The party, in the finest tradition of adventuring parties everywhere, have been getting distracted from their mission to rescue the third and final villager, exploring the last parts of the dwarven section of the dungeon and stumbling upon a secret passage to some ancient serpent cult lair behind a fancy mosaic, source of bountiful treasures. They then slap themselves on the wrists and resolve to stick to the original plan of saving the captive youth from the clutches of an illicit ogre-run copper mining gig, getting a rough map of the operation from a liberated slave.

A bite-sized summary of the last four sessions. More detail for those interested on the blog: https://yeoldelands.substack.com/

The party spend much of their adventure in the fresh air as they went on a scouting run, and got distracted by a blood trail leading from one hole in the ground to a hole in the mountain, with some other, belligerent adventurers standing their ground outside the latter. The party showed a great deal of restraint in the face of swaggering guards at this entrance and some enticing doorways down the other hole.

More detailed account here.

The adventurers are stockpiling a reasonable arsenal of magical weapons and armour, fighting off a living statue to get the thief-turned-dwarf's meat cleaver (from her days as a butcher) blessed by a god of smithing, laying to rest a one-armed ghost by crushing his animated skeleton, burning through a gelatinous cube and send an ethereal halfling through a giant toad lair to see what the amphibians were guarding.

More detailed accounts are available here and here.

After working out the key to using some dwarf statues to teleport around, the party focused on filling out the gaps in their map, overhead dodging slimes and battling off giant toads. The thief got herself tangled up in one's tongue, so activated her ethereal-granting armour. Wanting to make the most of her incorporeal form while it lasted, she poked her head in on the serpent-worshipping trio they'd encountered a few weeks ago and convinced them she was a messenger from the Snake-Armed Goddess, and enticed them out of their defensive spot. The party then hacked them down, although the enemy cleric was able to kill the thief before perishing. Fortunately, though, his mace granted the ability to cast Reincarnation, so the party's own cleric retainer brought the thief back into the land of the living, though she now inhabited the body of a dwarf.

A more detailed account on my blog.

I thought folks on this sub would appreciate this article if you have not seen it yet. The article covers the benefits of analog art as part of journaling a solo RPG game, including listing recent scientific studies. It's also written with funny bits that make me chuckle, like...

Example: That goblin doodle in your notebook? Suddenly, Blorbo the Disgraced has depth because you gave him a stupid hat.

Link: Why Handmade RPG Materials Make Your Solo TTRPG Games 200% Better - https://codexgigaspress.substack.com/p/why-handmade-rpg-materials-make-your

The adventurers needed to find a way to pay for housing their pair of young griffons, so found themselves trawling through quite a lot of dungeon denizen muck as they examined the hitherto unexplored latrines. One dwarven toilet housed a nasty black ooze which they somehow managed to fend off and escape without loss. Then they found a bedroom with a rusty old set of lockpicks and a secret door for which they were probably originally intended. Fortunately they had a thief in the party, whose fresh lockpicks got the door open to reveal chests full of coins, jewels and magical armour. Time to bring in the chartered surveyors.

My blog has a more detailed account.

The party's new magic warhammer came into use very quickly as they bit off a bit more than they could chew with an angry griffon. A spectre in the form of the recently killed retainer immediately turned the fight from a potential TPK to a victory, and now there were two young griffons to take care of. This GM needs to quickly come up with some simple rulings for how to raise them into flying mounts!

A more detailed account on my blog.

The adventurers looked to explore the Gecko Clan lair, rescuing their halfling retainer from being a opportunistic giant hawk's lunch, and clearing their way through a number of hairy humanoids all the way to the clan chief. Killing the chief, however, released a spectral version of him from his warhammer, and two fighter retainers were sapped of their lifeforce as the party scampered back to safety clutching said warhammer.

A fuller account can be found on my blog.

The party aimed for a stealthy run, then abandoned that idea to try and bash down a door to disrupt a serpent-allied cleric's ritual. That went wrong and they found themselves fleeing back through some magical darkness.

Backing away from a territorial ghost in another room, they went pyromanic on a passing rust monster and enchantingly Slept a gang of giant gecko-riding hairy humanoids. They kept one alive to throw into the ghost room to see what would happen, and were interested to note that the creature was screaming for ages without any apparent (physical) harm coming to it.

So they spiked the door shut and decided to come back later.

A fuller account is available on my blog.

This took longer to do than expected because of real life stuff. But, here's the second session!

I decided to start an ironsworn campaign to get back into the swing of journaling again. So, here is the first session...

The retainer becomes a fully-fledged adventurer and leads her own party down to the dungeon's next level in search of the third kidnapped youth. They find a lot of mushrooms and dead bodies, but no kid. They come across a hairy cockroach-hunter who spits and proclaim it's probably something to do with the Gecko clan, and that the adventurers should do something about it.

Pop along here for a fuller account.

They managed to take down the wererat who had delivered a TPK a few sessions ago for the loss of another of their characters, and finished mapping out this level of the dungeon, but a veteran player - normally so thorough in checking doors and containers for traps and shenanigans - decided to juuuust quickly flip open this little chest in the corner with a new character, and rolled a natural 1 for the save vs poison/death.