Serpents of Chaos - Delve 1 - Cursed Chambers

Spoiler Alert: If you are playing in the SoC dungeoncrawl, turn back now. Spoilers be ahead.

After a bit of a rocky start due to things on my end (crappy wifi downstairs, company visiting upstairs) I ping-ponged while setting up for the session, then we got right into combat first thing! So our first delve was a wild ride. I had lots of fun, but just like I've been telling people: refereeing for AD&D 1e is a workout. And it feels good to lift.

The party (Corvus the Ranger, Ursula the Thief, Buddy the Cleric, a porter, a torchbearer, and a man-at-arms) left the town-fort of Svargorod and traveled south 5 miles to the dungeon entrance of the Cursed Chambers of Tsennacherib to make it there by noon. They had uncovered a few secrets, one of them being that there were two extra entrances than the one commonly known, so they poked around at those. One of the extra entrances was a tower with a corpse covered in pitch at the bottom, where a magic-user had tried climbing the side and gotten basted by burning tar. The other was a deep, rocky staircase, descending 30' down into the earth.

Choosing the 30' staircase, they made their way into a cavernous chamber with stalagmites. A pile of stinking shite in the corner signaled the presence of some inhabitant(s). They saw a glint of small eyes to the east. Deciding to follow the eyes, they were met with a volley of javelins. One javelin dropped Ursula the Thief, who started to bleed out. A dwarf named Enkidu (Fighter) happened upon the group and joined Corvus and Buddy against their foes.

Six demon-dogs (kobolds) rushed out of the darkness. The party committed to a charge. Spears were used to repel the three adventurers, with much efficiency, while the charging attacks yielded nothing. The party turned and fled, hiding in amongst the stalagmites. Another melee ensued wherein a demon-dog was killed and another threatened into fleeing (I made a mistake here by allowing some party members to charge again before the next turn). 

The kobold leader did not help in the melee fray at all and soon the dogs failed their morale checks. They failed them so bad that they ended up throwing down their weapons and grovelling at the feet of the adventurers. Corvus took the kobold leader as captive so that he could learn their language and the rest were knocked unconcious. The kobold leader seemed willing to follow such beings that displayed prowess in battle. He also mentioned his loathing of "The Masters," who moved his shrine from the deeper levels of the dungeon to the upper level, where they were told to now live and set a guard.

Ursula was saved by Buddy's cure light wounds and the porter took her back to town.

A corridor on the south-west corner of the cavern extended straight south. The party took this route. They came to a door. Then burned it down. Inside was a starving sabertooth tiger in a cage, with a couple levers on the wall. They bypassed it for now and ventured south again. This time through a door that was easy enough to push open.

Here they encountered two prison cells, on either side of a straight corridor. In the west cell was a hungry ghoul, straining at the bars to grab passers-by. In the east was a huge man lying on the floor. Standing over him was a cloaked figure with its back to the party. As soon as the torchlight flooded the cell, the cloaked figure turned around, its serpent-like eyes open wide with suprise. It turned towards the wall and teleported away.

Frank Frazetta

The huge man, who had feigned sleep, immediately stood up and talked with the party. His name was Tobruk and his father was a wealthy beast-herder from Bythunia. He said his father would offer a ransom of a thousand cattle to any person that rescued him from this dungeon. He also had trouble doing simple arithmetic in the next moments when asked about how many of "The Masters" there were, so who knows how many cattle his dad actually had to offer.

The party tried to break him out but was unable to before they needed to head back to town. While passing the caged sabertooth, they fed it a demon-dog, then pulled one of the two levers and ran. The next week, a wounded sabertooth could be seen prowling the hills to the south of Svargorod.

First ever game of AD&D 1e and it was all by the book. Like I said, it felt like lifting weights but the depth of gameplay and richness of all the various rules gave a unique versimilitude. I enjoyed myself immensely and look forward to the next delve.