INTO THE ODD session 1: A Shipwreck and the Iron Coral

The adventuring party:

I walked each player through generation of a character using Into the Odd, rolling 3d6 for each stat, 1d6 for HP, and assigning starting equipment using the chart in the book. Additionally, we used some of the random tables in the book's "Oddpendium" to help generate names and a few notes on character background and personality. CharGen took less than 5 minutes per player.  Our 4 players this session were Olivia, Dan, Jeff, and Chris, and these are their PCs, in order:

Felora Tumble, a noblewoman of low rank who has fallen on hard times. Warm and friendly, with a psychic mutt companion named Mumbles.

Picklow Creed,  a former watchmaker, now seeking a new career. He's eager to throw fire oil on something.

Harold Nicolas, a tunneler and cave expert who rides a mule and carries an Arcanum (walking stick with the Pale Flame power).

Chips Parfait, a gambler and unreliable genius with an eye patch. Heavily armed for melee with a sword/dagger combo.

Setting and Player Intro:

I decided to use shared party debt as the major frame or hook for the campaign. This is an element adapted from Electric Bastionland. The party owes 10,000 shillings to Korgen Von Klaw, a neighborhood crime lord and low council member in the Mercy Quarter of Bastion. They decided that Chips had roped everyone in to an ill-fated get-rich-quick scheme, which led to the party members sharing the losses, eventually being arrested and sent away from Bastion to to a debtor's prison.

For our opening sessions, I am running the Iron Coral dungeon from the Into the Odd book, along with the surrounding Fallen Marsh hexcrawl and the little fishing town of Hopesend. I did minimal prep, just read the book one time.


Session 1 recap:

Backstory: Our party finds themselves washed ashore on the beach in the Fallen Marsh area (beach area 1), having survived a shipwreck offshore. They were being transported away from Bastion, en route to the debtors prison, when a storm came up and forced the ship to make for the little port of Hopesend. But the ship ran onto some unexpected rocks or coral outcroppings before reaching the town and was wrecked. Our party grabbed a few belongings and their animal companions and rowed ashore on a small boat, apparently the only survivors.

Game starts: In the distance to the East they can see some smoke from the chimneys of Hopesend; and they calculate that it will be at least a half-days walk to get there across some dunes and marsh. To the South, a few miles away they see the Iron Coral, a strange island-like formation of red metallic rocky material rising from the water offshore.

The party quickly realizes that they will be reported missing when they don't show up at the prison, and they decide that their ultimate goal should be to return to Bastion, hopefully having found some treasure on the way, so they can straighten things out with Von Klaw and prevent their loved ones being stuck with their debts.

As they discuss their plight, they notice a figure on the dunes waving to them. It is Cornelius Pentreach, and old man who is looking for his lost companion, Humphrey. Apparently Humphrey is into making maps and he may have gotten lost trying to explore the Iron Coral. Pentreach explains that he is from Bastion but has relocated to Hopesend. The Iron Coral was not there a few months ago, but appeared recently. Several locals have investigated, but none returned. Perhaps they perished, or found treasure and booked it for the big city. The party agrees to search for Humphrey and they will rendezvous with Pentreach at the Oak and Anchor Inn in Hopesend if they find him.

The party decides to head right for the Iron Coral, traveling down the beach without encountering anything other than some dead fish. They brought along their little boat and used it to row out the the Iron Coral where they found a small dinghy docked. In the dinghy were scraps of felt and string which they kept, surmising that they might belong to Humphrey. Felora asked Mumbles the mutt to try to track Humphrey by smelling the fabrics.

Having landed on a rocky area, they found a tunnel leading into the interior of the Iron Coral and decided to begin their dungeon exploration. Lanterns lit, they proceeded into area 1, a room with a chute in the floor and several passages leading out, including one filled with foam. They tied a rope around Felora and lowered her down the chute, where she discovered a large rectangular chamber with transparent glass walls looking out into the undersea (area 4). The rest of the party tied the rope to Matilda the mule, leaving her in area 1 to pull them up out of the chute later, and they proceeded down the chute. In the glass room, they discovered a weird pale dead body of a humanoid found on the ground. Chips removed one of its eyes for future research.

They found a ventilation duct in the floor and crawled through into area 5, containing many boxes. They recovered their first treasures: loads of mystery meat jerky and 6 glass jars containing green beads... On the wall was a glowing symbol. Picklow touched it revealing a secret door to area 8, and then went into area 9 where there was a large shaft going down 50 feet, in the center of the room. Felora peeked into it and the Crawling Carapace sprung out to attack. Their first monster was a slavering, rust-colored humanoid driven to prey on the weak. He bit on Felora's neck, critically wounding her. Harold thought quick and distracted it with jerky, allowing Chips to assist Felora while the others killed it and tossed its body down into the shaft. Picklow quickly supplied some whiskey to Felora, who then recovered all her lost HP. The whole combat took about 5-10 minutes max, including explaining the rules to new players, which was awesome.

Picklow then thought, what the heck, why not open a jar of green beads and spill some out on the floor to see what happens? They discovered that the small beads were like marbles but with zero friction, and they careened around endlessly, rolling on the floor and eventually spilling down into the shaft where they continued to ricochet eternally. Intrigued, Harold decided to eat one, but nothing happened immediately.

They pried open a door into area 27 and found their way into a room with a big wet meat-wall on one end. Picklow went to poke at it with an oar, but giant eyes opened up on the wall of meat, and a huge gaping mouth snapped at his arm with its massive jaw, injuring him. Their first real trap. They backed away to a safe distance and Felora shot at the face with her musket, angering it.

They paused to figure out where to go next, and heard a noise coming from area 9, where they had just been. It seems the gunshot must have attracted someone's attention.

We ended the session there, after just under 3 hours play (including CharGen and rules explanation). We had quite a bit of exploration and multiple encounters including a monster, a trap, and an interesting NPC interaction. So far so good; can't wait to see what's next.