New Year, New Campaign!

Temple of Elemental Evil ... in Tunnels & Trolls!

Preambule

I’ve been mostly absent from this blog. I’m running a big multi-year OSE campaign in a modified Curse of Strahd campaign. On the other hand, I’m also running an indie video game studio as a hobby. Add in work, family, etc. and well… you get the picture.

However, since it’s a new year (and I want to blog more) and a new campaign (more on that later), I really want to talk about it more. Please feel free to also mention other subjects you’d like to get info on.

The Context of the Campaign

I’m giving free lessons in my native language (French) to two (English) friend. It was beginning to get a bit stale, so I thought about spicing things up: we’ll be playing an RPG set in medieval time where every NPC will be speaking French while the gameplay will be in English. That would make conversations more meaningful and coherent, and they’ll have to adapt to it.

I decided to pick a module I haven’t had the chance to run or play yet (unless we count the video game adaptation): Temple of Elemental Evil. I changed some things and set it in medieval Frankia.

For the game system, after running an OD&D campaign (/w Chainmail), a 5e campaign and now an OSE campaign, I’m starting to have a 5 years old D&D fatigue. Since I wanted to try something different and I needed a game where rules would be secondary to the rest of the action (since learning French is the primary concern!), I decided on Tunnels & Trolls. I did use some house rules to make it even simpler (you heard that right), notably with regards to character creation and attributes.

The Campaign’s Context

The campaign begins in 9th-century Frankia, during the rule of the Carolingian Empire. The empire is fractured by internal strife, external threats (Vikings and Saracens), and the Church’s struggle to accommodate the faithful amidst lingering paganism.

The English Bishop Aethelred of Canterbury receives a letter from Bishop Otto of Reims. The later had a monastery recently destroyed by a Viking raid. During the raid, an Elder had a vision which a neophyte recorded before fleeing. In the vision, the Elder saw Martin of Tours pointing him towards his Sword, a Holy Relic. The Sword was set in a stone underground near what the Elder recognized as the forest around Hamelin-sur-Aube, a small village to the south of the bishopry in which he had raised.

Bishop Aethelred sends the players to help Bishop Otto in locating the relic.

• Bishop Otto wants it in Reims to help fend off the demonic invaders

• Bishop Aethelred wants the relic found and either shipped away, protected in Reims or destroyed to make sure it doesn't fall into wrong hands

Players will arrive near Hammelin-sur-Aube on the evening of the 1st of September.

Session 0

On session 0 we created the characters and discussed the game. One of them had never played an RPG so I did an “RPG primer”. My focus when describing RPGs is to mention two things:

• It comes from wargaming, so it has rules to adjudicate uncertainties (the main one being combat)

• It comes from Braunstein, so having a “role” is not a solo/improv/theatre thing, but a matter of relationship with other players and the overall scenario

The two players ended up being:

• Henri, a bishop envoy with some learning and a combat training/previous career

• Basil, a novice-drop from a monastery that’s still part of the Church to help out as a laity

Session 1

On session 1, I decided to do something “in media res”. When the player started, they faced a storm on the road while going to Hammelin-sur-Aube (Hommlett from T1). They came face to face with a group of monastery merchants (basically) going to town, harassed by bandits (from the Moathouse). They discussed a bit, but very rapidly it degenrated because of communication issues and combat ensued. They won the fight and then became friend with the victims of the robbery and moved with them to Hammelin. We stopped as they entered the inn to get some shelter.

What’s Next: I Need Your Feedback!

I’ll try to post more detailed review of each session as we go forward. I don’t know if I want to do a “dry” summary (like I did here) or make it into a storyline as if it was a novel of sorts. Please tell me what you think and what you’d prefer!