Where The Sun Doesn't Shine - Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent Actual Play Session Report One

"A millennium has passed since the Green Death swept across Hyperborea. In that bygone age of pestilence, a noble family fled the City-State of Khromarium. Far beyond the walls of the city, they entombed themselves in order to elude the inescapable plague. Their necromancer placed them in a deep slumber from which they never wakened. Also he summoned a mythical serpent to guard the vault, a beast reputed to shed gems for tears from eyeless sockets. Tales speak of this beast as the Sightless Serpent. Now, a knave of Khromarium claims to have witnessed the legendary beast. For a pittance he will lead your party to its trail ."




I loath being rushed but I've got friends & players visiting family home for the holidays & Steven as well as his friends burst in on me tonight. They descend upon me without warning or pleasantries. Working on a convention style game event for them. They came by to see how things were going & to play. I had nearby copy of the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg adventure Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent By Jeffrey Talanian.
Now Steve & company have been run through this adventure in the past but I've been running a whole lot of Amazing Adventures!: The RPG by Troll Lord Games. So I'd had a twist or two up my sleeve & PC's were ready to go with that system.
So faster then you can say Post American Civil War, I had the PC's on a small island bar  in the Bermudas listening to the tales of a strange island where men have turned up fortunes of gems after get lost in Triangle. The PC's agreed to sail with a very tall & pale strange ship captain during the end of the next tide after a harrowing storm that was going to occur. Bare in mind that I'm pulling all of this out of my behind as fast as I could. One of the PC's was killed by a giant octopus as the PCs journeyed to the island! The player meantime had been thumbing through my copy of AS&SH & wanted to play a Hyperborean sorcerer.

This is a lot easier then it sounds, the Amazing Adventures Companion has rules for a Hyperborean race built in. The party's ship crashed through a strange purple mist & found their ship floating in a very still fresh water lake just outside of the City-State of Khromarium. I let the party have modern fire arms & equipment but it meant very little as the first PC's gun fighter  death happened! A giant tick took down on of the PC's into the depths of a sink hole & the poor fool had his neck snapped! Two bad rolls resulted in the poor fool being lost to the darkness!



The PC's camped for the night & the next day made their way with their map to crypt. The cold wind & bleak surroundings told them that they were not in Bermuda anymore. That & the long red shadows cast by a cold dead sunlight engulfing them. Their guns at the ready the fools found a Stirge's nest & it wasn't pretty.
They ended up having to retreat & heal back at the boat for the night.

 


The next day it was a search of another area & they ran head long into a sabre toothed tiger! It took all five players to bring the beast down & it took out John's hunter/raider with little truck before being brought down by a luck shot by their other raider! They decided to camp for the night but there were guards posted all round! They posted guards that night and were paranoid because I kept rolling dice.



The next day the party found the crypt after a good deal of searching & nonsense. They lost guns & knives dealing with the rust monsters but managed to get some treasure promised to them by the Hyperborean captain. Through mud, blood, & dust they finally found themselves at the Xavadar family crypt and the ghouls guarding it!
Theo the resident Hooligan managed to find the tracks of the sightless serpent but the tracks gave the poor fool pause. But when it found them?! Oh boy the whole party was almost wiped out! Only a premonition by the party's mentalist gave them enough time to run away! A short while they managed to make it into the preparation chamber & their arcanist is in heaven but then that's where the low moaning started!



We will pick the adventure up next week as folks had to get back to wives & family. All in all this was a pretty fun session & everyone almost died erm had a good time. I've a few thoughts on running this adventure below but next time folks a bit of warning please!

Commentary  On the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg adventure Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent By Jeffrey Talanian.




One thing I noticed while playing this adventure on the fly is how the module is greater then the sum of its parts. The the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg adventure Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent By Jeffrey Talanian
is highly customizable & easy to adapt to a wide variety of play styles & OSR systems. The dungeon master really should read over the whole adventure at least twice to know the 'ins' & 'outs' of the module locations. The encounters have a definite sword & sorcery old school feel to them. Carnal Crypt is an adventure in HYPERBOREA designed for 4–6 characters of 4^th to 7^th levels & the encounters reflect this.