Friday, December 30, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 14

 In which Badger and Chum...

  • Head out into the wilds to continue searching for Stephen
  • Run from a manticore, avoid some shadows, and heal a wolf with a healing potion to befriend it and its pack.
  • Get led by the wolves to a set of 3 strange tombs, that they seem to whimper at and nudge the duo towards.
  • Enter one of the tombs, when darkness overtakes them and they have to fight off some shadows - one of which unfortunately kills Chum.
  • Go through the rest of the tomb and kill a zombie and ghoul, and collect some treasure and a magic mace.
  • Head out to the next tomb, only to find the corpses of many monsters and two guardians who attack even a stone thrown at them into smithereens - Badger decides to skirt around this one.
  • Go to the last tomb, which locks Badger into its depths, with a lot on skeletons of dead adventurers.
  • Loot the corpses and find a secret door leading to a room with an ooze.
  • Flee from the ooze with the ill gotten treasure and finding the wolves (mostly) satisfied
  • Return back to town to cash in his loot and bury Chum, then resume the search for Stephen
Current Level: Badger 5

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 13

 In which Badger...

  • Hires dwarf cleric Chum to accompany him back to the Red Blade lair
  • Arrives at the lair and only to find the Stone Seekers, and adventuring party of 5 members which is also after the treasure and tells the duo to get out, this is their turf.
  • Leaves the treasure to the Stone Seekers, but follows them to their next job at a stone mine, discreetly.
  • Listens in on their conversation, and once the Stone Seekers have entered the mine go into the mine office to speak to the head dwarf.
  • Tells the head dwarf that in fact his party are the Stone Seekers and the others imposters, for which the dwarf sends 2 more dwarves into the mine to call back the Stone Seekers (leaving just him and a single dwarf).
  • Gets the head dwarf and his companion buzzed with some wine he found elsewhere, and then gets permission to go into the mine himself to "deal with things" while the lead dwarf settles things with the "imposters".
  • Enters the mine to find it partially cleared out, and luckily avoids the Stone Seekers who are clearly irritated at being recalled to the miners camp.
  • Discovers a room with living silver statues and some gold coins, and fights one statue but leaves the remaining 11 undisturbed.
  • Avoids a slime in the dungeon, letting it go on it's merry way.
  • Runs into the Shroud Spider in its lair that's been harassing the dwarves, and luckily escape as the spider is more interested in a golden and silver belt it has acquired and lets the party go once they leave its lair.
  • Ties a silver statue to a rope and lure the spider to the silver statue room, where well armored Chum activates all the statues that attack him but do little damage.
  • Runs with Chum leaving the statues to fight it out with the spider, heading to the lair preparing to ambush whomever enters.
  • Sees the spider with it's collected loot of 12 destroyed statues enter, clearly injured, and with a few hits finishes it off.
  • Collects the gold and silver belt, the silver statues, and some gold pieces lying around the lair and runs out of the dungeon - and makes it into the wilds just in time to outrun the irritated Stone Seekers and dwarves who've discovered the deception.
  • Sells off the treasures to get the gold and return back to Sukisyn to count up the loot.
Current Levels: Badger 5, Chum 1

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Lonesome Wandering, Session 12

 In which Badger...

  • Heads out exploring the wilds with Taras, Pyotr's eldest son in search of Stephen, Pyotr's brother.
  • Discovers a dead human and goblin, along with a mule with some loot.
  • Meets a centaur Loshadd, who asks Joe the horse if he's being well treated, and with an affirmative response lets Badger pass.
  • Avoids some hellhounds who shred his rope.
  • Tricks the formidable hobgoblin king Vlack, who wants to use the humans' help to attack Sukisyn, by pretending to forge an alliance with him, misleading him, using the potion of diminution on Taras, and teleports away back to Sukisyn with the last charge on the Helm of Teleport.
  • Continues the search and discovers evidence of goblin attacks across the wilds.
  • Locates the abandoned red blade lair, infested with rats, shrews, and stirges.
  • Finds a strongroom with loot only for Taras to fall to some shrews guarding the room, and Badger being brought to the brink of death.
  • Loots everything in the room except a strange chest with an unknown mechanism, which Badger decides not to tinker with until he's had some time to heal.
  • Returns to Sukisyn to bury Taras and let Pyotr know of the death of his son, as well as cash in his loot with plans to return to the Red Blade hideout and tackle that chest after resting for a month and healing up.
Current Level: Badger 5

Saturday, December 24, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 11

 In which Badger and Tana...

