Cauldron Con 2023 After Action Report

This weekend I had the immense pleasure of attending the first edition of Europe’s excellent Cauldron Con in Schloss Hohenroda, Germany proudly hosted by Nexus, the German AD&D and Wargaming club.

A friday to sunday morning non-stop extravaganza, dedicated to the lordly pasttime of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The journey: Swift arrival at the airport followed by an early meeting with none other then Jonathan ‘I will tell you what I think of your I6 review’ Becker, where we barely managed to make sense of the byzantine german train system and catch a fast train to Fulda. We were soon talking about all manner of subjects, and our disorderly conduct almost caused a small blockage as we were ousted from our seats by several passengers with pre-reserved tickets. Gingerly, we eventually found some seats and arrived in Fulda, where our driver, a pleasant fellow that would later attend my Slyth Hive game, drove us and two other guests to the Castle at 210 km/u while Mr. Becker berated the passengers in the back for their poor choice of system and preached the glories of AD&D.

The setting: a splendid manor house in the center of Germany. The accommodations: tables perpetually overflowing with roasted pork, vegetables, fruits and german beers like a veritable Cornucopia, halls resounding with the clatter of dice and hearty life-loving laughter, and visitors from the disparate countries of Europe and across the sea. The event: A convention that ran with the Teutonic precision of a Swiss Watch, and such a wealth of games being run that I frequently wished for the ability to send Avatars to various gaming tables and lamented bitterly for missing out on so many excellent games. As I trod up the stone steps, the green banner of Cauldron proudly displayed across the entrance, I was greeted by our jovial host, the incomparable Settembrini, of Zock Bock fame, endowed with limitless endurance, generosity and energy by the power of wholesome gaming and his burning hatred for Zeb Cook.

For me, a brilliant opportunity to meet people I have talked to (and about) for years online, to sit down and game with them, to shake hands firmly, share a brew, and shoot the shit with readers, fellow-DnD afficianados and just about anyone within range. Atmosphere on the con was absolutely perfect, never once did I even ask or consider if someone aligned with me politically, nor did I hear any such a question, for all were enraptured by the spirit of actual play, and could not tear themselves from the table, nor free the dice from their hands. It was also very cool to be asked to sign a copy of Palace and RPR, and very cool that Grützi, who was also attending, ran an AD&D conversion of Red Prophet Rises (hell yes!).

What follows is an overview of the games, their progression, the tales of heroism and bravery:

Friday: Ice Castle of Fire
DM: King James Raggi IV!
System: Lotfp
Level: 1

A fitting guest of honor for such a grand event, I had the honor and pleasure of joining James’s game in one of his rare clothed appearances as the inaugural event on Friday night. After I had briefly talked to him beforehand so as to subtly signal that I was not there to assassinate him, the game proceeded smoothly, and myself and three german fellows were soon embroiled on a desperate quest to investigate a sudden eruption somewhere in the Swiss Alps.

James is writing dungeons again. The lord has risen hallelujah. For an Lotfp game things proceeded comparatively smoothly, perhaps TOO smoothly. After a two fortuitous draws from the Deck of Weird Things, the party was soon endowed with permanent spider climbing powers, a minor curse, and my particular wizard, an aristocratic miscreant, received a fanatically loyal 5th level fighting man for his troubles, that I promptly used to boss and threaten the rest of the party around. After we had dispatched several of the loathsome children that infested the Castle of Ice and Fire and helped ourselves to a small fortune in silver and valuables left by their slain parents, we decided to ignore the ominous looking cthuloid monster perching over the ruined church, and ventured into a gaping pit leading miles into the earth. Soon we would be confronted by rows of gladiators, things that eat light, and the eerie sign of the Duvan’ku. We killed multiple spiders and explored several strange chambers, only barely making our escape. By the time we had returned to the surface (fuck your death trap we can spider climb!) the sun was blotted out by the lovecraftian entity known only as Toonie, but fortunately the eclipse only made the 2000 sp worth of muskets and 1000 sp worth of silver all the more valuable. The Gm was possessed of an instantly charming sort of Akward Zen, and ran the game very smoothly and much laughter was had by all. Highly recommended.

Saturday Morning: Catacombs of the Pariahs
DM: Gabor Lux
System: AD&D
Level: 5th

A brilliant beginning after a sleep-deprived night (the house was quite noisy), but enough coffee, some leftover pork and a spare heineken I found in my bag later I was ready to go at it. Gabor Lux ran his seminal CATACOMBS OF THE PARIAHS, a terrific tombcrawl adventure from the master of tombcrawl adventures.

