Hot Springs Island-Open Table: Session 1

How This All Began

At the beginning of February, my copy of ShadowDark arrived, sparking my excitement and igniting the urge to run a game of D&D. However, my current class schedule posed a challenge; it didn't allow enough time to prep and run my favorite setting, Yoon Suin. So, I perused my shelf of neglected D&D adventures and found a gem: Hot Springs Island, which is quickly becoming my second favorite setting.

I then spent the next 16 days devouring the ShadowDark rulebook and how to go about running an in-person, open table game, culminating in the creation of the following poster.

The Session Report

Rolling Up Characters

Our game began around 1:20 p.m. I provided each of my players with the option of playing pre-generated characters, or rolling up two random characters (with the option to reroll upto 2 stats, as I was feeling generous). We ended up with the following rooster of characters:

Tony Tuna, a level 1 Halfling Wizard (4 HP), played by Nic.

Esien, a level 1 Dwarven Fighter (9 HP), played by Jaron.

Primus (deceased), a level 1 Human Thief (1 HP), played by Lemon.

Secundus, a level 1 Human Thief (5 HP), also played by Lemon.

The Introductory Epilogue

The game opened with the following tweaked introductory epilogue (borrowed from Jacob Hurst’s Blog): “About a year ago, you were black-bagged and thrown into a cell. They said you deserved it, this may or may not have be true. But that doesn't matter, what matters is what happened next. After d6 months (2 for Tony Tuna, 6 for Esien, and 4 for Primus) of sitting in the dark, the door opened, and an impeccably clean person wearing black pants, brown boots, and a bright coat of saffron yellow offered you a deal: Redemption."

"You accepted, were cuffed, and dragged onto a ship with many others. On the ship, you slept togther, ate together, and worked together. You may hate each other, you might be friends. But that doesn't change the fact that today, you were dragged atop the main deck. Your eyes had trouble adjusting to the light, but you could eventually make out the silhouette of a volcanic island in the distance."

You and your bunkmates were branded on your left shoulder. Black magic swirled around the red-hot iron as it was pressed onto your skin. It felt cold as ice. As the irron was pressed upon your skin, the Quartermaster began to speak. "You belong to the Martel company now, and you’ve been brought here to extract wealth: a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of experience, and most importantly, a wealth of gold. The faster you bring wealth to a quartermaster, the quicker that new brand of yours will fade. Of course, you don’t need to extract wealth; you are free to choose. But! In time, if this brand does not fade. It will consume your flesh.”

A naked man was brought onto the deck. His mouth gaped, and his eyes lolled about blindly. A crooked M of black and green covered the left side of his body. He was thrown onto the deck; his blackened flesh sloughed off like a corn husk, blackened bones and guts spilled out. "Boats return to this beach weekly. They will carry a quartermaster to process what you extract," the Quartermaster continued, as you were handed a journal and basic gear. "Now get!" He commanded, "You’ve got just over a week's time."

Stepping Onto The Island

The game then started in Hex HS-14-01: The Crab Mouth Lagoon, a lagoon of clear serene blue water and black sandy beaches, surrounded by thick jungle and enclosed by a sandbar dotted with mangroves. I instructed the PCs to roll for initiative, explaining that one of the cool things about ShadowDark is that initiative is always on, meaning everything from combat to exploration to social encounters occurs in turn order. The order ended up being Tony Tuna, Esien, and Primus, who rolled the first natural 1 of the night.

At this point, I handed the PCs the Field Guide to Hot Springs Island, an in-universe journal of previous Adventurers combined knowledge of the island. While they passed it back and forth excitedly, Tony Tuna poured over the pages the most, as the game progressed. The PCs eventually found the map on the inside cover and decided to head south towards what appeared to be ruins in Hex HS-19.

I guess we're Doing 0-Prep

Immediately, alarms started going off in my head.