  • Fight goblin tribes alongside Pyotr and the Sukiskyn clan all night, resulting in the deaths of more of the Sukiskyn clan - and at the cost of Tana's life.
  • Defeat the goblin chief of the Red Blade Gnhass and cause the rest of the goblins to scatter by dawn.
  • Bury Tana and the lost members of the Sukiskyn clan, including Taras's wife Alfana and two others.
  • Join Taras to track down the horses stolen by the Viper goblins - for a paycheck of course.
  • Locate a scene of carnage left by an attack on Viper Goblins by a pack of dire wolves.
  • Scare off some oil beetles with loud shouting and stomping, and catch a lone surviving Viper Goblin Slipper, who was left as a watch while the rest of the surviving goblins went to sell horses.
  • Follow Slipper's instructions to come to the bandit hideout of one Miss L. Fyodorll, the Elvish bandit leader with a predilection for magic who has the stolen horses, bought from the goblins.
  • Negotiate with Fyodorll and trade the horses for Tana's spellbook and some silk rope.
  • Detour to Kelven to sell of some of the loot and other treasure salvaged from the goblins.
  • Get a riding horse from Taras, who offer's it to Badger his help in tracking the stolen horses, along with the promised payment. Badger names the horse Joe.
  • Return to Sukiskyn farmstead, only to be met by some refugees of a goblin ravaged camp who claim Pyotr's brother Stephen has been kidnapped!
Current Level: Badger 5

Friday, December 23, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 10

 In which Badger and Tana... 

  • Head to Kelven village to meet up with one Stephan who offers to pay them 155 gp for a simple guard job to deliver horses to his brother Pyotr, on a trade boat with one trader Kalanos.
  • Get ambushed on the job by agents of the Iron Ring, who attack the boat in a narrow inlet from the forest on either side of the riverbank.
  • Fight the Iron Ring slavers (who kill most of the crew), with Badger emptying out a vial of water motes to fill it with alcohol from the ships storage to make a molotov, and explode it in the storage by lining up barrels of grog next to each other.
  • Jump out of the ship (with Kalanos) just as it explodes, killing the majority of the Iron Ring operatives who had boarded the ship.
  • Fight the remaining few Iron Ring operatives and the operation leader after swimming to shore, leading to Badger being on the brink of death and Kalanos's demise before he is killed and the remaining operatives flee.
  • Travel along the riverbank to the village of Sukisyn, with Tana magically putting to sleep and killing a mad frog that attacks them, and the duo hiding in a cabin from an angry bear that eventually leaves them alone.
  • Arrive at the village and heal up for a few weeks after relaying the unfortunate loss to the kind Pyotr, who offers them aid and care in the house of his son Taras and daughter in law Alfana, both of whom nurse them back to health.
  • Wake up to the sounds of chaos as goblins attack Sukisyn, and rush out to help Taras and Alfana fight off a group of goblins on route to the main buildings in the town square. 
  • Watch Alfana die and Taras fall to his knees in sadness cradling his wife's body.
  • Slaughter the goblins that took Alfana's life down to the last one to avenge their lost friend.
  • Help Taras carry his late wife's body to the main building in town, in which Pyotr and others from the village are barricaded in. 
  • Take a moment of rest and figure out what the next steps are for what is turning out to be a long night, as the goblin rage rages on outside the main building in Sukisyn.
Current Level: Badger 4, Tana 2

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 9

 In which Badger...