No one does Tombs like Gabor and no one crawls tombs like this group. We were soon endowed with various cursed and potent items of magic and technology, and moved like a well organized machine, aided by the winner of the coveted Top Looter award, some sprightly young lads, an unfortunate gentleman who looked for all the world like a german Venger Satanis whose wizard was killed by an invisible strangler, and me, the great Prince of Nothing. After having captured, interrogated and enslaved some of the pariahs on the level, we used their guidance to find the exit. Though we had already acquired a great gemstone the size of a man’s fist, and vanquished a skeletal commander of the Tiger legion and his harem of undead thots, we pushed on, raided the tomb of the glyphmaker, and used a mirror to murder some of the accursed crypt-keeping cult with laser beams. Quarter was neither asked, nor given. One casualty, and over 16.000 gp worth of treasure. Not bad for 4 hours. Gabor is an excellent DM, keeps great pace, always has an evocative description ready when you need it, and is a master of mean and deadly traps.

Saturday Afternoon: Slyth Hive
DM: Prince
System: AD&D
Level: 14+

I skipped half of lunch hastily scribbling in the character sheets that I had stupidly not brought, almost wounding myself mortally for my efforts. Soon I started the session, attended by a caracal, the french soldier from Monty Python, one of the Lotfp players that was used to 2e AD&D so I had to jailbreak him into not storygaming, our lovely driver, and a hyper-sharp ASL player known as Mikhal, who may have been a head taller then me and was presumably half-frost giant. The session started with all the gravity of a final exam as I gave everyone 10 minutes to prepare spells, ask any questions they had about their items, look things up before I would kick things off. Note for prince: Give everyone a pre-prepared loadout like you do in the final version of Slyth hive at the next convention game and just throw them right in.

The beginning of Slyth Hive dragged a bit. Everyone was still getting used to all of their powers and abilities and I should have just started them at the entrance instead of making them move to the dungeon. They soon figured out that talking to plants and animals was a way of avoiding ambushes, and entered the first brobdignagian level of the Slyth Hive.

Tentatively, unsure of their strength, they skulked trough the unnatural jungle within, avoiding the curious asps that crawled there, neglecting to explore the narrow tunnels infested with blind albino cobras (after a divination spell revealed not much treasure could be found there), and were actually smart enough to avoid many of the encounters I had there. By this time we were 2 hours in and everyone was getting used to being an inhuman superpowered god, but afraid of their own powers, they still held off from direct violence, avoiding a mob of unnatural dinosaurs.

By the time they discovered a strange village, I was wondering if they were going to do any looting and killing. My heart grew 3 sizes as they finally broke off diplomacy with the counterfeit creatures, slaughtered 44 of the savage bastards with swordblows, magic missiles, backstabs and a well placed death spell, and made their way deeper into the second level. Some loot had been taken by Doof, but for the rest the party seemed content to explore the wonders and horrors of the Slyth Hive. Nevertheless, they played well, cautiously, and in a way that would have allowed them to do well in the actual adventure.

Intermission: Dinner and the Auction.

Dinner was DELICIOUS barbeque, more beer, more coffee, and a wealth of other foodstuffs. I cannot overstress german hospitality, the competence and friendliness of the organizers and the energy of the place. Dinner was followed by a meticulously timekept auction, where various goodies were sold off, many of them benefiting the club, or charity. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a reprint of Tegel Manor with the proceeds going to charity, a copy of the Dungeon Alphabet and an impulse buy of the Crypt of Lyzander the Mad, which I guess I will have to find some use for. Raggi was telling me some crazy story about an aborted Jobe Bittman rpg project involving the bible and would subsequently explain my presence to his consort as ‘Prince is the Emperor of Being Mean’, and the Hungarians forced everyone who came by their table to drink some sort of peach liquor and proceeded to style on and outbid eachother to harsh magyar laughter. Please enjoy this well-timed snapshot of Settembrini scornfully auctioning off a copy of Yoon-Suin.

