Thirteen Tomes

I came across the below in my files; I think I wrote it for a Secret Santicore but now I'm not sure whether it appeared or not, so here it is: Thirteen Magical Tomes. 

1  The Enfolding

A surprising amount of oddly-shaped vellum pages folded together into a hexagon and interleaved.  Folding and re-folding the overlapping pages in various configurations reveals new combinations of sigils and encrypted writing - including spells, observations on pandimensional tangents and astrological anomalies, and several rhyming verses which serve as songmaps to places long-hidden.  Skillful diviners may use the ritual folding and unfolding of the hexagon as an aid in predicting the future.

2  Cry-of-Shamans-Accursed

A heavy, square tome bound in mastodon-hide; tufts of fur along the spine are braided to make an integral bookmark.  The pages are chocolate-brown, and the words within and scribed in an opalescent white ink which contains both powder of ancient mastodon-bones, and mother-of-pearl.  The enchantments within are most ancient and savage, and deal primarily with the control of feral spirits which linger deep within the earth - shifting, predatory things that skulk in the peripheral vision of the zeitgeist and periodically attempt a bloody return to reality.

3  Dreams of the Traveler

Copious pencil-scrawls lurch and stumble across the dog-eared pages of a vintage repair manual for a 1967 Volkswagen bus; this tome, fallen through time or perhaps imported from another world, contains the wisdom of a great wonder-worker, as filtered through the mad ramblings of a drug-addled second party.  At first glance, the writings are primarily fiction fragments, bits of bad poetry and song lyrics, and half-remembered tales of dubious sexual conquest.  Wizards who study this book for several weeks - aided by an altered state of consciousness - may extract a number of fell sorceries and amusing enchantments, including several suitable for the use of bards specializing in six-stringed instruments.

4  Silent Witness

Between nondescript covers dwell beautifully-illuminated pages, with an illustration for each spell depicting its use against monsters, knights, kings, and demons.  When a spell is memorized from this tome, then used, the illustration within the book magically changes to represent the spell’s most recent use.  Typically the illumination is lavish enough to provide the context leading up to the casting.  The Silent Witness does not sugar-coat reality - the artwork will depict whatever happened, even if was a misfire or the spell was cast while fleeing.

5 Zingal’s Web

A round book decorated with spiderwebs in drizzled wax; within, each page contains a spell, written out in a spiral.  The writing is in an old script, from the time of the Priests of the Ziggurat, but most well-educated wizards should be able to puzzle it out after a few weeks of study.  The initial word in each spell, taken sequentially, tell of the demise of the book’s author, the genie-tamer Zingal, who crossed the wrong efreet noble.  

6  The Phoenix-Tree

This small bonsai fits in the palm of the hand, but contains volumes of wonder.  A wizard examining the tree instinctively knows which tiny branches contain which spells.  The twig-like branches must be plucked and tossed, one at a time, into a fire - the flickerings of the flame will then impart to the sorcerer the power and technique of the enchantment.  The branches will regrow quickly over the following day so long as the Phoenix-Tree is given good wine and some of the ashes from the fire.  Should the main trunk of the tree ever be sacrificed to the fire, a new, unknown spell of the highest level castable by the wizard will be revealed, but the Phoenix-Tree will be no more.

7  The Most Glorious Handbook Of Enlightened Ploob

All that remains of the sundered nation of Ploob are refugee clerics and rare artifacts like this one, a small vade mecum bound in crimson silk.  The Handbook contains an assortment of spells useful to arcane scientists in hunting and purifying those slaves to haughty extradimensionals who would pollute our ancient culture with their corrupt religions...

8  Butterfoot’s Handy Primer

A small book, easily portable, and all parts of it rugged enough to take a beating, including its difficult-to-tear and waterproof pages.  Its title appears on the front cover, with the description ‘Being A Treatise And Convenient Reference For Thee Novice Enchanter’.  The book contains not only basic, reliable spells, but also chapters on crafting and procuring supplies and accessories, fashion advice for the upwardly-mobile wizard, and ‘Thoughtful Selection of Familiars’.  A series of humorous illustrations, captioned ‘Don’t Do This’, appear every few pages.

