Oihostein 1 Session Report
A fresh start for an old campaign
We started playing the Oiho campaign last summer. The original idea was an Ohio-themed campaign, which then evolved into an American theme more broadly. Originally, I had come up with a bizarre hodgepodge of rules pulled from all over the place and transposed onto Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy—that’s the OSR way, after all. A mixture of modules and homebrew adventures quickly stagnated and failed to failed to gain much traction. Shifting over to AD&D 1e RAW in the BrOSR fashion (after my experience with BrOriental Adventures) breathed new life into the campaign. Shortly after, we had a full table every Saturday. But it still began to stagnate after about six months of play. I knew the next move was a session Braunstein, but even I had lost interest. Instead, we took a six month hiatus and when it turned cold, and the first snow fell, the itch to play started back up again. This time, I’d fix all the issues from last. An improved take on the Oiho campaign setting and a session Braunstein to kick things off with a bang!
Rather than list all the domains and their details out here, I’m just going to include screenshots of the quick reference sheet I put together and link all the faction sheets, maps, and the DM sheet in PDF form hosted on dropbox. If you want the whole picture read all of them. The Ekapa Nation and Big Earthshire factions didn’t get played, so it’s not necessary to read them, but I think they were interesting factions so if you’re curious check it out.
Links:
(Note: The ref sheet references a mechanic called “risk die.” The risk die is a mechanic from the game Macchiato Monsters, and is an expansion on the equipment die from The Black Hack. The ref sheet should explain it well enough, but if you’re still confused just google it.)
Background: The scenario took place in a valley separated into two by mountains that occupies about one thirty mile campaign hex, and the map scale is one hex to one mile. There are seven factions jammed into this one campaign hex. If something big didn’t happen I would actively begin looking for new players. The valley is a civilizational refuge on the frontier that recently had a major shake-up: The lord of the southern valley recently died without heir. The lord of the northern valley, Lord Adoniram, sent some of his knights and a small military force to occupy the southern castle. The main responsibility of the souther lord is to patrol the major pass into the valley and ensure no monsters wander in. It was of the utmost importance for that to keep happening. Unfortunately for poor ol’ Addy, Lord Vrakar the Dog Eater saw a golden opportunity and seized on it. He invaded and extricated the men from the stronghold and began to occupy it himself. First order of business, unreasonably high tributes placed on all neighbors. Next, send orcs north to begin raiding villages in Adoniram’s domain. Adoniram himself was already dealing with a blood feud with the Wood Elves near him turning into a full-blown holy war! The valleys are a powder keg, who will prevail?
The following is all order resolutions in condensed form followed by the rumor received by the player along with their update. Redundancies are removed for the sake of brevity. All turns are one week and the players had no ability to change orders once they were submitted. They had thirty minutes to talk and write down their orders. We got through four turns in about five hours, which is not too shabby.
Turn One
Lord Adoniram: Sent fancy brandy and a friendly note to Puckett and Ganymede. Puckett also sent 500 GP put forth to construct a wooden fort in the central pass. Rumor: Vrakar has hired an assassin.
Finn McDanzig: Men sent to small hamlet to give Vrakar’s men and orcs several dogs as tribute payment. Two elite go as representatives and 38 berserkers go to ambush. Ambush highly successful; 10 orcs slain, 1 henchman escaped. 2 men and 1 child sent to scout Vrakar’s castle. They count about 80 orcs and are found out. 1 man slain others escape. Rumor: Dwarves are moving soldiers south.
Otho Ganymede: Receive 15 orcs from Vrakar. They will be used to assassinate the high priest of Adoniram. Begin attempting to engineer a cannon. Rumor: Puckett, McDanzig, and Adoniram are building a wall in the central pass.
Hamish Puckett: 10 halberd, 20 spear, 10 hammer, 10 heavy crossbow, and a Lt. sent to occupy central pass in preparation for fort construction. Rumor: Danzig massacred dozens of orcs.
Lord Vrakar: Rumor: Adoniram, Danzig, and Ganymede are in friendly talks.
Turn Two
Lord Adoniram: 200 southern refugees sent to the McDanzig clan to reduce pressure on food supply. Odds of riot reduced. Rumor: Vrakar knows about the fortress and has found a way around it, through the mountains controlled by McDanzig clan.
Otho Ganymede: Convoy with dwarven iron returns safely. Cannon research finished. 1 cannon produced. 60 cannonballs cast, 70 fireable rocks scavenged. 1 new cannon to be made every other turn. Professional assassin located and offered money. He wants more. Pigmen with 50 lbs. of powder sent to central pass construction site safely. Rumor: Hundreds of southern refugees have left Rotnem for the McDanzigs.
Finn McDanzig: Deal with Vrakar struck: grazing rights in the southern valley for free passage through mountains for orcs. 200 refugees from Rotnem received. Housing construction started using refugee labor. Rumor: Pigfolk have bred super-warriors using orcs.
Lord Vrakar: Orcs sent to dwarven stronghold to remove and transport giant sapphire. They do not return this week. Orcs sent on patrol and ordered to kill anything that isn’t a dwarf of pigman. Rumor: Adoniram sent 50,000 GP to McDanzig in a major exchange.
