The Phoenix Barony: Session 3

The group managed to meet for session 3 this past Tuesday and we had three players plus myself this week instead of the mere two we had for session 2.

The campaign world is The Phoenix Barony and the rules set is Tunnels & Trolls 5th edition.

I tried to get a bit more organized this session and recorded the characters' names for posterity: Alesian a Wizard Elf, Kilshalt a Warrior/Wizard Elf and replacing our dead elf from the second session (whose death brought an abrupt end to our Elven Trio) Olga a Warrior Dwarf. Our fourth player is still regrettably too busy with school work to join us and it appears he will remain so until June.

We picked up this session where we left off last. I quickly brought Kilshalt back into the action. He was grievously injured at the end of session 1 first from a failed attempt to make a make-shift staff and then from being pig-stuck by a goblin's spear. At the beginning of session two, his two elven companions camouflaged him in the woods near the goblin campsite before setting off in search of the goblin lair. At the end of that session Alesian ran from the goblin lair after watching his companion die with several goblins on his tail. He hid in the woods and was luckily not found by his pursuers. Meanwhile, as I explained at the beginning of session 3, Kilshalt had some tense moments of his own as several goblins passed nearby his hiding spot as well.

When it was obvious that the coast was clear, Alesian went to where he had left Kilshalt. The two of them then made their way to the village of Humble. All of this was prelude that I explained for the benefit of Kilshalt's player as he was absent during session 2.

In Humble they reported their encounter with the goblins to the local powers who, as reward for having slain some of the goblins, put them up at the Inn of the Sleeping Dog at the village's expense. The characters mentioned to Bobbert Tobit, the proprietor of the Sleeping Dog, that they were looking for a third or fourth companion to accompany them. They had decided that after either receiving magical healing, or failing that, waiting for time to cure their wounds, they would return to the goblin's lair for a second run at it. Bobbert introduced them to a lady dwarf drinking sullenly in the corner that was seeking adventure. Thus they met Olga. Bobbert then pointed them in the direction of Fizzer's House o' Majiks for possible healing.

At Fizzer's they encountered an enchanted floor mat that was disgruntled with them for standing upon his face. They found Master Fizzer Skudbaddoodle an agreeable, but scatterbrained chap. The inside of his house proved to be a definite bachelor pad, even worse, a wizard's bachelor pad. In short, it was a hot-mess of eccentrically organized disaster. He invited them in and striking up a conversation with them, divulged that the goblin lair which they had received their wounds at was long ago part of the lair of a Warlock Warrior. He did not mention the Warlock Warrior's name. Upon discovering that they were indeed near broke, he lowered his usual price of 500 gp for Restoration Majiks, and settled for the 40 gp's they had, plus the promise that they would do their best to retrieve a book for him titled A Treatise of the Three Tailed Cockatrice, which last he knew had been in possession of the Warlock Warrior who once resided at the goblin's lair. He also, explaining that he was in need of coin himself, encouraged Alesian to return when he was ready to learn some higher majiks.

Healed and ready, they set out immediately for the goblin's lair and explained to Olga on the way that they were also seeking a young Ind girl named Iris that had presumably been taken prisoner by the goblins and they accounted for how her dying father, whom the goblins had recently relieved of one of his legs, begged them to rescue her with his dying breath. They neglected to divulge that they were originally following the girl and her Merchant father with the intention of possibly robbing them. No sense in giving their new companion a sour disposition towards them.

Arriving once more at the goblin lair, they immediately noticed that there were no guards present. They proceeded with curious caution to explore first the caves belonging to the women and youngling goblins. Finding nothing of interest there but bedding and such fun goblin toys as rats on sticks, they proceeded to the main lair. They found the bodies of the goblins they had slain, still laying where they had left them. They proceeded to investigate those caverns they had visited in their previous foray, and took to thoroughly search them this time, along with looting the dead goblins and retrieving the possessions of their fallen comrade. Searching the rest of the lair turned up more dead goblins. They also discovered a hidden passageway that they presumed to be an escape route. It seemed it had been used. This required them to lift a portcullis that the goblins had lowered after their escape. The passage led to the other side of the sizable hill in which the caverns were long ago dug into.

The last room turned up their biggest discovery. They found Iris. The girl was still in the goblin's prison. The door leading to the prison had been spiked closed from the outside. Inside the prison lay Iris, sleeping, nude, covered in blood, but not her own. The rooms other occupants were all dead: a hobgoblin and two more goblins. All three had been slain by some sort of clawed/fanged beast that they did not find. They of course immediately suspected Iris of being a Were.