9  Demon-Quipu

Although it may first appear to be a bizarre cloak of human innards - and it functions nicely as such - closer observation reveals carefully-crafted knots in the lengths of intestine which convey deep sorcerous knowledge to those wizards familiar with the bizarre and dark culture which created the quipu.  The information encrypted in the knotwork includes several spells, as well as the geometric arrangements necessary to construct glyphs of use in certain protective scrolls and talismans.

10  This Final, Gleaming Splinter

Although the pages of this grimoire appear to be glass, they are in fact flat, sorcerously-shaped pieces of crystalwood; each page is translucent, with strange symbols shallowly carved and bevelled.  When a single page is held up before a significant light source (to include the daytime sun or a strong full moon), the shadows cast by the symbols on a wall or floor manifest as an easily-readable magic script.  The tome includes a number of mid- and high-level spells of indeterminate age.  A sage familiar with botany or geology may be able to identify the crystalwood of the pages, and suggest that it has been taken from one of the largest known specimens ever to grow - the so-called Legacy Tree which bloomed and shined in the center square of the long-crumbled dwarven citadel of Mors Mundar.

11  The Swirling Window

When the star which warmed the great world of Rindaril went nova, that realm’s greatest archmage stood atop a mountain on a more distant planet, awaiting his own destruction.  Behind him he placed a psychographic plate, slightly out of phase, which captured the image of his mind during that moment before the nova consumed him.  Since that time, the plate itself has been alchemically developed, and passed through the hands of numerous wizards in several realms.  The Swirling Window appears as a brassy metal plate about the size of a door, etched with green and purple whorls.  A wizard who lays upon the plate and meditates may manage to access the remnants of the archmage’s memory - which can be plumbed for wisps of lore, or as a means to learn and memorize the spells of a long-dead world.  Rumors that overuse of the Swirling Window are a sure path to possession by a milennia-old archmage are surely hyperbole.

12  Manual of Madness Manifest

Bound in black leather, this spellbook contains a mix of blank pages and those covered with writing in an ink which seems to contain a mixture of human bodily fluids.  Although the handwriting is inconsistent, once decoded and read the tome reveals its secrets: page after page of rare and unusual spells, with particular focus on enchantments dealing with sanity, blindness, mind control, and the invasion of dreams.

13  The Spectacular Opuscule of Lady Primrose

A thick, encyclopaedic tome with robin’s-egg blue cloth covers contains page after page of cramped mirror-writing.  Within the grimoire are numerous common and uncommon spells, as well as recipes for a number of basic potions, unguents, and alchemical preparations.  Here and there are representative diagrams, layouts of summoning circles, and the like.  The spine of the book serves as a sheath for a matching enchanted dagger (which may be lost, or present).

Hand Over The Reins

 The best gaming comes from high-trust setups.  If you and your players trust each other, you can do seemingly crazy things like assign Patrons to real people, or let someone else DM your campaign for a bit.  It certainly seems like many of the "improvements" people try to build into rpgs or rpg culture are designed to compensate for a low-trust situation.  That's a shame.

As DM, you should not be afraid to hand the reins over to someone else, in either a small or a large way.  When you use someone else's random tables, you're surrendering some control of your game.  When you trust in the rules in the rulebook, you're surrendering some control of your game.  When you use dice to determine the outcome, you're surrendering control.  These are all GOOD things.  Nobody deserves to be stuck playing with a frustrated novelist who won't share any control of the game.  The referee is the final arbiter, but that does not mean they have to be the sole input.

I strongly encourage you to let someone else DM your game, if only for a session.  Once you do it, and see that your world has not crashed and burned, you'll be more open to doing it again, or empowering players to take on more responsibility in the campaign.

Some years ago, in a BESM game, I had each of the players take a turn running a session, and that paid off handsomely.  They did things I wouldn't have thought of doing - and that's the point.

In the Wampus Country campaign, I've handed over the reins twice that I can recall...

WELCOME TO CARCOSA

Drawing from the Deck of Many Things had been eventful for all of the Rat-House Bastards, but most of all for Chauncy.  He had pulled the Gaol card and gotten himself imprisoned on another plane.  Whoops.  After several months trying to figure out where he'd gone - with the player using a different PC - they learned he was trapped in a place called Carcosa, and went to get him.  You can read about it from the player's point of view.  If you're not familiar with the Carcosa setting, there are plentiful reviews which might demonstrate it's pretty different from Wampus Country.

