A Mountain of Gold Session 1 Report
A generation ago our dwarven clan drove the dragon Zaynawab out of her nest and claimed her hoard. After a generation of isolation, leadership has changed, and we now return to the surface to stake our claim and protect our riches. There are a hundred of us left, and there will be no more.
I am joined by 1-2 additional players (for this first session, Wolffian) and our GM the esteemed Ms. Quixotic for this experiment in managing 15 million gp from a more gestalt than individual positon. See here for our GM's notes on that side of the game for this session.
Our starting position is as follows:
- A former dragon's nest, fortified at the top of a mountain switchback with a yard between an inner and an outer gate
- A dragon's hoard of 15 million gold coins
- A 6th Level Fighter Spade Grimtoe, and a 4th Level Fighter Blitzen Bloodfist
- An additional 98 dwarves, for a total of 100. No more will be born
- A respectable pile of magical items, including a couple sentient swords
- A dying wizard, enslaved to work our forge. It has one year remaining before expiry
April
We begin with a letter from The Iron Will, headed by Emperor Jin. It speaks of building relationships in our ending isolation and comes with a gift of a gilt hand-cannon, a technology unknown to us. We realize we do not know the world as it is. We send a scouting party of a dozen to create a local survey of the surrounding land and discuss our first steps, given infinite possibility and no direction. Our dying wizard is a clear problem, so we set kidnapping a new one as a focus. Ours brews a Potion of Human Control for the purpose. We also decide in accordance with our ending of isolation to reply to the Iron Will, acknowledging their goodwill and requesting maps "as the world has changed since we hid away".
Our scouts return with news of drought and unicorns in the area.
May
A trader arrives, Hakim Sand, selling oxen, yaks, ivory, and geese. We purchase the beasts of burden and muse on the geese while learning from him of bandits "asking around" about us. He agrees to tell them more or less whatever we want, and he carries the message that there is no way to our fortress besides the difficult switchback and main gate (true). As we say this, we begin to wonder if it is not true and we actually do have secret passages, so we set a dwarf and a passage-finding sword to the task. We also learn from him that the Iron Will is not a magical empire and there is not truly any magical polities in the area, though independent wizards do exist.
Four Pegasi approach our gates and wait for them to open despite the ability to fly over our walls. We allow them in, knowing them as creatures of the already a disappeared elves. We communicate with them using one of our intelligent swords which knows Elvish, and they entreat us to ride them. Blitzen fails the test presented by the first Pegasus in mounting it, and offended by her clumsiness it flies off. A second attempt by Blitzen and Spade proves successful, and the three remaining go for a ride in the sky. We spend the month developing communications with them (as they do not speak). They inform us they have been aimless in the world since the elves leaving, and are now the last of their kind. We are not elves, but since we are at least not humans and are Lawful, they are willing to give us a shot. The one who was offended has chosen otherwise and will likely die alone. I pray they find a heroic figure to join instead. They also inform us that is a time of struggle, and the world is not as bountiful as it once was.
We take the Pegasi on a flyover of the Bandits we have heard about, discovering they are 150-200 strong with half that number in cavalry. Their scouts will reach us next month and the main force the one after that.
Our wizard is set to making a +1 shield since we don't really have a plan for it.
June
We receive our response from the Iron Will, who is grateful we have acknowledged them and provides a map of their own territory. We are seated in an ambiguously neutral or contested area between them and another empire, the Golden Riders, who we have no information on.
A new trader arrives, Huo Soothwalker, bringing riding horses and beer. We purchase a dozen horses and turn down the beer. This new age is a sober one. A crone singles out Blitzen, asking if she can show "him" something for a payment. She agrees to a reduced payment for a viewing of and ride on a Pegasus. At the apex of the ride, she pulls a flask from her robes and holds it brilliantly to the sky where all below can see the Frozen Sunlight dazzle. Her masters knew how to make it in time past, but so much magic is gone from the world that she does not even practice witchery anymore and must sell it to feed herself.
We dig some earthwork defenses in preparation for the bandits and intentionally let the scouts in. Their exceptionally sleazy "leader" demands 100,000gp in exchange for leaving us alone. We feign powerlessness and beg for mercy before deploying an Earth Elemental on the four scouts, killing three and entombing all but the leader's head. Circumstantial evidence implies he pisses himself.
After two months of searching, we find a secret passage to the base of the mountain in the nest guarded by a bullshit riddle. We have no use for it yet but we are glad to know about it. Our wizard is set to making Philters of Healing for emergency purposes.
Soon
The bandits will be here next month. The last dragon is presumably still out there. We haven't heard anything from the Golden Riders. The original game pitch said "an endless goblin horde" and I'm choosing to not worry about that one.
Post-game thoughts
Playing as the gestalt of the Last Dwarven Clan instead of a character felt perfectly natural, even when there was two of us playing it at the same time. I think there's still natural opportunity for characterization of it as a whole and of each player as a different kind of voice or guiding force within the whole. I'm not surprised by this but I figure it's worth commenting on.
I was a bit worried before starting that there would be a lot of possibility and picking a direction would be difficult, especially after looking at the construction/magic item rules. This ended up being a non-issue—the events coming in immediately was plenty to work with and we were also able to come up with a serviceable goal before we got them.
The end of an age stuff makes me sad. Oh well. I'm not feeling super confident we'll find a suitable replacement wizard slave for the forge.
We kept haggling/not buying literally everything from traders even though we have 15 million gold. We've barely spent 8k of it. We'll never spend all of it. It still feels important to be careful spending it just so we don't get a reputation as a place you can bring literally anything and sell all of it.
Not a lot to elide from my notes in the play report, pretty much everything feels like important context given the scale of the game. Not so much an issue when we only cover a few months but maybe more an issue if I have to write more.
I haven't written a blog post in a while and I forgot how much I like commas.