  • Scheming to get the lizardmen's loot and avenge his fallen friends hires "unhireable" magic user Mortimer, who's useless Read Languages spell makes him easy fodder to hire for an adventure.
  • Travels to the lizardmen lair, only for Mortimer to immediately perish as he and Badger try outmaneuver the 2 lizardman guards posted outside the lair (of the 6 remaining), forcing Badger to flee and restrategize.
  • Having trouble hiring more mages - or any adventurers for that matter - after Mortimer's disastrous demise spreads through Kebi village, decides that he has to sweeten the pot by stealing his former mage comrade Maira's spellbook back from the lizardmen.
  • Takes his pet stirge Chumly and travels back to the lair. Observing the lizardmen guards patterns, he discovers the lull in the patrol when one guard goes to the bathroom.
  • Takes advantage of one of the "bathroom breaks" to have Chumly distract the other guard as he rushes into the lair, luckily avoiding other lizardmen, and searching the garbage pits to find Maira's corpse and spellbook.
  • Rushes out of the lair outrunning the slow lizardmen, with spellbook and Chumly in tow.
  • Makes a deal in Kebi with one human mage Tana to pay for her to copy one of Maira's spells - Sleep - into her spellbook as upfront payment to help him out on his quest, as well as future adventures.
  • Heads back to the lair - only to encounter a friendly wolf, who is keen on eating rations and yipping more similar to a dog than a wolf. The duo dub him Pup as he follows them along with the stirge.
  • Arrives at the lair and rushes in with him, Tana, the wolf and the stirge, running around and causing chaos while keeping abreast of the relatively slow lizardmen while waiting for the other lizardmen to rush in at the sound of alarm.
  • Loses Pup and Chumly in the ensuing combat as the two loyal pets fall to the lizardmen.
  • Manages to lure all the lizardmen into the trap with all the running around and chaos, allowing Tana to cast sleep resulting in all the lizardmen falling into a deep magical slumber - at which point the duo go around and slit the throats of the sleeping reptiles.
  • Loots the corpses of his former comrades and all the treasures of the lizardmen's lair.
  • Scouts around the wilderness in the area a while longer to determine that the area has been cleared.
  • Returns to Kebi with his new comrade Tana to sell the loot and honor his fallen comrades' deaths with proper burials.
Current Levels: Badger 4, Tana 1

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 8

 In which Badger, Maira, Burt, and Valia...

  • Travel south into the plains to run into a lizardman thief.
  • Capture the thief and get him to show them to the lizardman thief lair, which is surprisingly nearby.
  • Infiltrate the lair but get caught by 4 lizardmen exiting the lair latrines while exploring.
  • Fight the lizardmen before the alarm is raised and 11 lizardmen show up - the party realizes they are outnumbered.
  • Rush to one winery in the lair discovered while exploring, luring the lizardmen. Unfortunately they are not fast enough and Valia is killed by the lizardmen.
  • Toss Alchemist's Fire into the Lizardmen lair, killing all but one of the lizardmen - only to realize the last five reinforcements of the lair have arrived.
  • Continue to fight with the lizardmen until Maira too is slain, Badger is brought to the edge of death, and Burt goes berserk to defend the honor of his fallen mage comrade.
  • Badger flees the lair while Burt holds out for a last stand, but is unable to kill any of the remaining lizardmen - his sacrifice does allow Badger to escape into the brush before the lizardmen can give chase.
  • Badger returns to Kebi village, hiding all the way, nursing his wounds and scheming on how to get rid of the last six lizardmen in the lair and avenge his fallen comrades (as well as win back their equipment and the lair's loot).
Current Level: Badger 4

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 7

 In which Badger, Maira, Burt, and Valia...

  • Travel out of Kebi in search of more gold
  • Become lost in the wilds, going into strange mountains with grassy valleys
  • Discover an ancient mine while lost, and note it down to return to once they get their bearings again
  • Find their way back to Kebi and restock on supplies
  • Head back out to find the ancient mine, somewhere in the mountains in which they became lost
  • Head north for a while before running out of rations and setting a camp in the grassy plains to hunt
  • Are unsuccessful in the hunt for many days and running out of food as the situation looks dire
  • Are attacked by a lone dire wolf whom goes to maul Maira, but is quickly put down and harvested for its meat, which tastes of stringy pork
  • Eat the meat harvested from the dire wolf, consumption of which presents with no complications
  • Return to Kebi to rest up after about a week of adventuring with no luck in finding the tomb

