When we last left our heroes, they had just returned from a second foray into the ruined Abbey of Bourgh, laden with gold and jewelry. In the Brewer's Inn, they sold a golden belt and necklace, art objects of the fallen Imperium of the Dawn according to the group's magic-user, to a shady group of dwarves for a hefty profit of 10,000 gp and blew their hard-earned gold on carousing.
I have always liked carousing-rules in D&D but never been able to use them. My previous campaigns (3E and 4E) always used story-based XP or combat XP. My current 5E game provides almost no XP for combat and mostly for treasure taken back to civilization (though with nifty additional sources of XP). With this game being based on OSE, I sought to explore the roots of the hobby and implemented a carousing system.
I will explain the full system in a future post. For now it is enough to know that players can spend gold to gain XP on a 1 for 1 basis, the amount of money spent being determined by a roll of 2d6 and multiplying by 100 for the gold spent in one week. Carousing mishaps happen on doubles. Both the magic-user and the thief suffered a mishap. The magic-user awoke robbed of a small amount of coin, the thief experienced a misunderstanding with the authorities and had to spend 125 gp on a fine.
The party caroused for two weeks to reach level 2 for most of the group, the magic-user and fighter partying for an additional week. They also met Burg's town magistrate who warned them of bandit attacks, and a friendly local woodchuck who warned them of nightly troll wanderings...
(Side-note: when I write troll, seasoned D&Ders should picture hairy ogres. In the lands of Flintlock Fantasy, hairy ogres are what passes for trolls. That's not all but maybe the secret of the ogre-trolls will be revealed in a future post.)
With their skills increased and their coffers running dry, the party headed back to the ruined abbey, this time to explore the surface grounds some more. They happened upon human footprints leading to a faint trail. Walking the trail, the party ran into a few dozen giant rats but managed to scare them off, before coming upon a ruined tower.
The tower proved to be inhabited by a gang of ruffians, three of whom shot crossbow bolts from the ruined second story of the tower. The magic-user quickly ensorcelled them into a deep sleep and the thief barged in the front door. Inside, four more bandits were preparing to meet the party in arms. The thief failed to effectively hide but one of the elves managed to cast entangle to pin the bandits in place. After that, they were picked off by the party (though the fighter suffered a flesh wound).
Questioning one of the sleeping bandits yielded the knowledge that they were part of the infamous "Buckrider"-gang terrorizing the countryside. Their master was away on a raid at the moment. Somehow, they are connected to the forces beneath the ruined abbey as the captured bandit claimed they were forbidden of entering the dungeons or even approaching the mysterious altar. Searching the ruined tower yielded a fresh supply of gold, a jeweled dagger, four bolts of silk and a jeweled short sword. They returned to Burg with 5 captive and 2 dead bandits and claimed a reward from the town's magistrate. He confided that the Buckrider gang has indeed been raiding the countryside. The party, resolving to strengthen their reputation for heroism, is determined to set an ambush for the Buckrider's master at nightfall...
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