Iris did not speak common and none of them spoke Ind, but through trial and error, they discovered that the girl spoke Classical. Thus, Alesian was able to communicate with her. Their suspicions of her were deepened when she asked them to lead them to the Shaman's room. There she searched until she found something they had taken from her father: a sprig of wolfsbane.

They wished to clear the collapsed stones from a passageway that they hoped led deeper into the lair, but they would need tools. Alesian left Olga and Kilshalt to do what they could. Taking a list of items dictated by Olga that she would need to clear the rubble, Alesian left for Humble, accompanied by Iris.

In Humble, he first delivered Iris to Fizzer and delicately explained the young girl's plight to him. Fizzer put her in a pair of silver manacles, for her own protection, and took charge of her. At Grimlie's Gear, Alesian bargained for the tools that Olga wanted then set off at once to rejoin his companions.

Meanwhile, after muscling a bit of the stones out of the way, Olga and Kilshalt were attacked by two large spiders, one of which bit Kilshalt, but it's poison did little more then cause him an irritated wound. They easily dealt with the critter, then when further inspection revealed more webbing on the other side of the partially collapsed passageway, they set the offending webs on fire with oil and torch.

Rejoined by Alesian and armed with the tools requested by Olga, they spent the rest of the day clearing the passageway. This took them late into the night. They decided to sleep before exploring more, and settled upon camping in the goblin's escape route. They closed the portcullis to guard one side of the passage and took turns guarding the exit.

After eating a breakfast of hard biscuits and cheese, they set off to explore the unknown. This part of the lair, which they assumed was the unnamed Warlock Wizard's abandoned complex, was much better designed then the goblin's lair. It was obviously built by craftsmen, unlike the goblin's lair which was a crudely expanded natural cavern.

They did much exploring. The complex was, for the most part uninhabited. They did have a slight run in with two more spiders, and some odd purpled eyed white mice who created some sort of phantom ogre that only Kilshalt could see. Eventually, he realized it was an illusion. They did notice throughout the complex that there were any number of small tunnels near the floor. These tunnels were 2 1/2 feet high at most and no more then 1 1/2 feet wide. Most were concealed with loose rubble, but it was obvious that something uses or at least used them. All of them were too small for them to possibly explore.

An entrance to a lower level was discovered via a trapdoor hidden beneath an old bed; however, it is very narrow, so narrow that only daggers could be used for defense within it and even Olga the dwarf would be forced to slouch in order to walk within them. Alesian and Kilshalt would have to bend over in an exaggerated manner to follow her.

During their explorations of the goblin lair and the abandoned complex, they found a modest amount of treasure. Amongst those treasures was the book: A Treatise of the Three Tailed Cockatrice

That brought the session to a close. There was more exploration then combat, which after the combat heavy second session was a nice reprieve. I would like to note that Fizzer took the personality was inspired by Prospero from John Bellair's The Face in the Frost.

Appendix N: John Bellairs "The Face in The Frost"

Moving on from the "A's" to the "B's" listed on the DMG's Appendix N, I had the pleasure of reading John Bellairs' The Face in the Frost.

Originally published in 1969, Bellairs has stated that he was inspired to write a book staring a wizard after reading Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Having a wizard as a protagonist, or in the case of Bellairs two wizards, is where most of the similarities end; both works are without a doubt grounded in High Fantasy.

Bellairs is better known for his Young Adult works. Initially, The Face in the Frost was billed as such; however, be that as it may, this is a novel easily enjoyed by any reader who loves fantasy, regardless of age.

I first became aware of this novel after having read Lin Carter's non-fiction book about fantasy, Imaginary Worlds: The Art of Fantasy. In his book, Carter discusses The Face in the Frost as the third of three works published since The Lord of the Rings, that in Carters own words: I have read three absolutely first class fantasy novels published since The Lord of the Rings first appeared in print in this country (the United States) during the mid 1950s. And only three.... The first two Carter wrote of were Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, and Joy Chant's Red Moon and Black Mountain; Katherine Kurtz and Ursula K. LeGuin get honorable mentions. John Bellairs' The Face in the Frost gets the nod from Carter as being worthy of being placed upon the book shelf alongside The Lord of the Rings.

I bring this forward as I would like to emphasize once more my love for Lin Carter as an editor and fellow fanatic of great literature. By many critics accounts, he had glaring faults as a writer, and if stories are true perhaps as a person as well, but as a lover of Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery fiction, Carter did much for the genre and his fellow fans with his editorship of The Ballentine Adult Fantasy Series, which I've spoken of before.