As I realized I hadn't gotten this far into the book in my limited read-through of the setting. At that moment, I had to give myself a bit of a pep talk: "This is what I signed up for by running a player-driven sandbox. This is the kind of spontaneity you wanted," I told myself. Rather than tell my players I wasn’t ready for that section of the map yet, I resolved to run this session in a Zero-Prep fashion.

I rolled 2d6, the first to check for a random encounter (1-in-6 chance) and the second to check the PCs' chances of getting lost (2-in-6 chance). I ended up rolling a 5 and a 2, resulting in the PCs becoming lost and no encounter. I then rolled another d6 to determine which direction the PC would veer, which ended up being to the left. Unfortunately, given the geography of the island, it didn’t make sense for the PCs to wander into the ocean, so I made a ruling and decided that they wandered onto the beach and decided to follow the coast south, towards the ruined city.

Then, I flipped to the corresponding section and found a couple of brief paragraphs detailing the Hex's three main points of interest. After which, I opened the online Hot Springs Island Encounter Generator and searched for the Bath House (the main point of interest the PCs seemed excited about). Frustratingly, there seemed to be no encounter generator for this location or the ruined city. Luckily, the city itself had tables to roll. I rolled 3d6 three times and came up with the following results on the tables labeled “DAY”:

#13: 2d6+1 dried out corpses are hung along the street.

#15/5: 1 adventurer with a social motivation.

At this point, while I thought about how these results might come together, I flipped over to the next page and showed my players the following map of the city (found on pages 94-95 of the Dark Of Hot Springs Island).

The Player's Effective Create Their Own Encounter

And explained to the players that they eventually wandered into a ruined, overgrown street lined with crumbling, overgrown buildings (The Ruined Marketplace on the map) before discovering 5 humanoid corpses dressed in similar equipment. I explained these corpses were tied up, suspended, and very dried out, resembling beef jerky. The players then asked, “What ancestry are these guys?” So, I rolled for it in front of them, which turned into a fun little mini-game.

The results were 2 goblins, 3 dwarves, and a halfling, which we all found a bit amusing.

The Players excitedly started telling me what they were going to do. I defaulted to the initiative order and inquired about their intentions. The PCs collectively agreed to investigate both the corpses and the vines.Through a combination of probing questions, successful rolls, and Tony Tuna's frantic searching through the Field Guide, they eventually deduced that another group had attacked and killed the individuals, suspending their bodies from clusters of Salt Vine as a warning to other treasure seekers.

This revelation astonished me, as I hadn't come up with much for what was rolled. The players' inquiries and my quick thinking, coupled with the comment "maybe it's Salt Vine," laid the groundwork for this engaging encounter. Primus the Thief, drawing upon his herbalist background and information from Tony Tuna, harvested salt crystals from the vines. Given his expertise, I ruled that the roll could be made with Advantage. Together, they managed to extract four crystals, which they stored in a backpack before proceeding to the Bath House.

Entering The Bath House

At this point, I called for a brief break. I knew that the Bath House was an incredibly important dungeon, & the last thing I wanted to do was mess it up. I took the opportunity to thoroughly review the related pages while the players indulged in a pizza break and restroom visit.

Eventually, after 5 or so minutes I felt prepared & invited the players back to the table. Where I described the Bath House as a large, walled compound, containing a lush but overgrown garden filled with a variety of plants & Ashvein trees. The players eagerly consulted the field guide, matching plants with my descriptions, which led to amusing moments of further investigation. Meanwhile, I detailed the rest of the compound, including a grand theater-like building at its center, numerous empty and overgrown pools, a staircase leading up to the theater, and one descending beneath the compound, surrounded by sprawling roots.

My Players were having a blast harvesting these plants and seeing what they could do with them. So, after a reasonable amount of in-game time had passed, I rolled for potential encounters and, unsurprisingly, rolled a 1. Given the players' keen interest in the wild garden, I decided to introduce Cachuga Peppers—a fun, spicy, and delicious consumable item. Lore-wise, these peppers are typically attached to carnivorous plants called Blindfire Carpets (LVL 5 monster) and Blindfire Vines (LVL 6 Monster). In my haste to incorporate this encounter into the game, I chose the Blindfire Vine and tucked it into a corner of the overgrown garden.