The interesting thing here was that one of the other players volunteered to run a session (or sessions) that constituted the rescue attempt.  I acquiesced immediately, trusting that Brendan would do a great job with it.  It was understood that he would have the choice of interplanar destination in which to set the whole thing, and that it would not necessarily comport to Wampus Country physics (and expectations of lethality).  This was borne out when the amazon warrior I was playing for the session got messily killed!

The session had some permanent effects on the campaign.  First, the wizard Chauncy returned changed - physically, and mentally.  His roleplay was different from this point, and that seems only fair given the torture he had endured.  Second, one of the Carcosan natives came back with the gang to Wampus Country.  Though he took the name 'Miguel' eventually, this was the Speaker-of-All-Graces, a savage bone man warrior who later participated in the Coalpepper Expedition.  

I admit I balked at the idea of the PCs bringing the He-Man tank back through the portal.  I think if I were doing it today I would've let the chips fall where they may.  Trust takes practice.

FOOD AND FROGS

Some time later, the player of scheming wizard Valentine McGee asked if he could run a couple sessions taking place in Wampus Country, for the benefit of the (sizeable) player pool.  He wanted to run The Mad Chefs of Lac Anchois from Dungeon #64.  I took a quick look at the adventure, a comedy setup about rescuing frog-people from giant chefs (which was what made him think it Wampus-appropriate) and said "yeah, go for it".  I couldn't make it for the sessions he scheduled, and that was fine.

Later on I got a readout from the Guest DM - no PC deaths, although I think there were a couple close calls, and no bizarre magic items that I recall.  By all accounts it was a fun pair of sessions.  I have no idea what happened at them.  That's okay.  I'm the head referee, not the all-seeing eye.

You can, and should, do this too.  Hand the reins over to someone else for a session or two.  Take a break.  Play alongside your players and see your campaign from their vantage point.  

Thematically related, check out this video in which Mr. Wargaming farms out the results of a battle to people not involved in the campaign:

Good stuff.

Zebulon Versus The Frost Giants

 In anticipation of #JULYGANTIC, I'm thinking of my own experiences with G1-2-3.  Such classic modules, so formative of what D&D was to become!  Back in the day I ran all three of them, but not in sequence.  At the time I was doing a lot of "module cannibalism" and yoinking parts of modules for parallel uses, or reskinning.  I know I used all three portions of them at various times - probably all with 2nd edition.  Yes, we ran 1e modules without trouble in 2e.

The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl saw use, uncoupled from the Against the Giants saga, in fairly true form - the icebound palace of a mighty frost giant.  I don't remember why the PCs at the time wanted to deal with these giants (and by "deal with", I mean fatally).  They definitely wanted to assassinate the Jarl, possibly for political reasons, and make off with some treasure.

Here's how it went down.

First, you need some context about the PCs.  The roster had changed a number of times throughout the campaign as PCs were killed, hung out on the shelf for a bit before rotating back in, or were retired for other reasons.  Only one PC was still alive from the very first session: the wizard Zebulon (later dubbed "Zebulon the Cruel" after the Basically Genocide Incident).  I don't remember what level he was at the time of the Glacial Rift, certainly 10th, possibly 11th or 12th.  Zebulon had been all over the world, visited other planes, got stuck in 20th-century America for a couple days, nearly died many times, quested to the center of the planet, and so forth.  He was a wizard's wizard - powerful, with a considerable selection of spells, a ring of flying, and he had an item called the Sunstaff which let him use charges to cast fireball, wall of fire, and so forth like a Staff of Fire, plus some light-related junk.  Zebulon was fiendishly clever and stupendously arrogant.  Lawful Neutral, but chiefly in the sense that he kept his word once given, and he hated to leave things feeling unfinished.

The PCs arrive in the environs of the glacial rift, and Zebulon - de facto leader by virtue of his level, adventuring experience, and volume of speech - suggests a bold plan.  He will enter the rift alone, invisible, flying, (possibly ethereal, I don't remember).  He will penetrate deep into the chambers, find the Jarl, slay him, and then high-tail it out of there, emptying his magazine of fireballs and other fire spells on the way out.  The other PCs were (rightly) skeptical.  It didn't sound possible, or practical, or prudent, and it would leave them on the sidelines.  "No no" said Zebulon, "you guys stay out here and take out any fleeing giants once the chaos starts, and waylay any returning hunting parties.  That sort of thing."  Eventually Zebulon convinced them to let him try ("we get all your stuff back in town if you die down there" may have been a factor).

