The Story So Far
This adventuring group is based in the City of Greyhawk. Originally, they were exploring Castle Greyhawk and its surrounds, but their interest has broadened with the introduction of their current sponsor: Lord Raelthayer. He’s the grandfather of one of the character’s love interests, and although nobility doesn’t count for all that much in the Free City, he’s still a person of influence.

The last two sessions were spent attending a ball and chasing the thieves who robbed it. Now, the party found themselves at a loose end...

The Adventurers
Gillaine (played by Martin), a female dwarven druid 9
Maximilian (played by Adam), a human bard 8
Drakult (played by Rich), a human paladin 8
Will (played by Nathaniel), a half-elf ranger 8

The Adventurers' Board
I hadn't plan this adventure ahead of time, partly because I've been terribly busy and partly because I want the players to be more proactive in choosing what their characters do (making it more of a sandbox campaign). So, what happens? They come up with a way of making me suggest the adventure!

Back in my first real AD&D campaign, my character - Meliander the Magic-User - came to the city of Mitrik and found an "Adventurers' Board" in the Blue Hornet Inn, full of possible missions that Bruce, our DM, had come up with us to potentially do. One suspicious looking one invited us to the Barrier Peaks. We were tempted, but, sadly, turned it down with our 1st level PCs.

I've never told my players about that, but they decided to make such a board for themselves in the Green Leaf Tavern in Greyhawk. Well, two such boards: a "Jobs for Adventurers" board and an "Adventurers for Jobs" board. That led to some extremely amusing roleplaying as they sold the idea to the barkeep at the tavern, then went looking for a signwriter to make the board, then a scribe to obtain 6 x 4 cards of varying colours (the last proved impossible - paper technology isn't that advanced in Greyhawk yet).

With all of that organised - and about 90 minutes of the session gone, though a very entertaining 90 minutes - they finally got their first job: a noblewoman wanted them for something.

(I was now humming the Goodies themesong.)

Yes, their first job was to find the noblewoman's lost cat, Snowball. "It can't be a Persian because Persia doesn't exist in Greyhawk. Perhaps it's a Zeifan." I used Max's connections with the noble world to give him previous history with the noblewoman, Lady Marchessa Sturgeon.

The group discussed whether they wanted to use a ritual to find the cat, but eventually used their superior tracking powers to find that it had slipped into the sewer. Oh, goody. Of course, like any adventuring party they were well used to going underground, though not normally into places with such interesting smells. Once there, they soon ran into a patrol of the Mayoral Sewer Guild - by Royal Appointment.

This was me building on a reference from the old The City of Greyhawk boxed set, and making it even more fun (and Zagygified). This group of sewer workers were actually all competent fighters and had fair magic as well. They wanted to know if the party had a "Day Pass" for the sewers. Of course they didn't, and so we got in some fun role-playing as the group tried to talk their way past them; unfortunately, the sewer workers weren't having any of it.

The impasse was finally broken when a party of marauding Xorn attacked the group. Cynics will say that I just wanted to have a combat and, while there is some truth in that: the flow of the session did now require some action, there was a very good reason that I wanted the attackers to be Xorn. Exactly what that was is still a mystery to the players, so I'm not going to spell it out here. It is something I am building upon, though.

The combat was pretty fun - and miniatureless - which caused only a few problems as to positioning. Soon enough, the Xorn were slain or running and the group finally were allowed to pass the sewer workers who were sort of grateful for the help. No, being attacked by Xorn isn't a daily part of a sewer worker's life, but there are a lot of weird things in those sewers!

Picking up Snowball's trail again, they found it led out of the sewers into the outlet into the Selintan River. Of course, the outlet was blocked by a grate with no way through - save for the familiar and Gillaine wildshaped into a bird. They were able to track Snowball up the cliff into the winding canyons near Castle Greyhawk, where she was apparently picked up by goblins. The rest of the group made their way out of the sewers, out through the city gate, and eventually met up with Gillaine.

The group found the goblins - all dead. They'd been ambushed by ogres. The ogres had made their way into the caves beneath Castle Greyhawk - the Mouths of Madness, which is where this group began their adventures - and into a cave they hadn't entered before. That cave was barred by doors that previously were unopenable, but now yielded to the party. Inside, they finally found Snowball - in the company of a Hill Giant!

The giant was not pleased to see them, and responded to their attempts to parley by throwing rocks whenever they said something he didn't like. Offering a mere 100 gold pieces for the cat? That's a rock for you, Max!

So, things degenerated into a combat, where the characters used all their dailies to take out the giant. The giant's stats began as a level 14 brute, but I gave him elite status as well and the combat went pretty well from there: he could do a fair bit of damage and receive it in turn. Gillaine used her druidical magic to entrap him in a wall of thorns, and then the group kept pushing the giant back into it at every opportunity. Will rushed around the edges of the great cavern they were in to grab Snowball, and they were all ready to run if necessary, but the giant was on his last legs and soon succumbed to their attacks.

From there, it was a simple task to return to Greyhawk and the noblewoman with her cat, the return of which garnered them a 1000 gp reward! I awarded quite a bit of XP for the session - for the roleplaying and activities within, even if it wasn't all combat.

I'll have to come up with some more job notices for next session now!