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They seem to have a very hard chitinous exoskeleton, equivalent to the best mail and additionally bear wooden shields, though intoxicated, I penalise it's AC by -2.

They are tough and resilient. Like a lot of Insects, they may be more resistant to heat, cold and acids too, reducing damage taken by such sources. Like soldier ants and beetles, their appearance belies their strength and the two grievous wounds seem to have seriously but not mortally wounded it.

I have never as a player encountered them either (also in 40+ years playing). I actually played and ran A3 and A4 back in the 80's but never A1 or A2.

FAWKES AND GORAN

So Fawkes and Goran are at a dead end?
How climbable do the walls and ceiling look to be, are they smooth and slick, or rougher and not slick, or something in between?
Does the side ledge in the sewer come all the way to the blockage they climbed up?

Oh, and how much rest/prayer is needed for Fawkes to regain a healing spell or two?

Oh, and how much rest/prayer is needed for Fawkes to regain a healing spell or two?

he will regain his cast spells tomorrow.

I have trawled the game archive and I note Fawkes casting two spells but his Wisdom actually gives him +1 bonus 1st level spell which he hasn't noted on his sheet (your note section says you can cast two but your Wisdom attribute is 13 and does gain a bonus spell).

How climbable do the walls and ceiling look to be, are they smooth and slick, or rougher and not slick, or something in between?
Does the side ledge in the sewer come all the way to the blockage they climbed up?

The sewer tunnel is made up of stone blocks, curved to form an archway ceiling which is about 15'ft high in the centre, about man height before it starts to arch along the walkway walls.. The walkway under the Temple ruins are set a foot or so above the water channel which has varying depth up to 12'ft deep in places.

At the rubble cave in, it blocks the normal flow of sewage, water flows over the edge, occasionally bringing down any flotsam material though the 'thatch' is stuck to one side giving you a platform to rest uncomfortably upon, seated or lying down.

The tunnel extends past the rubble under the city of Highport. It does not seem passable to wade or swim through.

I feel like now may be the moment for Team Alpha to take out the Ogre. If we remove him, then we can hide his body and remain in the lower level. Once our magic users return from the aspis colony, we can reunite the party and go from there. I think trying to force our way into the aspis colony would not go well though, given how tough the first aspis was.

Agreed on going after the Ogre - Vennar can cast Silence 15' radius to start out the conflict.

Sounds like a good plan.

If we're going to initiate the combat with silence, now would be the moment to do so. It seems that we're in agreement about taking down the ogre.

I think I just hit the proverbial start button.

Now that we have most of the party back together, we should plan our next steps. Here are a couple questions I think we need to answer, open to any ideas.

How soon do we think we need to rest? What parts of the compound should we explore next? Should we make any attempt to search for Goran and Fawkes?

My only concern about going up that ladder is what we will find - we have absolutely no idea what is up there. Could be a room full of guards as far as I know.
As far as HP go, Edel is ok, but he has expended a good part of his spells already. Still it is probably early for a rest.
From what Edel and Durrant were able to explore down here, we do not want to antagonize these aspis - there are several of them, plus their pet ants.
But they are not immediately aggressive toward us also, which means this could be a place we can retreat to, or rest in.
If we can make our way back to the sundew room and grab some gooey sugar-y goods, we might be able to set up some for of uneasy truce with the aspis?
Regardless of whether we try a truce or not, this could be a 'safe' area from where we could strike at the orcs, if that is our plan.

We also got some pretty good intel from the charmed orcs, which point to the fact there ARE things which might be relevant to explore down here, however it will not be easy to get past all the aspis I thin, because we would need a lot of glands, which means we would need to find a lot of sugary treats to trade.

I was even considering actually trying to convince one of the orcs to shift sides, and join us (since he is charmed) - then we would have a sort of a guide, and an other combatant, but... I don't know, they feel pretty confident this is the best place for them, and there is also some sort of religious fervor involved. I never actually made him an offer, so that could be a chance. I would create a ruse, say we are here to take over the slaving operations and not to trade, but that he could have a place and a nice pay if he joined us. Not sure how successful that could be.

Instead of simply killing them, we can also just tie them up and try to gather more information from them - like for example where do they store the sugar they use to trade with the aspis, and then take it from there.
I would always prefer to keep at least one of the charmed ones, as they can be a source of information while they are charmed. So I could just ask him this kind of stuff
But not sure how long we can keep up the ruse, with a dead ogre and spells being cast at them.

Bottom line, my suggestion:
Keep at least one orc alive for information extraction, could be hypnotism, him remaining charmed (I doubt it), threats, or bribes, or any other idea.
This could help us decide where to explore/go next, find out exactly what is up that ladder, where they store sugar, etc, etc.
With sugar we can navigate the aspis caves and explore beyond them, as we did not explore all with the charmed orcs.
With intel, maybe we decide to go up the stairs again, but at least we will know where to head, or where to try and strike.
Last but not least, we need to keep watches going - they may send another patrol looking for this one after a while - I would like it if we somehow managed to play it as if the aspis attacked and killed the patrol, which might actually work since the ants seem intent on chopping up the corpses

I think interrogating the two orc guards we have held is a good idea. Part of our mission is to free as many captives as possible, so we need to find the main slave pens. The guards might be able to tell us where and how well guarded the slave pens are.

Interrogation is a good idea. Not a fan of just tying them up and leaving them. Keeping them prisoner seems more work and danger then justified. If we can convince them to reliably work with us that would be good but not sure it is possible.

So... Late to the party have read through just about everything but... Can you lovely people summarise the "mission' for me? I thought it was a generic fact finding, mess things up for the bad guys thing, but I think it might be more specific and I'm missing something?

I thought it was a generic fact finding, mess things up for the bad guys thing, but I think it might be more specific and I'm missing something?

You can check the background in the setting thread 'Highport & Slaver's Temple' or described here from the very first post of the prologue.

viewtopic.php?p=734338#p734338
The A1: Slave Pits is an iconic module first played as a tournament game in 1980 and became the first of four successive modules following the Slave Lord's theme, latterly the whole was converted into a 5ed campaign.

So I hope to run this first module with a view, depending upon success and player feedback, to run each subsequent module over the next few years. Rather than take on the role of a pregenerated Icon character as those in the tournaments did, we elected to role up new heroes and these will advance in level in line with progression through the modules.

Thanks, have read through that and know slavers in a general way...

I expect it's still this

In a last desperate hope, your group; an eclectic bunch of novice adventurers, have been tasked with succeeding where others seemingly failed. Scout the ruined Temple, eliminate the senior slave traders, destroy the slaving infrastructure and release as many captive souls as you can. Additionally, find out what has happened to these Icons.

I meant the party's choices really, I don't want to be pulling the opposite direction of something everyone is looking to achieve that I've missed

Not speaking for anyone else but that is what my character is trying to achieve. Keeping in mind of course that my character is literally "thick as a brick".

I have a weird question.....

Do the torches held by the orcs who were magically put on Hold still flicker and burn? Or is the fire "Held" too?

Olleg's top priority is definitely the mission as you have it stated.

corum wrote: ↑Sun Mar 23, 2025 10:20 pm In a last desperate hope, your group; an eclectic bunch of novice adventurers, have been tasked with succeeding where others seemingly failed. Scout the ruined Temple, eliminate the senior slave traders, destroy the slaving infrastructure and release as many captive souls as you can. Additionally, find out what has happened to these Icons.

Profit is definitely a secondary motivation too.

Do the torches held by the orcs who were magically put on Hold still flicker and burn?

They burn still.