

X'fritl wanted revenge on the witchlings who abandoned her to the monks.  She also wanted to find out about the magical event that caused her parents' disappearance.  She planned on a physically impressive bodyguard to protect her.  But X'fritl also wanted a magical bow that was not readily available in the town.  So, she made a bargain with the bowmaker, agreeing to take his son along so he could "learn the ropes".  

Sir Basil had been a knight for 5 years, a member of the Order of the Red Tower.  They recruit and promote knights based on skill rather than noble birth or money like most orders.  The Order of the Red Tower fights unnatural magicks, demons, and otherworldly creatures.

Sir Basil has had his squire for only a short time.  His name is Milo.  Milo served a knight that was killed in the line of duty and then Milo stole his dead master's coin purse before running away.  Sir Basil didn't want a squire because of the burden, the responsibility - he really didn't want Milo because of his dishonorable conduct.  However, Sir Basil was impressed with Milo's ability to elude capture for so long.

Verdilo is a cavern gnome with pale skin.  He's extremely handsome with a wild, unkempt black beard.  His motivation is pleasure... wine, women, and song.  He used to be a circus performer and his "henchman" is his baby's momma (Olive) along with her sister (Charlotte).  On the verge of ridiculous, but then that's Verdilo and his player, Harold, for you. 

The new player decided to play an elf eldritch-archer.  Probably not the best class considering the party was about to embark on the world's oldest mega-dungeon.  I told him to let me know if he wanted to swap the eldritch-archer for any one of the dozens of character classes in Fantastic Heroes & Witchery.

As Daniel's knight of the Red Tower was so strongly drawn, I used Sir Basil and his backstory as the adventuring hook.  He received a letter telling him about the possibility of evil growing anew within the Temple.  Also, the Order of the Red Tower sent one of their own, Lord Gregory, to guide the party.

As for the first session of ToEE, the boxed text did most of the work for me.  The leprous grey exterior, the croaking of unwholesome toads, vegetation looking either withered and lifeless or unnaturally bloated and grotesque, leering demonic faces, bas reliefs depicting vile acts... I just can't get enough of it.  Straight out of Lovecraft!

Anyways, they freed some human prisoners and fought off a bunch of undead.  Not much else happened besides wading through debris - debris that tells an awesome story all on its own!  I'm biding my time before cranking things up to 11.  This coming Saturday should be very interesting.  Haahahhaaahaaahaaa! I'm going to throw a few surprises their way.  Rather than waiting until a couple hours before, I'll dig deep early, allowing stray, mutant thoughts to coagulate and seep into my  fevered subconscious.  

When I suggested running an abridged version (just the hits) of ToEE, Daniel made it clear that I should do the whole thing.  No shortcuts!  So, there you have it.  More session reports of ToEE for weeks to come.

VS

p.s.  A week from this Saturday, Nov. 8th, I'll be back at the Game Hole Con running The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence.  On sale now, actually.  It'll be my first time running it since the book was published.  Can't wait!

Home at Long Last

Yesterday afternoon marked the first of many (I hope) home games.  Finally, I was able to transition from one-off sessions at the public library with semi-strangers to a weekly campaign at my house with people I barely know (and one good friend I've known since college)!

Why did I stop running games at my house last spring?  A combination of wanting more family time and summer activities on weekends.  Mostly, my wife needed a break as she's the one watching the kids just like almost every week day I'm at the office.  Plus, the old home game group needed some shaking up... needed new blood.  And what better way to find new players than offer to run Meetup sessions?

Anyways, four players assembled at my place for pizza (one abstained), drinks (everyone had water except for me - I had a soda), and conversation (too random to pin down).  However, towards the end, I asked everyone if they had a preferred system.  This was to be Dungeons & Dragons, more or less, but I was hard-pressed to pick a favorite D&Dish RPG.

The adventure I "prepared" and showed them was A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords but that could be run with any of the following: Dungeon Crawl Classics, Basic D&D, AD&D, Fantastic Heroes & Witchery, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, Swords & Wizardry, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, plus I'm sure I have a few more in PDF form...

Melanie suggested 5th edition.  Daniel wanted "rules light", something easy to play without needing to learn a lot of special rules... I think everyone agreed with him.  Harold didn't have a preference but was intrigued by the "crazy character classes" he heard me talking about regarding Fantastic Heroes & Witchery.  Ben didn't have a strong opinion but had tried and liked FH&W a couple weeks ago.  Since it was fresh in my mind, an intuitive collection of previous editions of D&D, and just plain awesome... I was happy to run FH&W.

