Referee Journal: 11/19 & 25/25

 This one is a twofer, since I'm so bad at keeping my journal updated. That's what this exercise is about, though.

# Metadata

Game: OSE (modified)

Campaign: N1: Against the Cult of Reptile God

Session: (Previous) 1

Date: 11/19/25, 1800-2100; 11/25/25, 1800-2100


Primary Goals: Depart for and arrive at the village of Orlane. Deal with the abduction of the Thule family.

 

Attendees:


# Lead-Up

Pushed planned timeline back 2 weeks because we were not able to actually begin play last session. That’s okay, though; I definitely needed some more prep time.


Hammered out the following adventure hook:

Four operatives are contracted by the Orthodoxy, through the Greyshroud Chapter, on behalf of the Church of the Unbroken Circle, to travel to the village of Orlane to resolve mnemonic conflicts in the area which are causing discrepancies in the regulated function of the village’s Memory Columns. They are tasked with discovering the source of the conflicts, and resolving it by any sanctioned means. Two of their number are licensed for this task under Article III of the Mnemonic Regulation Act of 146; the other two are support personnel, acting under clerical authority. A liaison from the Scholars’ Guild is tasked to the group. They begin preparations for their journey, unsure of what they will find.


Wrote out Missive Dated 11/05/310 for distribution to players at beginning of session. Will begin them at Tum Dridgansim Fainjszo, “The Lone Spider,” on Ashmoore Street in Grey Gardens, on 11/14/310, receiving the go-ahead to depart and fulfill their commission. We will then get them to Orlane, and that is about as far as I can foresee into the future.


Updated the Dwarves’ names to be in proper Dwarven. They are now Keldir Gorheszo, Raidar Zarvil, Gjyendiron Galkorszolorshi, Tanail Pitszorak, and Tolken Reed. Added the relevant roots to the Dwarven language masterfile.


Reviewed #87-72: VENGEANCE HILL. Needs some updating, and there’s still a hell of a lot of placeholders, but there’s enough there for me to feel alright about putting it lower on the totem pole. There are no other villages directly on their route. I am weighing the chances that they will deviate from the road before I decide to commit to detailing further towns. I should at least place Hochoch, but we can burn that bridge when we cross it.


Added some further detail to Ull's Financial Services. I have complete confidence that the players will get hung up on this location and get quite attached. As long as I can prevent this from derailing the entire session, I should be able to get up to some serious shenanigans.


Prepared the VTT for level 1 of the dungeon. Still need to do the writeup for it. Now that I think about it, level 2 is probably more-important, since that’s where they’ll be put if they get captured (iirc). Arguably should have triaged it better, but there’s still plenty of time to get both done.


I found this remaster by Peyre of the Dragonsfoot forums. It resolves a few minor discrepancies with the text, but I’ve made enough adjustments to not be overly in-need of them. It’s neat, regardless.


I felt like the harpy in rooms 16/17 of the dungeon was a bit. . . incongruous, say, for the lair of the Reptile God. The way her part is written also just kinda gives me the Ick. I’ve made the decision to reskin her into a flying snake, reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. I’ll keep the battle plan and charm ability the same, however. The giant weasel in room 18 and “miniature tyrannosaurus rex” in room 36 might also need to go, for similar reasons. 

(Side note: I find it absolutely appalling that the phrase “miniature tyrannosaurus rex” appears verbatim in boxed text. Just feels. . . well, not quite sloppy, and not quite lazy, but somewhere between the two. Zloppy. Slazy? No matter what you call it, that’s the best description you can apply generally to this back half of the module.)

Final decision was that 18 becomes a basilisk nest (home to the mama, two babies, and a clutch of eggs), with the papa of the breeding pair blinded and chained up in 36. I wound up going and reworking the positioning of some Cultist guards, as well, just to try and get the dungeon ecology into a bit of a more-sensible state.


I did some thinking about how Explicita Defilus fits into the setting I’ve established, and here’s what I’ve come up with.