So in he went, one wizard, alone, invisible.  Took him ages to find the Jarl's chamber, even though he could overhear and understand the conversations going on throughout the complex.  Once there, he took a look around to see if there was anything he wanted to grab on the way out, and then set about murdering the hell out of the Jarl and his wife.  The actual assassination wasn't that difficult, he had no problem pouring out appropriate damage.  Obviously the alarm was raised, and Zebulon set about throwing what he could see in the party's bag of holding (which of course had been handed to him prior to the excursion).

Then it was time to book it.  Zebulon flew back upward, hurling fire behind him periodically, or chucking a fireball down a side-passage.  We did not "narrate" this part - lots of dice were rolled.  Because it was important to know how many giants were around, and how near they were to Zebulon, and whether their attacks hit him, and MOST OF ALL did he kill any of them.  Sorry, frost giants in the barracks.  There were significant discussions about the volume of a fireball explosion.  You can imagine.  There were further discussions about the integrity of the tunnels.  Suffice it to say I was not convinced that the attacks would bring down the whole glacier (nice try, though) -- but lots of frost giants were killed by fireballs, trapped by wall of fire, and so forth.  Keep in mind that frost giants do not take double damage from fire or anything like that, they're just impervious to cold attacks.  I don't know how many kills he got on the way out, but it was a stack - the last couple spells on the way out, at the top level full of smaller-HD creatures, were particularly effective.

As he flew out of the entrance, bleeding badly and probably at one-quarter his normal hit points, the other PCs unloaded into anything that tried to come out for a number of rounds.  Eventually the frost giants stopped probing outward, and the PCs took their opportunity to depart.

Only a handful of loot made it out of there, but that wasn't the point - the goal was to snuff the Frost Giant Jarl.  At least, in-character.  Zebulon's player knew full well that he was going to reap significant benefit in the form of xp.  Yes, the other PCs got a share of it, but recall that in 2e a frost giant is worth something like 7000xp, and there were six players at this session, so with an even split every dead vanilla frost giant was worth over 1000xp to Zebulon.  Old-school magic-users must be constantly hungry for big xp scores by virtue of their crazy xp table.  The sortie was absolutely worth it.

"That was insane, I can't believe that worked, Zebulon.  You're [expletive] crazy."

"Perhaps I am.  But the Jarl is dead, and the rest of them will be in disarray and mourning.  Easy pickings for when we go back tomorrow."

Proposed: #JULYGANTIC

 Giants are great.  They're a huge part of D&D.

Dad jokes aside, giants of all sorts bring an important folkloric tradition to your D&D table.  Dragons get top billing in the game, but giants are just as important to the vibe of the game.

So we need more giants.  I mused about what to do...one of those fashionable game jams?  Probably not - those are focused on writing, not on running and playing games.  Thus, instead of a charge to create content, I offer a call to arms.

Hereby proposed: #JULYGANTIC.

In the month of July 2022, I want you to run adventures with giants in them.  Especially the classic Against The Giants.  I want you to run games with giants, and talk about them.  I'm bringing it up now so you can think ahead about what you want to do.

Any giants.  Any game, any edition.  Whatever floats your boat.  Against The Giants is the tip-top, but anything counts.  We're looking for nice mythic humanoid giants here, though, so be aware that kaiju and giant robots won't count for full credit (unless you run Glacial Rift as a nest of kaiju and the PCs are in mecha or something - if you do that, I definitely want to hear about it).  

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO

1. Run or play all or part of Against The Giants.  This is the pinnacle representation of #JULYGANTIC.  The old versions are best, but if you're in the middle of a 5e thing and want to run the 5e version, do that.

2. Run or play in something else featuring giants.  This could be another classic module with giants in it, Pathfinder's Giantslayer adventures, Storm King's Thunder (or That Dungeon Magazine Where They Did King Lear The First Time), DDAL stuff with giants in it (Season 5 or otherwise), or whatever.

