Kelpsprot Sessions 2-4

Castle Kelpsprot is my Dungeon25-ish project: a science-fantasy capsule game megadungeon designed for HUDless play. For background, see my first post on the project.

Session Two At A Glance

Evening of the 3rd day of spring, year 4201

Castaways:
Ancona the Damp, Swallowed Sorcerer
Daeren of Grigiamba, Mesa-born Colonist
Professor Archibald Bandersnatch, Windblown Balloonist

	This session	All time
Real world time played	1 hour 30 minutes	~3 hours
In-game time elapsed	1 hour	9 hours
Rooms discovered	2	11
Denizens met	7	13
Castaways slain	0	0

Session Two Highlights

• The party met several stewards, Clement, Harmony, and Prudence, and learned a bit about their order, which has served the castle for centuries.
• The party rescued Eelcatcher and discovered a melon-sized blue jellyfish attached to her scalp. Exposing the jellyfish to heat eventually forced it to detach. Daeren kept it.
• This rescue nearly triggered the first combat of the campaign—except the players avoided doing so with stealth and clever tactics. They ambushed the puppeted Eelcatcher and another gull under cover of darkness. Daeren threw a sack over Eelcatcher’s head, Professor Bandersnatch animated a rope to seize her trident, and Ancona used her sorcery to command the other gull to go to sleep.
• The party returned to the jellyfish halls accompanied by Eelcatcher and convinced her to lure a puppeted steward to them. They questioned the jellyfish and convinced it via threats to follow them quietly, liberating the steward of his parasite shortly thereafter. They also retrieved an impressive red, purple, and gold rug from the halls.

Session Three At a Glance

Morning of the 4th day of spring, year 4201

Castaways:
Daeren of Grigiamba, Mesa-born Colonist
Professor Archibald Bandersnatch, Windblown Balloonist
Sir Imago, Remarkably Errant Knight

	This session	All time
Real world time played	1 hour 45 minutes	~5 hours
In-game time elapsed	1 hour 30 minutes	~One day
Rooms discovered	8	19
Denizens met	7	20
Castaways slain	0	0

Session Three Highlights

• The party made their way west from the atrium to the Tower of the Eagle, passing by some sort of astrological clock, a small courtyard, and a couple of doors.
• The courtyard around the tower was littered with the bones of humans, gulls, and fish. Several doors and passages led away from the courtyard in various directions. One set of doors were boarded up and smeared with mud and feces. Another set of doors showed traces of gold leaf. Above those doors, mounted to the stone wall were glowing red tubes forming the outline of a stylized pair of lips or lipstick kiss.
• The party made contact with the Sentinels of the Eagle. They learned that kidnappers had recently ambushed the Sentinels, making off with a man named Gale and the key to a pair of doors that lead to the central court.
• The party then ambushed and subdued a pair of kidnappers in turn, but Daeren and Sir Imago suffered severe wounds in the process.
• The party handed off one of the kidnappers to the Sentinels of the Eagle and secured safe passage through the central court. They brought the other prisoner back to the gatehouse.
• The party discovered a small courtyeard that’s separated from the central court by a tall wall. A five-story glass and steel tower adjoins the court.

Session Four At a Glance

Midday of the 4th day of spring, year 4201

Castaways:
Daeren of Grigiamba, Mesa-born Colonist
Lady Harlowe, Hapless Heir
Gull, Piratic Pilgrim

	This session	All time
Real world time played	2 hours	~7 hours
In-game time elapsed	1 hour 50 minutes	~One day
Rooms discovered	14	33
Denizens met	3	23
Castaways slain	0	0

Session Four Highlights

• The party ventured to the third level of the atrium for the first time. There they saw two skeletons held together by colorful yarn, one wearing a smock, the other a tunic. Both the smock and the tunic were clumsily embroidered or painted, as if by children. Both skeletons also wore burlap sacks over their heads painted with cheerful expressions, bright yarn “hair” attached to the top of each sack.
• The party discovered a large hall with old swallows’ nests and an oil-heated, hand-cranked egg incubator.
• They then infiltrated the third level of the pilot jellyfish hall, bypassing a series of foothold traps thanks to clever use of an oar and a silence spell from Lady Harlowe.
• The party found two statues, one of a lobster and another of a knight offering up a golden-hilted spatha that they were unable to grasp. They also found a large hall with the remains of a massive broken hourglass and four iron cages. Stained glass skylights depicted five-pointed golden crowns on red fields.
• The party captured Ardent and Snowtail and then freed them of their jellyfish parasites after escaping the hall and barring the doors behind them. Snowtail, Eelcatcher, and Crabtrapper agreed to join the rescue mission.
• The party returned to the jellyfish hall via the secret door, bypassing another freshly-placed foothold trap.
• They discovered the location of the jellyfish polyps and explored the entire second floor, finding a heap of equipment, arcane tomes, an eerily lifelike statue, and a vault door.
• The party placed foothold traps by the stairs to the third floor. With the jellyfish and their hosts trapped upstairs, and with captive jellyfish for leverage, the party convinced the remaining jellyfish to separate from their hosts.

What’s Working

• Pacing. Session four established a new high water mark for me in terms of how much can happen in a short session. The party discovered 14 new rooms, bypassed a trap, engaged in a brief skirmish, and freed the remaining pilot jellyfish hosts, effectively clearing a small sublevel of the dungeon—all in just two hours.
• Planning. Since session two, the players have done a great job of letting me know approximately what the plan to do during the next session. This allows me to review my notes with a more specific focus than I would be able to otherwise. I’ve also been pre-rolling random encounters, denizen reactions, and room-specific tables. This has allowed me to really focus on providing information to the players and responding to their questions and actions.
• The map. A simple VTT and pre-generated map allows for a much faster pace than player-drawn maps. I can transition between levels in moments, and instead of listing the dimensions of each room and describing exits, I just cut away sections from fog of war.
• Small, goal-driven parties. The players deserve a lot of credit for how smoothly things have run so far. Exactly three players have attended each session, and I think that’s the ideal number for an exploration-focused game. They’ve done a fantastic job establishing goals, maintaining focus on those goals, and acting decisively.

What’s Not

• Siloed sublevels. The players have spent a lot of time in a fairly isolated sublevel of the dungeon, and as a result, they’ve seen far fewer random encounters than they otherwise would have. Quite a few areas of the dungeon are similarly siloed, and I worry that Kelpsprot ultimately won’t feel as dynamic as I’d intended.
• Illuminated rooms. I added little icons to my key to indicate which rooms are illuminated, but I also need to add icons to the keyed map I refer to during play. At least once during session three and twice during session four, I overlooked sources of illumination until the party entered the rooms containing those sources.

The Combat Procedure

I definitely stumbled my way through the combat procedure the first time around. The players also expressed wanting more clarity about how it works. I provided a more thorough explanation of the combat procedure between sessions three and four, and the session four skirmish ran more smoothly. Still, I expect the procure may need more iteration, and it’s possible we’ll end up scrapping it entirely. Only time will tell. It’s pretty experimental, so maybe we all need more familiarity with the procedure before we get fully on board.