I then told the players, “As you explore the garden, you notice a patch of peppers in one corner”. And boy did they take the bait.

Tony Tuna started flipping through the field guide, while Esien and Primus rushed to the garden bed to harvest the peppers. I chuckled and told my players, "Hope you're ready for a fight—this thing has 4 attacks." I then rolled a d6 to decide who would face the extra attack. (If I recall correctly) The extra attack targeted Tony Tuna.

I proceeded to roll 4d20 and asked each player if my attacks beat their AC. Fortunately for our wizard, both attacks missed. Unfortunately for Esien and (Plant Food) Primus, both PC's were hit and grappled by the creature's vines. Primus's HP dropped to 0.

Throughout the battle, Esien failed one DC 15 attempt to break free from the vines and two attempts to cut himself free. While, Tony Tuna managed one successful magic missile before failing DC 11 spell casting check, for the same spell on the next round. In the third round, Tony Tuna pulled out a dagger and rushed the vine grappling Esien, landing a hefty hit against the creature. Esien followed up with a swing of his Great Axe, severing the vine and freeing himself.

Immediately after freeing himself, Esien grabbed his halfling friend and ran towards the nearest Ashvein Tree, scaling their branches to wait for the creature’s next move. After a round or two without the Blindfire Vine finding the PCs, the creature retreated to its garden box to prepare for another ambush.

As Primus's unconscious body was consumed by the Blindfire Vine and Tony Tuna and Esien battled the creature, Secundus, a chaotic Human thief, overheard the nearby battle and rushed over to join them. Fearing they might alert the creature to their location by walking about, Esien constructed a zipline using a nearby topiary bush, a grappling hook, 30 feet of rope, and each character's respective weapons (a Staff & a Great Axe). Using his stealth, Secundus crossed the overgrown garden with ease. Upon sneaking up on Tony Tuna and Esien, he found them discussing the possibility of using a torch to burn the Blindfire Vine and offered to use his crossbow to fire a flaming bolt at the creature.

The Players then spent the next round covering the crossbow bolt in an adhesive substance they had recovered from other plants within the garden and igniting it. Secundus then used his backstab ability alongside the attack and the d4 damage granted by the flaming crossbow bolt to deliver what was probably the highest damaging attack of the session. I then decided that the adhesive would burn for d6 rounds and rolled a 5.

Triggering The Trap

After which, I turned to Esien, as it was his turn in the initiative, and asked what he wanted to do. “I want to turn towards the theater, run up the stairs, turn around, jump off, & attack the Blindfire Vine with my Great Axe.”

“So you want to run up the stairs and then jump off them to attack the Blindfire Vine?” I asked Esien’s player Jaron. “Yes, that is exactly what I want to do,” he replied. “Great,” I said, “you run up the stairs and instantly you notice something is off. The sun is lower in the sky, as if it were morning. The overgrowth and ruin have disappeared. When you look behind you, Tony Tuna and Secundus are nowhere to be found.” I then turned to the other players, “You guys watch Esien charge up towards the stairs, Great Axe in hand. The second he crosses the threshold, he disappears. What do you do?”

“I look towards Secundus, shrug, and charge up the stairway after Esien,” Tony Tuna’s player Nic replied. “I notice that it's starting to get dark, so I'll walk over to the Blindfire Vine's Corpse, harvest what peppers I can. Then I'll cut it open and take any loot left inside from folks it's eaten. After all that’s done, I’ll climb up into one of those Ashvein trees and camp out for the night,” replied Secundus’s player Lemon.

I then informed my players of the plan: "Great, we're splitting the party. In that case, I'll roll a couple of dice to see if any encounters occur on Secundus's side of things. Then I'll bounce back between both parties."