3. Throw some giants into your home game.  Add them to your wilderness charts, even if it's a temporary bump.  In the month of #JULYGANTIC the Big Ones get frisky and incur into human lands.  Play a miniatures battle with giants in it.

THINGS YOU MIGHT DO

4. Review something with giants in it.

5. Create original content focused on giants.

6. Muse about previous sessions with Giant Stuff in it.

These things are all optional and sub-optimal because they don't involve PLAYING THE GAME.  Playing is our goal.

THING YOU MUST DO

Post about it somewhere, tagged with #JULYGANTIC.  Full session reports if you can manage it, because that's how we learn.

It's just that simple.

For my part, I look forward to not only blogging about Giant Stuff (less helpful), but also running some Giant Stuff (much more helpful, and precisely the point).

Who's with me?

Gno More Gnomes

There are no proper gnomes in Wampus Country. The last of them were massacred a century ago by a warband of Red Sky People led by their then-chieftain, Mokul (later Mokul Gnome-Kicker). Records indicate that the local gnomes were of the fairly tame, Lawful-leaning variety, with impressive moustaches and probably pointy hats. 

 There was, at one point, sufficient gnomish population in the woods around Shining Lake that gnomish graves are still sometimes liberated today by keen-eyed frontiersmen with convenient shovels. Gnomish tumuli inevitably contain multiple interments, typically with their arms and armor (roll as per Monster Manual and supplement with the knowledge and tables below if you like). 

 Things To Know About Gnomish Weaponry & Armor 

 …Gnomes are decent metalsmiths - not approaching what dwarves can do, of course - but rather than experiment with alloys that might increase the strength or sharpen the edge of a blade, gnome smiths tend to mess about with inclusions that will hold interesting colors, shimmer, glitter, or reflective qualities. There is a 20% chance that any gnomish metal item of quality bears a brilliant color or a swirl of gaudy glitter (this chance increases to 50% if the item is enchanted). 

 …Any weapon is 15% likely to have one or more semi-precious stones mounted in the haft, head, or pommel – likely worn flat or indented by a previous owner rubbing it for luck. 

 Decorations & Devices on Gnomish Martial Items 

1 stylized badger/wolverine pawprint 

2 leaping hare 

3 Escher-esque geometric designs 

4 heraldic badger, rampant and engorged (compare to Bern coat of arms) 

5 stylized representations of gemstones 

6 raccoon (armor or helm may feature tail)

7 autumn leaves (perhaps colored appropriately) 

8 mole (plain, star-nosed, or perhaps a naked mole rat) 

9 comedy and/or tragedy masks 

10 gnome knight riding a mastiff or giant rabbit 

 Assorted Things You Might Find On A Gnome You Have Waylaid

 1 copper medallion with septangle, a common gnomish luck symbol 

 2 small cork with “TOOT-NO-MORE” stamped on it, a fine example of gnomish humor 

 3 bubblegum-scented moustache wax in a little container 

 4 a small leather envelope labeled “in case of elves”, containing a single dose of ingestible poison in the form of a breath mint 

 5 dead ferret (if the gnome in question was recently alive, the ferret may merely be intoxicated (55% chance)). 

 6 sweat-stained hand towel bearing the embroidered mark of a fancy hotel in a distant city 

 7 small kid-leather bag containing enough red and blue marbles to play a regulation game of “That Baby Ain’t Mine”, a popular gnomish game of skill suitable for friendly wagers 

 8 treasure map, annoyingly tightly folded into stunningly-complex origami shape likely to rip when undone 

 9 petrified and moldy piece of hard cheese (no doubt saved from the gnome’s Wedding Cheese for good luck) 

 10 Zarbag At The Earth’s Surface, a thrilling dime novel by gnome author Nedgar Rhys Burrows. 

 11 one gnomish nose-harmonica, functional but in need of a slight tuning 

 12 perfumed slip of paper reading, in very fancy script, “IOU 10 gold pieces”, signed “Oliver Duckworth” 

13 small box of minty pine-scented Tunnel Stank brand deodorant powder “for clothing, creatures, and crevices” 

 14 pocket fitness manual, Bigger Arms Today. Rear-cover illustration shows a muscular dwarf kicking dirt in the face of a scrawny, nebbishy gnome. 