Current Levels - Badger 4, Maira 5, Burt 4, Valia 3


Saturday, December 17, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 6

In which Badger...
  • Wakes up with no memory in a strange city, with a sore butt and tattoo of his former retainer Spindle on his ass.
  • Helps Mindblade exile Tara flee from the Mindblade Order hunting her, led by one Chala, by fleeing to the Bazaar of the city.
  • Helps two merchants solve a trade confusion that has their logisticians chalking up the streets and clogging up the Bazaar at a major intersection.
  • Is joined by Maira the elven mage and Burt the dwarven fighter from Treble Cliff near the Pit.
  • Is also joined by Bulb the human mage and Strixhaven academy dropout.
  • Tells Tara to hide out in the Bazaar and decides to return to Kebi village with his new companions Maira, Burt, and Bulb, to set out exploring the wilds once more.
  • Explores the wilds and comes across the Gold dragon Teru, who is on the hunt for an Ettin terrorizing the countryside. He and the party agree to help Teru by keeping an eye out for the Ettin.
  • Encounters said Ettin in the wilds, who tries to trick the party to come as guests to his master's residence; they trick the Ettin to report back to his master to clear up some doubts and then flee.
  • Catches former pink turban bandit Blaxton - on hard times and desperate - stealing from their camp at night, and tie him up when he surrenders.
  • Get cornered by an irritated Ettin and his master - Badger's ex-retainer Spindle - but are helped by Teru who fights the Ettin as the party deal with Spindle. Unfortunately Bulb dies in combat. 
  • Defeat the Ettin with Teru's help, who then thanks the party but they are on their own with Spindle, though he will assist them in the future if the need arises.
  • Fail to capture Spindle, who also unties Blaxton and flees with him into the wilds.
  • Get tracked down by Spindle and Blaxton who have recruited what are left of Spindle's forces and the Pink Turbans into a makeshift bandit troupe to hunt down Badger and his allies.
  • Defeat Spindle and Blaxton, along with the bandit troupe, only for Spindle to flee again while Blaxton is caught and tied up once more.
  • Return back to Kebi to recruit halfling thief Valia to replace the deceased Bulb, and interrogate Blaxton to reveal the Spindle's bandit troupe hideout.
  • Use Blaxton to locate Spindle's lair, which is abandoned by the ex-retainer, and loot the bandit troupe's goods for all they are worth.
  • Head back to Kebi village, deposit Blaxton in the Kebi town hold, and split up the loot they collected from their adventures.
Current Level: 4

Friday, October 21, 2022

Matrix Automatons

I've recently done a deep dive into Engle Matrix games (read more here, join the new discord here), and it's reinvigorated my interest in theorizing about solo gaming and making my games flow smoother. 

I typically get some writers block and burn out of many of the more narratively oriented solo games I've played, and what's really worked for me is procedural gaming (hex crawls, combat focused games, etc). But I've also missed some of the tactical depth that comes from OSR gaming in a group in my solo plays, since most oracular systems don't really emphasize strategy and tactics in play over narrative development and using tropes to drive play, and often the hexcrawls I play can lack some of the factional and deep interplay that gets lost in more combat focused play.

I think Engle games can fill in the void here with it's argument structures and narratively defined tactical play, where a given argument mixed with a few dice rolls and some logic can push the game forward (check this post here for a good conversion of Matrix rules to OSR style)  However I think that the rules for matrix development, extracted from Chris Engle's original 1988 article, and it's follow-up, can provide a framework with which to mostly, if not entirely, replace the narrative meta-structure presented with most gm emulators with what I'm calling "matrix automatons". 

Think of these "matrix automatons" as elements you can use to fill in your world and interact with from a player character perspective, without the need for a narrative framing to necessarily push play. You can create any category that can contain these automatons, such as Insitutions, NPCs, Locations, etc. Within a given category, you create the automaton as described in the original Engle article (and illustration in the follow-up one with examples) giving in a name, an upper section containing a phrase that describes it, and a lower section containing problems it has that the player character can hook onto and modify each turn. I propose the following structure for a given automaton:

[Category]. [Name]. 

[Description]. 

[Dynamic Problem List: [[Name] exhibits [property] because [reason]. 1, 2...n.] 


Let's say for example I create an NPC, Jack of the Beanstalk:

NPC. Jack of the Beanstalk. 

Farmboy with a giant beanstalk. 

