[Travelogue] Cauldron Con, Thursday and Friday

Thursday: Bratwürste & Brauereien

Thursday morning we left Neubiberg in a black Mercedes we christened "The Hearse". We stopped in Bamberg for lunch. We marvelled at the town's old half-timbered buildings, majestic churches, and visited Schlenkerla brewery for some sausages and smoked beer. Awesome place, I can't wait to visit it again.

Bamberg, the perfect place if you need some Oldhammer inspiration.

We arrived to  Schloss Hohenroda late afternoon. While that night's Braunstein game was tempting, Chomy and I decided to do some "networking" instead using the two and half bottles of pálinka I brought with me. We were too tired anyway to meaningfully participate.

The Hungarian OSR pope packing out from his carriage.

Friday: Corsairs & Corpses

Friday's first session was Jonathan Becker's tournament module, Children of the Sea. Our referee was Philippe, who turned out to be such an expert in AD&D1e, that in the end I just asked stuff from him instead of borrowing rulebooks - except for casting times. Our quest was to retrieve the Hand of Saint Emma from an old temple that was repurposed as a pirate base.

We assaulted the temple from above, through an opening at its roof. Our magic-users put a bunch of pirates to sleep with Sleep (duh) and we killed their pet wyvern as it ascended from below. We left one survivor to interrogate, who told us that the hand was already used by captain Rodrick to bypass a tunnel of shadows in the undertemple, but he hasn't returned yet. We found the tunnel, got ambushed by shadows from above (typical Becker), turned the shit out of them, met Rodrick, who turned into a crab-mummy hybrid by the time we arrived.

After a good start he fled south thanks to my cleric's turning. Following him we ran into three sea hags (typical Becker), who got an Ice Storm and Fireball in their faces. They resisted them all and still got pissed. That manoeuvre cost us three characters, plus Chomy's and Premier's friendship. After we fled we finally killed Rodrick in a cave, and levitated up a shithole to meet his second in command and some leftover crew. Later we learned that the shithole was literally a latrine, which explained why they were surprised to see us coming up. Anyway, after murdering them we returned to the undertemple, found the hand, looted a shitton of treasure, and escaped with the pirate ship. Good times!

Not our proudest moment.

In the afternoon we played a true classic: baexta ran Lichway from White Dwarf #9. Prince of Nothing wrote a pretty good review of it. I was becoming sleepy by the afternoon thanks to the food, beer, and snoring roommates, but after the prelude the game shook me up. We faced most of the iconic encounters of the dungeon, from the whimsy to the creepy. 

After freeing him from bandits, we became "henchmen" of a delusional guy thinking himself to be a magic-user and the husband of Odo, the sorceress who moved in to the ancient tombs. We murdered some goblins torturing a stirge, then turned the remaining two into followers of Ra - and our henchmen. Just in time so the newly joining Michael could take them over! We met some xvarts, laughing at halfling jokes while on break. We walked the mammoth halls, where over 600 corpses were sleeping only because of the eerie music of the weird wicker man-like creature whistling in the silver cage at the southern end of the dungeon.

Since we didn't have a better goal, our more zealous members thought we should hunt down Odo. After alarming some of her minions though, the tides turned, and we were basically chased out by her companions from the dungeon. While I was diving in a flooded room, looking for treasure and an exit, the party was cornered by Odo, but someone popped a Wall of Fog to keep her away while everyone escaped. I wish we had another session so we could return with a vengeance.

The original NAP champion shitposting in the middle of a Lichway run.
Iudex is trying to remember if he has the White Dwarf issue with the module.

The rest of the night was spent with more "networking". To be continued...