Explaining 1:1 Time

At this point, I checked the clock and noticed we had about 3 hours left in the session. I proceeded to explain the concept of 1:1 time to my players, emphasizing how it would facilitate the open table style of the game. While all my players found the concept fun and interesting, Nic raised a valid point about the weekly ship arrivals not aligning well with this style of play. After some consideration, we decided the boats would arrive every 3 days, and the time limit for the brands consuming the PCs' flesh would be a week.

Splitting The Party

Returning to the game, I assessed the compound's danger level, concluding it was moderately dangerous. According to ShadowDark, this meant two encounter rolls should be made instead of one. Additionally, I consulted the pokechip clock, noting that the night was split into 2 watches. Therefore, I decided to roll a total of 4d6, indicating the potential for two encounters during each watch.

Fortunately for Secundus, I only rolled two 1’s, so I divided the two encounters between the two watches. Transitioning back to Tony Tuna and Esien, I described the environment they suddenly found themselves in. "Esien finds himself climbing up a staircase similar to the one you ran towards, but something is off. The sun is lower in the sky, as if it were morning. The overgrowth and ruin have disappeared. When you look behind you, Tony Tuna and Secundus are nowhere to be found... at least for a second. Then suddenly, Tony Tuna appears out of thin air, having followed you into the stairway. What do you do?"

"We turn around and walk out the way we came." I then spent the next couple of minutes describing an elaborately decorated bathhouse compound filled with elves who never noticed the PCs. Elves with whom the PCs couldn’t physically interact. Eventually, Tony Tuna successfully cast Detect Magic and determined that Esien and himself had become stuck in a time loop, similar to a puppet show he saw titled "GroundHogs Day."

Meanwhile, halfway through the first watch, Secundus found himself stirred awake by the sounds of two Arva, lizardmen with emerald-green scales covered in tribal swirls. Their tongues flicked into the air intermittently, hinting that these two seemed to be hunting something, potentially the scent of humanoids.

To remain hidden, I had Secundus roll a DC 15 DEX check with advantage, since his class was Thief. Luckily for Secundus, he passed and was able to use the opportunity to shoot a crossbow bolt into the stairway where he had seen the other two PCs disappear. I had Secundus roll a DC 9 DEX check for the shot and a DC 18 DEX Check with Advantage to remain hidden, both of which he passed. I then rolled a reaction roll for both of the Arva. One chose to investigate the noise of the crossbow bolt hitting the stone of the arched doorway which led to the stairway, while the other began scanning the garden looking for where the shot could’ve originated. Eventually, the first Arva got a little too curious and found himself unwittingly crossing the stairway's threshold, causing him to disappear, which brought great alarm to his companion.

In the time loop, Esien and Tony Tuna spent the first loop exploring, trying to find a way to escape. I dropped hints about Meltalia and the chiseled reliefs of elves in the walls, occasionally displaying a similarly armored adventurer, along with the odd Lizardman. Eventually, the loop reset itself, and the boys found themselves teleported back to the stairway, the point at which they had entered the time loop. However, this time they were not alone. An emerald-green scales lizardman covered in bubbling tribal tattoos stood among them.

Immediately, the PCs ran up the stairs a bit to put some distance between themselves and the Arva. Tony Tuna tried to use his expertise in draconic to communicate with the creature but found the language barrier to be similar to the one experienced with Portuguese to Spanish. While some communication was possible, the Arva soon became enraged, causing Esien to attack the creature. This bought Tony Tuna the time to retreat into the next room. The Arva returned the attack but failed to reach Esien’s AC and found himself slipping on the stairs in front of him.