1. Jack exhibits greed of the giant treasure because he is poor having sold his last cow for the beans. 

2. He exhibits fear of the giant because he fears the giant will take his life.


Let's break this down piece by piece:

1. Category: Define what type of entity this is. NPCs are the most obvious, but an Institution can have problems it's dealing with, as can a Location. Even Items can fit the bill, being interactable. Schools of Thought and Movements could even work, if a bit of a stretch - define their tenants and reasonings, and keep them linked with something tangible a PC can interact with - practitioners, texts, etc. In the example, Jack is an NPC.

2. Name: Names matter. Names can be descriptive and provide depth for a character and their motivations. They can provide cultural cues, change how someone is treated and reacted to. Sometimes, they're just a name, but the act of you remembering it (don't look it up and cheat!) can endear them ever so slightly more to you than before - or make them more angry since this was the tenth time you forgot their name, seriously?! In the example, Jack of the Beanstalk is known for his beanstalk. It's likely people have heard about him due to his beanstalk. Whether he likes the fame, how he feels about it is an interesting question you can interact with him about, just asking him a few close ended questions - and this can lead to uncovering a new problem.

3. Description: Keep these simple. They shouldn't really lean emotionally one way or another, this is what the problem list is for. This is the 1 line summary of what this person would be described as, in as neutral a way as possible. "Farmboy with a beanstalk", "Soldier with the Phalanx Army", "Inquisitor for the High Temple". Treat this as an [Else] Statement. In a given situation, if you go through all the problems in the list and none are directly affected, then default to what their role in the world expects of them. Farmboys aren't soldiers who aren't inquisitors. Fall onto stereotypes here, because any specifics not defined by a problem are stereotypical. In Jack's case, he is defined by his beanstalk, and how this affects his life is an interesting avenue I'd probably pursue.

4. Problems: Start with a couple of obvious ones given an element's description and how they are introduced to you in the story. Oftentimes, NPCs rolled off tables only are rolled because they interact with the PC in the first place. The primary property for the NPC then is how they interact with the PC. Are the PC's being hunted by the NPC - "NPC hunts PC because PC is a fugitive from the law". If an element is encountered as a totally random encounter, it will likely be defined by a reaction roll "NPC is hostile/neutral/friendly to PC" and unless the PC further interacts with it vanishes from existence. If  the PC interacts with it, then using close ended questions to see if and how it opens up/presents more information in a non-NPC element to the PC is warranted. In the case of Jack, he is a well known character I'm ripping off of so I laid out his problems up front, though more can be added through asking questions of him as the PC.

Note: Property and Reason are separated because what is externally observed - the Property - might not have an apparent logic - the Reason - behind it without further investigation or questioning. 

a. Property: This is the externally observed behavior/nature of an entity. An NPC can be greedy, afraid of something, etc. A city can be filled with slums, smoky, clean and bright, filled with street hawkers, contain suspicious folk. An item can be lustrous, old, ragged. All of these are observed elements without the reasoning behind the external appearance not being obvious.

b. Reason: This is the logic behind a given property. It may be obvious or may need to be uncovered through questions. It is possibly this could be erroneous if problems are assumed to be from the perspective of the PC instead of a narrator. It could even be left blank until discovered. An NPC can be greedy because they are poor, they covet wealth due to stature, they like shiny things. Cities can have slums due to mismanagement, having corruption that results in destitute citizens, etc. Items can be lustrous because of magic properties, because it was freshly polished, because it was made of ancient dwarven metal. 

How I see these automations being used is that asking questions about problems and trying to affect them is the primary goal of the PC in the game. Trying to figure out the reason behind an external property, and asking more questions and creating arguments for solutions that could be achieved is the core of the gameplay. Ideally, more problems and entities should be generated by the act of asking questions, which are further defined with their own matrices, and so on as the player using the vehicle of the PC to interact with discrete elements of the world eventually fleshes out the world to multiple moving parts and creates story from within these interactions. These automatons would also serve as algorithms that allow you to run down a list to see how an element would react to an action a PC would take on the world, running through problems that might be affected and defaulting to the base description should the problem list be exhausted to determine "reaction" of an entity to an action.