Prior to diving in, the FH&W veterans, Ben and Melanie, mentioned the "broken" tiefling sub-race or racial template that gave you three valuable demonic powers.  However, knowing that, everyone resisted the temptation to go down that familiar and tempting road.

Because there are so many race/class options and I have only one rulebook, everyone agreed it would be interesting and speedy to mention just the race and class names, have everyone choose, and then go into detail about what the benefits were for each of the chosen few.  This is what they ended up with...

• Harold played Verdilo, a gnome trickster.
• Daniel played Sir Basil Werner, a human paladin (though he did consider the anti-paladin).
• Melanie played X'fritl (forgot to ask where the hell she came up with that one) the witchling scary monk (one of the things I appreciate about Melanie is that she's not afraid to pick something outside the box - especially if it sounds dark and weird).
• Ben played Sechaveh, an exotic human (he's basically human but from another world, the food here is almost inedible to him and there's also something strangely pleasing about him - some recognize he's part of this new world's prophecy) assassin.

All were 3rd level, except Sir Basil who was 4th - the level at which the knight character class could transition into paladin.  Opting for a pure human (the most boring choice possible *), he was rewarded with extra experience points.

I also like how FH&W doesn't make you wait before characters can use their cool class abilities like death attack, unarmed attack, and believable lie.  In that regard, it's more like AD&D 2nd edition, 3rd edition D&D or even 5e.

Not having a ton of preparation time, I altered little bits of the module as I deemed fit. 

I allowed everyone a saving throw to see if they could resist the sleep gas.  Two did.  Sir Basil played possum while X'fritl hid in her cell, waiting until the guards came to take them away.  She managed to escape while Sir Basil bided his time (due to the 8 reptilian guards).  Eventually, they all ended up at section #1 of the map. 

I added the Grell from Fiend Folio.  After a failed assassination attempt, X'fritl smashed the top of a small barrel full of fish oil and doused the abomination before lighting it on fire.  She also dealt it a karate-chop death blow a couple of rounds later.  

Rather than make the will-o-wisp just another monster to fight, I presented it as a curious, alien-like thing to interact with rather than destroy.  X'fritl communicated with it, eventually making it a friend and ally.  True to my love for old school play, I opted to let her try a few things instead of having her simply roll a check to make contact and glean information.  Now, the party had a light source and a yes/no/maybe "magic 8 ball" they could ask for information.

By the time the session was almost over, the PCs acquired a decent amount of loot.  A sack of 2d30 gold pieces resulting in a ridiculous 3, so I changed it to 30 silver pieces.  They also had a magic short sword, long sword, cloak, and ring.  

The adventure's roper scored two critical hits, nearly killing two characters.  Thank the gods for the racial HD, as well as, character class HD!

Earthquakes shook the cave system, utterly collapsing just after the adventurers escaped to the open air.

One last thing, I like the idea of inspiration from 5e but didn't want to distract the players and constantly interrupt the game with awarding it each scene for appropriate roleplaying opportunities.  Instead, I gave everyone a point of inspiration, luck, action point, or whatever you want to call it (physically represented by a little yellow stone).  Spending it gave you a the chance to re-roll a d20.

Daniel and Ben made use of the point when their characters rolled a natural 1.  Hilariously, Daniel's re-roll was a 3 and Ben's was a 2.  At least they avoided the critical failure.  FH&W has a table for that, too!

VS

*  After giving it some thought, at least one human in the adventuring party feels right... even natural.  Practically every fantasy/scifi TV show and film ever made has a human character (sometimes more than one) with which the audience can identify.  Doing away with this "realism anchor" could have a potentially negative impact on the overall campaign.

No Reason Not to Play a Demon

As you can tell from reading my review, I'm into Fantastic Heroes & Witchery.  Rather than wait to use it or let it sit on my shelf, I decided to run yesterday's game with FH&W.  Because reading a rule book isn't the same as using it, this account should be just as valuable as my first impression.

The session was scheduled for 4.5 hours, plenty of time to make characters.  Especially since A) I didn't have any pre-made - I've fallen way behind since coming back from vacation, and B) character creation is one of the best parts of FH&W.  Here's what the players came up with...