 15 small bottle of hot sauce 

 16 piece of rubber featuring the impression of someone else’s thumbprint 

 17 personal pocket collection of broken glass, somehow both wistfully beautiful and completely sad 

 18 gnomish religious tract The World Is An Illusion (But The Abyss Is F*cking Real) 

 19 five copper pieces glued together in a stack 

 20 gnomish “tijuana bible” depicting The Very Naughty Adventures of Dinkle Von Stinkle, A Gnome of Peculiar Habits Indeed.

Elephants!

I don't typically do "game jams" and I haven't done a "community project" in years, but when I saw the OSR Game Jam on Itch.io, for whatever reason I had a burst of energy. The result is Vague Elephant Project, which you can download now, free. It's short, but contains a variant B/X class, some elephant-themed spells, and general writeups on a couple of creatures that might be useful in your campaign.

The More The Merrier

 More players means more fun - not just "players at one time", but "players over time" as well.

Although I've run plenty of one-shot con games, twice I broke this pattern and ran more improvised sessions which were linked.  The Saturday session players stomped around an area, and then the Sunday session players were able to experience the influenced area.  The extra layer of organic, emergent gameplay made a big difference!

FIRST ATTEMPT, SESSION ONE

In the first experiment, I threw together some small hexes for players to explore.  I had a few things fixed on the map, including a starting point, and a random encounter table to use - that was it.  For that first session, I ended up with only two players.  All good!  It was important to me to explain to these guys what I was trying to do - first that they could go anywhere, do anything, engage with hooks or not, etc; and second that I had a second session the next day where they could play again or perhaps other players would have a similar experience.

In minutes, we had Philo the Mental Magician (magic-user) and his bodyguard Brute the Barbarous (fighter) ready to go.  I don't remember everything they did that day, but I recall three things.  By pure chance, they encountered the young green dragon on the encounter table - and rather than engage it in combat (smart choice) the PCs attempted to parley.  A young dragon might have an incomplete understanding of vernacular common...

"Who am I, you ask?  Foolish tiny bipeds, with your membrane-less eyes and backward walking-arms, I shall tell you who I am.  Know that none may withstand my power, none may suffer through it and survive!  Know also that my poisonous breath-clouds will squeeze the life from the lungs of even the mightiest with great expertise!  Therefore, among Man, I am to be known as The Insufferable Choke-Master!"

There was a lot of pandering to the dragon, of course.  I am very grateful that Philo's player did a whole line of Puss-In-Boots questioning about whether the dragon was mightier than This or could he kill That with his breath weapon, finally ending with Philo asking if the dragon were sufficiently mighty to kill himself with his own breath weapon...which allowed me to deliver the line "What an amusing philosophical question!  I confess it would give me great pleasure to choke myself!"  Philo fast-talked the hell out of that dragon - learning about a nearby giant in the process - and thankfully the Choke-Master flew off.  

Later there were some magical garden gnomes who the PCs turned on - the gnomes set to work building a magnificent garden with a brick wall around it.  Brute and Philo were content to leave them to their work.  

Finally, I remember they ended the session by locating the tower of Montalba the Giant, tussling with some of his Very Large Guard Dogs, and ending up having supper with the magical Rackham-styled giant and taking a job as his procurers, since he himself could not leave his castle lest he lose his powers.

All in all, a solid session - some laughs, weirdness, peril.  To prep for the second section, I removed the mountain lion they'd killed from the encounter table, and instead replaced it with an entry of "Philo & Brute on errand for giant".

Kneel before the Choke-Master!

FIRST ATTEMPT, SESSION TWO

The next day I had five fresh players, several of whom were kids - this was fine, I'm no stranger to running for kids.  This crew elected to take pregens rather than make their own characters, which was a good thing since none of them had played B/X before.  It didn't take long for us to have a pair of fighters, a dwarf, and a thief exploring the hexes.

I don't remember most of what they did that session - shame on me and my note-taking skills - but I do remember that the dice gave us the green dragon again.  This was unexpected but awesome - the dragon was willing to talk, but his opinions and goals were shaped by what Philo had told him (all lies of course) the previous session.

I charge you to quest for some rich, Corinthian leather

SECOND ATTEMPT, SESSION ONE

A couple years later I tried it again, this time for a pair of sessions which I'd advertised as "B/X for kids".  In this case I didn't use little hexes, I just had a small map with a village, forest, and river, and I ginned up a couple problems to solve seeded in the area, figuring very new players might benefit from something straightforwardly heroic.