It's a mystery to me as to why some works made Gygax's Appendix N while others did not. For instance, John Bellairs' The Face in the Frost does, but neither Peter S. Beagle nor Katherine Kurtz do. My suspicions lean towards a theory that Dungeons & Dragons grew from Gary Gygax's love of pulp fiction, not the fantasy literature that exploded upon the scene after the publication of Tolkien. I believe this for Gygax names EC Comics and fantasy/horror/science fiction movies as inspiration as well. Gygax was known fan of Hammer Horror Films, which were pulpy in tone as were EC Comics.

It is again the old odd argument of D&D's inspirational material. The outsider looks into the gaming circle and sees the usual assortment of gamers seemingly reliving a Tolkien fetish as they hack their way through dungeons in the guise of elves, dwarves and halflings (hobbits). The fans of the game, or at least many, know that they are actually playing out their fantasies of yes kin akin to the kindred of Tolkien, but more in the vein of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories and nightmare tales from H.P. Lovecraft. Some, perhaps even Gygax himself, are angered at the simplification of The Lord of the Rings = Dungeons & Dragons and vice versa.

It is mystery. If Tolkien had not published his masterpiece, there would have been no boom of interest in the 1950s/60s/70s in the genre of fantasy. This resurgence of interest lead to a fan named Lin Carter who took the reigns of editing at Ballentine and reintroduced, and in some cases introduced for the first time, fantasy readers to such greats as William Morris, Lord Dunsany, Katherine Kurtz and John Bellairs. It should not be forgotten that Lin Carter as the men-tee of L. Sprague de Camp had a hand in reintroducing fantasy lovers to Howard's creations as well; although the manner in which it was done angers Howard purists to this day.

What I'm driving at is simply that Gary Gygax, having stated himself that he was ...an avid reader of all science fiction and fantasy literature since 1950...most likely was exposed to many great works by being a fan of the Ballentine Adult Fantasy series. For instance by reading the Ballentine paperbacks he could have been exposed to H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was one of the authors re-introduced by Carter to the public in the Ballentine Adult Fantasy series. Most likely, with his age being taken into account, his exposure to Bellairs was the Adult Fantasy series.

Also, it is possible that Gygax never read the pure versions of Howard's Conan yarns. Gnomic Press published them prior to the altered versions that de Camp pushed onto the public, but the de Camp versions, along with Marvel Comics, were the stories that most readers in Gygax's age group would have been exposed to. After all, Gary Gygax was born two years after Howard's death, and wouldn't have come into his formative reading years until four years prior to the cancellation of Weird Tales.

The popularity of the character of Conan led to the formation of the sub-genre of Sword & Sorcery. I believe, and I have no proof there of, that Gygax's leisure reading was more geared towards Sword & Sorcery rather then the High Fantasy inspired by Tolkien. Many of the works included in the Ballantine series were more geared towards High Fantasy. So while Gygax certainly read some, perhaps many or even all of the titles in Carter's Adult fantasy series, he would have paid attention to other works more in the vein of Howard's Conan tales. I specifically point out the Conan tales, as Gygax specifically named them in Appendix N.

I find myself curious as to why, if H.P. Lovecraft got the nod in Appendix N, why not Clark Ashton Smith? Perhaps the answer to that lies in the proper full title of Appendix N, Inspirational and Educational Reading. The italics on "Educational" are mine. Perhaps I can only answer many of my own questions by reading the appendix in entirety with the goal of educating myself about Dungeons & Dragons.

I did not intend such a long ponderous entry, but it is interesting to see how reading Appendix N gets my gears turning about the origins of the game. Gary Gygax aptly named Appendix N. It can inspire great gaming and educate the reader about Gygax's creation.

Back to the work at hand, I really can not state more then has been stated elsewhere. The Face in the Frost is a joy to read and it reads quickly. The fact that Prospero studies his spells from a spell book prior to casting, has been pointed out as a possible influence upon D&D. I would also like to point out that there is a scene which may have been the introduction for the spell magic mouth as well.

In Carter's Imaginary Worlds, a prequel to The Face in the Frost is talked about and was to be published in a volume of literature aimed at young fantasy readers titles Young Magicians. That book never saw print, and the manuscript for Bellairs story is assumed lost. He did begin work on a sequel titled The Dolphin Cross. It was never finished, but the 150 pages of it which were written are available in print.

My copy is a used Ace printing (1981) that I found in a local used book store. I have seen multiple copies available. There is a current edition in print as well. As always, I encourage you shop locally and support your favorite non-corporate owned book store. Hopefully one that serves coffee not bought from Starbucks and has a lazy cat rolled up in a cozy corner.

Happy Reading. Good Gaming.