Hamish Puckett: Sgt. F3, 5 heavy crossbow, 10 mace sent to fortify construction camp. All resource shipping is ceased and must be re-negotiated. Rumor: Forgot to give a rumor this turn.
Turn 3
Lord Adoniram: High priest and 3 knights sent to construction site in the central pass. Plan with Ganymede implemented: Forest set on fire around edges excluding a small section in the middle; 100 Wood Elves fleeing the forest fire captured and enslaved. Riot in Rotnem! 50 Wood Elves manage to escape during the chaos. Rumor: Pigfolk have given large amounts of explosives to Vrakar.
Otho Ganymede: Group of pigfolk with explosives sent to dwarven stronghold to suicide bomb Adoniram’s high priest. Receive 100 refugees from McDanzig. Fort explosion kills all dwarven workers, 3 knights and the high priest of Adoniram. Rumor: A riot broke out in Rotnem; A large number of soldiers were killed.
Puckett: Secret burrow shelter construction begun in stronghold, will be finished in 4 turns. All male dwarves are to be conscripted into the military. Conscription refused en masse after hearing about the fortress explosion, men believe the domain needs to return to isolationism. Highly unstable situation at home. Rumor: McDanzig is planning on betraying Vrakar.
Finn McDanzig: 40 berserkers, 3 war dogs, 100 refugees sent to pigfolk village. 10 berserkers, all elite soldiers, and 100 refugees sent to Vrakar’s castle. Rumor disinformation planted to deceive Vrakar. Rumor: Pigfolk killed Adoniram’s high priest.
Lord Vrakar: Sapphire arrives. It's not a sapphire, it’s a painted boulder. Orcs are stupid. 10 hobbits slain by orc patrols. Rumor: The pigfolk have accepted 100s of refugees and are training them to be musketeers and cannoneers.
Turn 4
(No rumors for final turn)
Finn McDanzig: Finn gives a rousing speech before many depart. All fighting men, save 10 berserkers, head north to the pigfolk village.
Lord Adoniram: 49 slaves and a couple slave drivers sent to road leading to central pass to begin constructing temporary fortifications. Rousing speech given to the people of Rotnem and the army. It fails to generate a positive response. Army sent to destroy pigfolk village.
Hamish Puckett: Men are calmed down, promised isolation, and conscripted. Dwarven workers are sent to meet up with Adoniram’s slaves to build temporary fortifications to protect road. The comply after being offered triple pay
Lord Vrakar: Vrakar and 75 refugee men go to dwarven stronghold, remove the real sapphire, and are equipped with lower quality weapons and armor. 20 orcs and 10 berserker sent north to the pigfolk village. Run into slaves and dwarven workers, slaughter all of them and proceed. 20 orcs sent into wilds outside of valley to recruit monsters. 6 owl bears and 13 ogres found.
Otho Ganymede: Small continent of berserkers and male refugees sent to sneak into Rotnem and free all slaves. All military assets and all men gathered into 1 army and sent to besiege Rotnem. Run into Adoniram’s army on the way. A battle ensues.
The Final Battle
Otho’s Army:
20 orcs
Finn McDanzig
45 Berserkers
2 cannons manned by 10 refugee women
40 musketeers
50 refugee men armed with farming equipment
Lord Adoniram’s Army:
80 pikemen
20 longsword
3 heavy horse
Result: Adoniram’s men took major losses from musketeers. When the cannons went off it tore directly through their formation and caused a rout. Berserkers led by Finn McDanzig finished the army off. Adoniram led the survivors back to into the city. When they arrive they found even more chaos. The berserker contingent couldn’t find any slaves, so they opened the prisons and began killing the city guard. A riot shortly broke out which led to a full-blown uprising.
Winner: Otho Ganymede played by Adam
Loser: Lord Adoniram the Faithful played by Jack R.
Thoughts
It might not seem like it, but we got through a lot in four turns. I was kind of shocked at how efficient we were. I think the main reason for this was turns were one week long and orders couldn’t be changed. Once a turn order was submitted it was up to me to take it and figure out when everything would happen in relation to each other. This required a level of abstraction that proved useful. No one seemed to be upset that they couldn’t react to another player’s order in time. This report also leaves out 90% of the game: talking. There were so many alliances made and broken in just five hours, and the players didn’t do anything I expected. They all ignored the gun resource and allied with the comical evil lord literally named “Dog Eater!” I figured they would do the opposite and race to acquire as many firearms as possible and align themselves with the good guy. But, the end result was much more interesting.
There was a clear narrative structure that emerged fairly quickly. Turn one was mostly moving assets around, feeling each other around, making statements. Turn two plans began to take shape and alliances shifted. Turn three was when things started to get spicy. Multiple backstabs happened simultaneously flipping the entire alliance structure in half an hour, culminating in a final battle on turn four. I could see a four or five turn Braunstein being the ideal, if you can be efficient with your time.
But, the biggest thing is that the players’ interest was reinvigorated. Everyone remarked that next week’s adventure session is going to be incredibly interesting, and, even though I’m allowing them to roll characters from last campaign season to this one, many want to make new characters to root them more firmly in the setting we just developed over the course of play. Navigating the new world with its forced vegetarianism will be interesting. Vrakar is on the verge of summoning a whole bunch of ice demons and taking over the valley, that’s a great adventure hook!