• A tiefling half-elf warlock named Zatar, steeped in black magic, in service to dark forces, and aligned with Chaos.  His goal was to seek out forbidden lore which would make him a more powerful warlock.  At the game's start he was a cult of one but desired to have followers.
• A halfling rifleman named Otus, wearing full plate and carrying a laser pistol, as well as, an automatic pistol.  Could that character be anything except comic relief?  Time will tell...
• A tainted human who had spent far too many hours peering into the void, where the Great Old Ones anxiously bided their time.  Always on the lookout for supernatural horror, Abigail became a savant (scientist and gadget/tinkerer).
• Bakki was a tiefling dwarf, kicked out of his dwarven community on his 100th birthday for showing his demon blood, the Gothi (religious and political leaders) was determined to wipe out all dwarves in retribution for his excommunication.  
• Last but not least was a winged folk thief named Shara, an outcast from her people.  

It probably would have taken two or more hours if I'd let each player pour over the book, reading each race and class entry.  So, I briefly went over the pros and cons of each.  Actually, there were very few cons - just different pros.  Some options had more pros than others.  

For instance, you got to roll three times on this table of special demonic powers if you picked a tiefling (half-demon template which can be added to any "parent" race).  Besides having a hell mark such as horns or a tail, there weren't any drawbacks I could see.  That's why the party had two tieflings.  And I'm a little surprised there weren't more.  

BTW, I think every single player availed themselves of the racial name suggestions provided in the appendix.  Nice touch!

Not only was my first experiment with FH&W, it was also the initial playtest of Revelry in Torth.  After a little backstory and tangential encounters, the PCs made their way to Aryd's End, arriving as their festival of masks was at its apex.  The masked festival was part drunken orgy, part Edgar Allen Poe / Thomas Ligotti excuse for esoteric villainy.  

Oh yeah, before we began, I created a short list of rumors and had each player roll to see what they'd heard about Torth or Aryd's End...

1. The Great Vault of Torth is a repository of lost knowledge, scientific and technological, as well as, magical.
2. Dragons return to the skies every seven years to feast upon the innocent souls of Torth.
3. Sorcerers are bound by an unholy blood oath, their immortal souls consigned to the devils with which they traffic.
4. The Festival of Masks is an old tradition dating back to the Age of Dragons.
5. There's an insidious link between demon worshiping wizards and the scourge of the skies - dragons.
6. A secret society lurks in the shadows of Torth, rising in power until capable of conquering the land.
7. Once, all of Torth was ruled by a three-headed dragon.
8. The super-science beneath Torth still lives and breathes.  

As you can see, there's a lot of dragon stuff going on.  Assuming the kickstarter funds, parts 2 and 3 of the trilogy will focus more on the draconic aspects of Torth.

True to its sandbox nature, Revelry in Torth became what the PCs made of it - a hunt for treasure... gold, specifically.

Weapon proficiencies, ability scores, and player-character flavor were the only distinguishing factors between combatants.  At 3rd level, I believe every single PC had a +1 attack bonus.  Probably would have been different if someone had chosen a fighter, but, really, how could they, when there are dozens of classes to choose from?

The rules themselves, went much like any modernized old school D&D game.  Most of the mechanics were relegated to the background. There was a welcome synergy of old school and latter edition ingenuity. 

Oh yeah, the spells... I know Dominique Crouzet, the author, had re-written pretty much all of them and then placed them in either a white, grey, or black domain, but I had no clue how strange, powerful, and dark they were.  I'm talking about black magic, specifically, since both spell casters had demon blood and loved Chaos.  There was demon summoning, some sort of death blossom, and a fiend conjured for the sole purpose of robbing either a rich man or 100 peasants within the city.  And we're just talking 1st and 2nd level spells.  Definitely added to the dark flavor of the game.  

Without giving too much away, the PCs saved the city (and their own skins). It was a good session and I was quite impressed with FH&W.  Asking for feedback at the end, the one comment echoed by multiple players was how unbalanced (meaning straight up awesome) tieflings were.  Balance isn't necessarily a great thing for an old school game, so that's up to the GM.  If, like me, a GM's more interested in taking his game to the dark side than standard medieval fare, there's no problem at all.

VS

p.s.  That session inspired this article over at Draconic Magazine.