Monday, July 4, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 5

 In which Badger:

-Explores levels 2 and 3 of the Tomb of the Blinkers.
-Locates camping hobgoblins slaying giant flies in level 2, with a large fly corpse beside them.
-Accepts their quest to give him a Helm of Teleportation if he finds and slays a giant fly.
-Discovers another snake friend, a pit viper whom he takes in along with Slitherly.
-Finds the hobgoblins gone from camp and decides to pass off the fly corpse as different fly.
-Attacks the hobgoblins after his scam fails (Slitherly and the pit viper die!)
-Kills some tentacle worms after chasing the last hobgoblin into level 3 of the tomb.
-Flees some wights, one of which energy drains him as he runs.
-Takes the Helm of  Teleport after killing the last hobgoblin.
-Locates the corpse of a deceased artificer in chainmail, covered in sticky substance.
-Teleports out of the tomb avoiding more wights with the corpse back to Kebi village.
-Tries to find jobs to afford the Restoration potion (3900 GP) to cure the energy drain.

Current Level: 3

Monday, March 21, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 4

 In which Badger:

-Explores south of Kebi village to discover the Tomb of the Blinkers
-Enters the tomb and avoids a giant cobra guarding a set of stairs deeper into the dungeon.
-Meets and negotiates with some kobolds, providing them rations and oil for safe passage.
-Steals some gems from the kobolds treasure and flees before they realize what's what.
-Fights some skeletons, leading most of them into a pit trap and handily defeating the rest.
-Returns and befriends the giant cobra by feeding it rats, and trains it to respond to a whistle signal.
-Gets confronted by the previously encountered kobolds who tell him to return their treasure and leave, only to intimidate them with his new cobra friend.
-Decides to explore more of the first level of the dungeon with the cobra whom he names Slitherly.
-Falls into a pit trap set up by the wily kobolds, unintentionally descending into the second level of the dungeon with Slitherly.

Current Level: 3

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 3

 In which Badger: 

-Discovers a stirge nest northwest of Kebi village before being forced to run from a horde of striges.
-Heads east to find an oasis with some camels.
-Has one of the camels steal his two handed sword and proceeds to chase after it.
-Discovers a band of lizardmen training camels to steal items from desert travelers.
-Gets beat up by the lizardmen and barely flees.
-Punches a wolf and a stirge who try to attack him.
-Discovers his retainer Spindle abandoned him while he was asleep.
-Heads back to town and swears to get his revenge on the lizardmen.

Current Level: 3

Monday, March 7, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 2

In which Badger:

-Returns to the kobold cave from the first session to clear out the skeletons and the slime.
-Encounters some kobolds trapped by skeletons and convinces them to help him fight.
-Sacrifices said kobolds in the fight with the skeleton while fleeing to take care of the slime.
-Get's surprised by cave wolves which he lures to the slime thus creating many more slimes.
-Flees the slimes barely escaping with his life, albeit with a big scar and damaged joints from spending too long in cold, damp caves.
-Returns to the cave with a load of torches and burns down the slimes, clearing the caves.
-Hires Spindle the Dwarven Cleric, a retainer with a 15% share who is "gifted" heavy chainmail armor (certainly not intended to slow the retainer down so Badger can flee, of course).

Current level: 2

Sunday, March 6, 2022

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 1

In which I give a short summary of the tales of my newest solo adventurer, Badger the Level 1 Fighter. For anyone interested, the system is Basic Fantasy and I'm using the Hexcrawl Procedures supplement and the What do the Monsters Want reaction tables this time around.

In this session, Badger: 

-Discovers a giant scorpion fighting a giant crab.
-Leads the Pink Turban Bandits to his home village Kebi and is promptly driven out.
-Leads the bandits to their deaths in a kobold built trap, save for Blaxton the sole survivor of the ordeal.
-Loses his weapons and armor to a surprise attack from a green slime.
-Convinces the Tungsten Raiders and the Polyester Problem Solvers, two adventuring parties, to help fight some kobolds in their lair to loot their treasure (subsequently leading the parties to their deaths).
-Gratuitously pushes various adventurers into kobold and skeleton bands to stave them off, while running away with his ill gotten loot.
-Returns back to Kebi as the sole survivor of an expedition and uses his loot to buy back his weapons and armor - returning to pretty much where he started albeit with a little more experience.

Badger levels up to Level 2 at the end of this session.