Inadvertently Solving 1 of the two puzzles

Esien took the opportunity to run up the stairs into the second-floor theater lobby, where Elves and extraplanar guests were gathering for a meet and greet with Meltalia. Tony Tuna and Esien decided to hide among the crowd, which I thought was pretty cool, so I gave them advantage on the check, which they succeeded. The Arva continued hunting for the two, which proved frustratingly ineffective. Esien took the opportunity to make a surprise attack against the Arva, rolling a Natural 20 and liberating the Lizardman’s head from his shoulders. Meanwhile, Tony Tuna wandered into the theater, where he found the meet and greet occurring.

Behind Meltalia and the high-ranking elves honoring her, he spotted two statues of Meltalia set up for the upcoming performance. These two statues were identical, aside from one feature: a beautiful tiara of platinum and diamonds, sitting atop one of the statues. He grabbed it and placed it atop his own head. Nothing happened. Eventually, he decided to place the crown atop the head of the severed lizardman, which again accomplished nothing toward his current goal of escape. But he now stood unaware that he had solved one of the two puzzles within this looping dungeon: how to free Meltalia.

Thiefs Are OP, And I Love It

Back in the real world, Secundus used his expertise to sneak up on the remaining Arva and fire a crossbow bolt at the Lizardman, using his backstab ability to double the dice he could roll when determining the damage caused. Both the attack and the subsequent attempt to remain hidden succeeded. Having just been attacked by an unknown assailant who disappeared without notice, the Arva flew into a violent rage, attacking in random directions. Eventually, the brute gave up this onslaught, sbroke the bolt off, and walked into the stairway, resigned to leave this strange encounter behind and determine where their companion had ventured off to.

Who Need Metallica Whern You Have Meltalia

Back in the time loop, Esien and Tony Tuna decided to watch and follow Meltalia, who now stood informed of them. They watched as she talked to one of her companions, a Nereid named Oolah, and gave her a heartfelt embrace. They then watched as all the elves excitedly gathered in the theater to watch Meltalia and the Fifty Visions perform. At first, everything appeared normal, aside from the odd assassination of a guest in the crowd. Then, as the second song began, the audience started singing the song which was being performed, backward.

Instantly, the energy of the room began to change. Foul magics filled the air, and Nereids began to be sucked into elaborate paintings which had been set up as part of the stage design. Furious, Meltalia started indiscriminately attacking a section of the audience, Tony Tuna and Esien had previously heard the elves call "the Splash Zone".

Eventually, the marid snapped out of it and turned towards the two PCs who had temporarily broken the time loop by removing the tiara.

"You did it!" she exclaimed. "You've freed me from this prison. For 5000 years, I’ve relived these moments waiting for someone to free me. Now how do we get out of here?" Stunned, Esien & Tony Tuna began asking a cascade of questions. At which point I had to explain that Meltalia was a prisoner here who had created the time loop in an effort to escape imprisonment by the elves and the Starfall. Once that was done, I answered what questions Meltalia a might know the answers to before having her instruct them to set her free again and find a way to escape.

And with that said, I restarted the time loop, placing the PCs back onto the staircase, this time with another reptilian visitor. Without hesitation, Esien raised his great ax, cutting the Arva down the center. The two PCs then ran towards the theater, where they removed the Tiara from the statue, and then sought out Meltalia, handing her the tiara and breaking her free from the time loop once again. Low on health, the two requested healing if she could provide it. It was at this point that Secundus’s player, Lemon, suggested Meltalia might have a healing spell.

Since I hadn’t designed a stat block for Meltalia yet, I took the base Nereid stat block and added the spells to cure wounds and restoration. I then attempted to heal Esien with cure wounds, and hilariously rolled a Natural 1. Meltalia crumpled to the ground and screamed in primordial form for 3 rounds before eventually getting back up and resolving to find a way out of the looping dungeon.

Solving The Final Puzzel

At this point, the PCs had all the clues but were struggling to figure out how to put them together. So I set up an encounter with a mural engraving of MMeltalia, which she swore she'd never seen in the countless times she’d spent stuck in the loop. Encouraged, the players encouraged her to touch it, and watched as she disappeared, much like they had when initially entering the loop. Eureka! Suddenly, all the clues came together and the two PCs split up, scouring the wall looking for and eventually touching their respective likeness.