Explicita Defilus is a type-V palimpsest: a knot within the mnemonic strata local to Orlane and its surrounds--and a rather large knot, at that. For all intents and purposes, consider her a demon, in the Eldritch Wizardry sense of the term. Because of this, she can partially manifest outside of her lair, but can only be truly slain within it (well, you have to destroy her shrine to keep her from coming back, but still). Because of the size the knot in the mnemonic strata has grown to, the village’s memory columns (whose sole functions are to keep that strata stable) are now producing anomalous readings, which can be detected all the way back in Endon, though their significance is not yet understood by the Scholars’ Guild, the Church of the Unbroken Circle, or the Dwarven Orthodoxy. Slaying Explicita Defilus, and performing some ritual or other over her altar in room 27, will release the tension within the local psychosphere and allow a gradual return to normalcy.


I originally had a fairly detailed wilderness travel system worked out, but I’ve defaulted back to just having each hex be two hours to cross (regardless of terrain), halved if there’s a road through it. I know this technically makes the size of each hex internally inconsistent, so it’s not my favorite solution, but having the abstraction is more worthwhile with this group than the definite measurements.

# Session Notes

Got them settled into the mission, and set out for the road to Orlane.


About 4 hexes in, they ran into 4 Brigands (40xp + 6gp). Cleaned up nicely, with Gjen finding 2kcp. They opted to leave the copper behind, as it would weigh them down too much en route to Orlane.


After entering Vengeance Hill, Gjyen & Tanail went to the Weeping Magistrate Inn to rest, while Keldir, Raidar, and Tolken went to interrogate Todor Isgar as to the awful state of the town. He told them that they could handle the harpy nest in #88-76 if they wanted to help. Gave them a last known sighting of #89-74. Farmer in that tile confirmed rumor, but had little more to go off of, so party left for Orlane.


Party makes it to Orlane without incident, around dusk on 11/16/309, and takes a moment to speak to Davis Padilla, who directed them to the Black Frog. John was causing trouble bumping into people & shit. Nathan was asking a lot of questions and not in a subtle way. Met the innkeeper, Bertram, and the cook, Snigrot. Rented 3 rooms for the night, and ended the Session 1, Part 1 there.


Session 1, Part 2 picked up the following Tuesday night, with me reviewing their sleeping arrangements. Tolken was abducted around 10pm, but was not discovered missing until 4am, when Tanail went to grab him for watch relief. This led to them discovering the secret doors, forcing them open with a crowbar, and confronting Dagliesh, which almost turned into a very bloody combat.


Instead, they went back to their rooms as instructed by Dagliesh, as he tried to buy time to get his head in place and touch base with his men; they prepared for the day and slipped outside, where they noticed a cellar door to the Black Frog. They descended and explored the cellars, hoping to find Tolken, spending a fair amount of time in the caverns below the inn. A member of the Road locked them inside, assuming the ghouls would take care of them. They did not; the two clerics were able to leverage their Turn Undead to enable a successful extraction. On exit, they waited for the coast to be clear, hearing two patrons saying the problem “solved itself”. No treasure was recovered from the cavern.


Here, I had a quick cutscene with Tolken’s player in a private channel, showing him being held by Brother Abramo.


They made a break for it, and found themselves at the Inn of the Slumbering Serpent, where they had breakfast with the Cralloons before heading on towards the temple. Misha didn’t raise any alarms with them, and showed them the memory column room. Gjyen & Keldir were affected by the curse there, and that’s where we ended the session, shortly before noon on 11/17/309 CE.

# After-Action

Things I missed:

  • I’ve been absolutely dogshit at keeping these journals up-to-date. I need to be better about that.


Things I modified post-session:



Things I need to do before next session:

  • unchecked

    Figure out how the Road and the Cult feel about these intruders, now that they’ve interacted with both, and what their plans are to do about it.

  • unchecked

    Sit down with Tolken’s player to generate a new character. Tolken might be returning, but it will be at least a week or so in-game.

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