ROTOE — OSE S02E01

Not sure Gerald Brom was told what happens in the module, but this does look pretty

Iran OSE yesterday, kicking off the second season of my formerly sandbox campaign, where they’ve now gone thirty leagues northwest to start Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (henceforth, ROTOE)

It’s a module I first read at fifteen, so I’m hugely nostalgic for — doubly so in that we never hit LV4 to start it. Luckily OSE+ are generous with how things go in terms of level parity, so sensible play makes sense here

• today’s team: Pastor Chase, surfer-dude youth-pastor LV1; Parson, living-statue magic-user LV1; Merry Pippins, normcore-hobbit-cum-reptilian LV3; Sandy Sky, charismatic elfe LV1
• head to the moathouse, meeting an half-elf stoner en route, learn there’s a dragon about and some weird priests holding truck with some walking dead folk
• at the moathouse, spot a giant toad watching them hungrily (which Parson recalls is B. gigantis); Sandy Sky comes close and gives it a big hug, which the toad happily leans into
• inside the moathouse, huge bloodsmear and intense reptile smell (imagine sundried urine solids)
• follow the smear: oh no a dragen!
• wary conversation with the dragon, provocation leads to immediate sermon on non-violence from Chase; Utreshimon understands that it needs to carefully expel its rage (by killing the priests it already trapped beneath)
• surreptiously leave by the wrong door, find a load of empty ruined rooms. in a burned out room, Parson takes a sledgehammer to the cracks and widens an exit; Merry finds stairs down to the dungeons; Sandy notices that two hyena-headed mercenaries are sneaking up to investigate the crashing sounds
• shield wall, pushing the gnolls down the stairs, and out-and-out aggression bring the gnolls to an end, with the party suffering minimal harm
• light a torch, explore downstairs ─ gosh it stinks of undead here
• find a drug dealer from town hiding from the gnolls
• surprised by a ghast! but the priest destroys it in one swing of a warhammer ─ to which Lassiter herself grants the power of *light*

Rewards

• 400XP each
• no treasure
• Pastor Chase can cast light daily