A Mysterious Elf

In the real world, Secundus climbed back into an Ashvein tree to camp out the rest of the night. Towards the latter end of the second watch, a hooded, “elderly” (looking no more than 50), elf in elaborate guard strode confidently into the bathhouse compound. Picking various clippings of plants out of the wild garden as he'd done before. Curious if he’d spot Secundus, I rolled a d6 decider. Boom! Instantly, he whirled around, drew his katana, and pointed it towards the tree Secundus sat atop.

“Show yourself,” he demanded. Reluctantly, Secundus climbed out of the tree and approached the elven figure. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” He started off, intending to interrogate the PC. With a surprising amount of reaction rolls and shocking luck, Secundus ended up weaseling information out of the mysterious elf, learning about the nearest potential refuge of safety: the Temple of Tranquility, along with a variety of dangers on the island and other information which I unfortunately didn't write down.

Satisfied with the information, Secundus belined it towards the south, heading for the Temple of Tranquility, where he encountered a Steam Imp who invited him to partake in a day of gambling. Excitedly accepting, he responded, “Have you heard of poker? No! You’ll love it!"

The Wrap Up

Meanwhile, Meltalia, Tony Tuna, and Esien found themselves in a ruined version of the Bathhouse, where they had touched their respective murals. After a minute of searching for each other, the three met up. When Meltalia explained that she had to seek out her fellow sisters to the south, before departing she thanked them by imparting the Blessing, Meran's Kiss, which I explained to the PCs would allow them to breathe underwater.

After saying goodbye, Tony Tuna and Esien looted a golden statue from inside the Bathhouse, dragging it towards the beach and encountering a nest of 5 angry, Giant Rats and two Tabari fighting a Blindfire Vine along the way. The boys were nearly killed by the rats but were able to scare them off with a failed morale roll on the part of the rats after killing 3 of their brethren. Upon encountering the fighting Tabari and Blindfire Vine, the two decided to take the long way around, eventually coming upon the beach at sunset, where they camped and boarded the Siren’s Edge the next day.

Tallying XP and Treasure

Tony Tuna and Esien walked away from the session with 10 XP, for receiving the Blessing Meran's Kiss. While Secundus walked away with a small fortune in information, earning himself 12 XP. All players opted to level up at the end of the session, meaning Secundus’s extra 2 XP was discarded.

Takeaways From My First Session Of ShadowDark

With that, our first session concluded. The players seem excited about their discoveries and eager to continue exploring Hot Springs Island. As the Game Master, I was thrilled with how the session went. Using Always On Initiative proved to be quite effective, particularly with my small group. However, larger groups of eight or more may find it necessary to implement a caller system.

As the session progressed, I came to appricate how ShadowDark operates under the guiding principle of 'Rulings Not Rules,' allowing for on-the-spot decisions based on situational judgment. While some of my rulings may have been wrong, I believe that with experience, my ability to make sound judgments as a GM will improve over time.

Striving towards Book Mastery has ultimately served my players. Personally, I’m glad I finished reading ShadowDark before the session started. As I was able to quickly flip to certain sections as we needed them. However, since I've only recently begun reading the Dark of Hot Springs Island, some aspects were more challenging to adjudicate in terms of the setting.

In the past, I've debated with CrossFace and numerous individuals on Rick Stump's Discord for hours regarding the advantages of having players figure out information. Surprisingly, it only took a single session, during which I made a concerted effort to incorporate their suggestions of being as transparent as possible with information such as creature names, locations, NPCs, etc., to completely change my perspective on whether making players earn information is beneficial for a game.

Lastly, I never thought It'd be incredibly easy to run split party adventures with ShadowDark. But as this session proved, there's plenty of unexpected advantages hidden within this system. Ultimately, I think its ShadowDark's use of Always On Initiative that faciliates this.