The Orc Ambush - The Land of Jo'Ril hex-crawl for Old School Essentials, Chapter 6

The Party:

• Arrn, level 3 magic user
• Wumpus, level 3 dwarf
• Waverly, level 3 ranger
• Andrew Price, level 3 cleric
• Gordon Binghampton, level 3 cleric
• Calvin Baily, level 2 thief

Having finished Tomb of the Serpent Kings, we started started my hexcrawl across the Land of Jo'Ril. We're playing on Foundry. I created a random hexcrawl location using HEXROLL. 

I used the nolabels map for the Foundry map. I created a single token to represent the party. 

At first I gave the token a visibility of one hex (6 miles), but honestly that was TOO limiting. It didn't engender the kind of awe and wonder in the world that would encourage exploration. So I just made the entire map visible. 

However, when running last night, the players wanted to take notes of what they found in each hex, and it was difficult to indicate the hexes on the map. So today I just decided to give them the full label map with all the hex numbers and region names. 

The region names will help sell the world. They're very evocative. It doesn't give away any secrets. Its info the characters would know. 

I also felt like "what if they head off the map?" so I used Hexroll to create additional maps and just plugged them around "Jo'Ril". 

So far, it's going great! They left the city of KÖMÜR and are headed to the Tower of the Arcane. Traveling through hex 73-72-71-70-69-05. 

Hex 73 = hilly grassland steppe, ancient standing stones, no encounter.

Hex 72 = the Crying Wight Inn, they stayed the night, talked with some patrons, got some rumors and info about the surrounding hexes, had a pleasant evening.

They learned from a sullen elf in the Crying Wight Inn that a cult called the Black Saints were taking human captives into an abandoned dungeon called the Shrine of the Feared Order as their base, located somewhere 12 miles to the north-northwest (hex 26). The players took great interest in this info for later use.

Hex 71 = great big rifts in the ground from a recent earthquake (the same earthquake the exposed the Tomb of the Serpent Kings, so I'm tying elements together), eerie sounds can be heard in its depths. Up ahead they saw a pillar of smoke - the aftermath of a battle. The ranger scouted ahead and saw 14 orcs pillaging a caravan of five wagons. The party charged, the magic-user put 7 to sleep and charmed an 8th while the other party members (cleric, thief, dwarf, ranger) dispatched the rest. 

I use the "shield was splintered" house rule and the cleric had to sacrifice a shield to turn a killing blow into a miss. 

That's where we ended, next week, they'll loot the orcs (164 copper pieces, finally they can retire!) and continue to the Tower of the Arcane. I have something special planned so I can't wait!

The thief player is not happy with her character. Her stats are very mediocre.

So while they were in the Crying Wight Inn, the Ranger's player said, "any of those halflings look like they could become a good level 1 adventurer?" hinting that the thief player may want to replace her character. I looked and said, "why Yes! there IS one! She's got pretty good stats!" DEX 18, CON 16, CHA 16, (mumble mumble)"

"What was that?" asked the thief player.

"Uh, I said (mumbling) INT 3, WIS 4."

"Hard pass!" said the thief player.

The other players and I tried to convince her that INT and WIS were dump stats for a halfling, but she, as a player, is a very intelligent person and is proud of her intelligence. She did NOT want to play a stupid character. It is antithetical to her personality. And we can't blame her.