My players for this session were three girls, all friends, who I think were eleven or twelve, or some combination of the two.  From the pregen stack, they ended up choosing two fighters and a thief; one of the fighters was definitely the stronger personality and became the de facto leader of the group.  Off they went!

One of the main things I remember them doing that session was dealing with a reputed monster (or maybe one NPC thought it was a haunting) that had been troubling the farms on the outskirts of the village for several days.  There were reports of a monstrous figure with an immense black head, bellowing as it thrashed through the woods, occasionally lurching onto farm property and breaking things.  The PCs interviewed a farmer, the usual stuff, then headed into the woods in pursuit of the thing.

Before long they found the creature bumbling about the woods, and they realized it was a stupid ogre with his head stuck in a cauldron.  They immediately fell to deciding what to do next.  Leader Girl wanted to engage the ogre and slay it for the glory and possible reward.   Second Fighter wondered if they could help the ogre, thorn-in-paw style, and maybe make friends with it.  And the thief reasoned that the ogre would probably starve to death in the next few days anyway, so why not follow it around at zero risk til it falls over dead, then claim credit?  Note carefully that all three of these are classic PC courses of action!  

In the end, they went with fighting the ogre.  Once it was slain, they removed the cauldron, saw some magical writing inside and realized the cauldron probably belonged to that witch the villagers had been talking about... so one thing led to another and returned the magic cauldron and did some work for the witch to round out the session.

Another possible ally brutally murdered

SECOND ATTEMPT, SESSION TWO

Based on what the girls had said the day before, I didn't expect them back for the Sunday session, but thank goodness I kept the characters, because they came back, and brought a fourth friend!  We were also joined by two boys, so the party now consisted of two fighters, two thieves, a cleric, and a dwarf.  Not too shabby - rolling deep and ready for adventure.

This time around, we saw how engaged PCs drive the action.  Leader Girl knew immediately what the group should do, and it was simple: take all of the cool stuff they'd seen in the witch's cottage, either by slaying the witch outright, or coming up with a plan to steal from her when she wasn't home.  A natural PC, this one.

What followed was a great improvised session involving casing a witch's cottage, trying to figure out her schedule, distracting a witch, and eventually six low-level PCs trying to rapidly loot a witch-cottage in which most of the utensils were animated, gravity was inverted if you walked up the wall confidently, and various weird but minimally-perilous critters were about (some in cages).  It was a Baby Yaga's Hut thing, you might say.

When all your players are 12, you can just steal Witch Hazel as the NPC and they will never know

As the witch returned from gathering potion-components, the players panicked.  They didn't really want to tangle with the witch -- so they tried to put things back the way they were (poorly).  The thief from the previous session remembered the witch mentioning that the writing in her cauldron was to protect her when mixing potions, so she very quickly messed with the writing - I can't remember if she added a stroke in paint or erased a stroke using the cleaning supplies they'd found in the witch-kitchen.

Anyway, the witch returns, the PCs play innocent, witch kicks them out for messing with her house.  The PCs pull back to a safe distance and watch, seeing the witch making her potion through the window...   but without the protective qualities of the cauldron, something goes wrong, there's a small explosion, and the PCs run in to find one dead witch with her face melted off.  The wishing-ring on her knobby hand seemed intact, though...

We ended the session talking about how they could use the three wishes in the ring in a way that would benefit all six PCs with relative equality.  Suffice it to say those characters are still around somewhere on the map, each with a magical mount and weapon.

FOUR YEARS LATER a different group of regular PCs come across the sprawling, topiary-filled garden built and maintained by animated clay garden gnomes.  They did not run into the giant Montalba or the green dragon, but they were around and encounterable.

The garden had become a fully-functional garden gnome-scale town, with a tavern, general store, barbershop, and surprisingly-classy bordello that the PCs refused to visit

LESSONS LEARNED

Don't stop running your campaign.  If you're doing a con game, it should be part of your campaign (even if it's a module), building on what you've already done, and then feed back into the ongoing campaign.  Run every session like it matters, and then LET IT MATTER.  Let the PCs affect the campaign and setting and put things on the map (or remove them).  That's a living world.