Saturday Evening: Slyth Hive II
DM: Prince
System: AD&D
Level: 14+

Continuation. Not only did everyone return, oh shit, 4 more people signed on. A friendly danish chap called Nicholas, the Mighty Gabor Lux, the fearsome Tamas Illes and the NAP Champion Chomy. My game was massively full but I was by this time bolstered by Dutch courage, the best courage in the world, and therefore invincible. In 20 minutes I scrambled together new characters (I will note that Chomy refused the honor of playing Kent, fearing his power) that I had fortunately prepared and soon a planar rift opened in the stone corridor to permit 4 new champions from different realms to join the quest to find and slay the Arch-heretic Pharnabazus. They were now 9: Brandoch Daha, Vaus Arghul the master of summer, Oberon the elf-prince, Gyges the archthief, Hassan I Sabbah the psionic Master of Assassins, Cathbad the Great Druid, Solomon the Archmage, Jaques the Patriarch and Sir Giselher the Paladin. A second battle with the cavemen resulted in a brutal massacre, as the primitive savages were soon hemmed in by walls of fire, and broken with an ice storm. Our heroes pressed on, emerging in a vast cavern of Bone, and here they faced the first true test: The chitenous legions of the Slyth, 200 strong, led by hideous psionic overseers, on a field of bone. Great ruin and massacre was inflicted on the Slyth, as the party fought a desperate but intelligent rearguard action, keeping the casters safe while they conjured up elementals, and Vaus (gabor) and Gyges (lynchpin) rushed out and dealt with the psionic overseers. They scattered all before them, and inflicted great ruin upon the Slyth. By now several spectators drifted in and out to observe the game, but I am proud to say I contained my nerves and kept the game going. It was also amusing to apply lessons learned from Fred Saberhagen’s Empire of the East and foist upon Chomy a Djinn true to the classic fairy tales, obsequious, passive-aggressive and extremely literal minded. Attempts to shortcut the dungeon in this fashion had been foreseen (by me) although I am a bit sad the party did not use their ring of Wish, which would have propelled them directly to the final boss, for a true ultimate test. The outer defences of my Hive were no match for 9 sharp players, and soon the first army of the Slyth were no more. 200 down, 2 Overseers killed ignominiously and many 100s more to go.

Saturday Night: Meeting with Bryce

As I wandered to my bed, exhausted, I had to go to the bathroom and who did I encounter but Bryce Lynch as he was reviewing a module? Yes, that’s right! The elusive lord of the Holy Trinity of RPG Reviewers had joined Cauldron, wearing a shirt of the band Arcturus, for a short stop on a secretive quest throughout all of Europe to find ‘an OSE adventure of levels 4 and above.’ He asked me to ‘help him out with something’ and I protested that I was all but exhausted but a single gulp of a mysterious elixer was enough to renew my strength. Gabor was there also, grimly carrying a tommy gun and his trenchcoat. What exactly he was looking for in that crawlspace between the walls of Hohenroda and the catacombs below it I cannot fully recall, but I followed him faithfully, bearing the torch, and dealing with the many giant rats we came across, as well as other less recognizable things. How long we meandered through those cob-webbed and dust-choked halls of aeons-old cyclopean masonry below Schloss Hohenrodha I do not now recall, but Bryce did produce his ancient volume over an old stone well inscribed with Elder Signs, and incanted from it chants in a strange, ancient tongue made for no human vocal apparatus. The well had been sealed but the ordeal had left Bryce visibly altered, almost unrecognizable. Exhausted and grimy, we made our way back to the surface, and by break of day, were just in time to take a group photo before the next game started.

Sunday morning game: S2 White Plume Mountain
DM: Blackrazor (a.k.a Jonathan Becker)
System: AD&D 1e
Level: 5-7

I was pleased to be able to enter Jonathan Becker’s game, even though I could not attend all of it. Both awards were no joke. Becker ran his game like a drill sergeant, swiftly delivering the introduction of the adventure, setting out our formation with miniatures, handing us our crisp character sheets and starting us at the entrance, and soon we were off in the brilliant convention Hell that is White Plume Mountain. Becker had augmented several of the encounters with his own personal spice, and we were nary two rooms in when 4 Grell absolutely reamed us and we barely managed to escape after a well timed use of a wand of illusion, leaving two of our members on the floor. We had made it to the boiling mud room when the announcers called, and held the grand award ceremony. Plentiful Cauldrons of Brass were handed out to the victors of the tournament, and none other then the great Blackrazor was selected as both the best AND most deadly GM (apparently he was so deadly that he warranted his own category). It was fitting. Not only were the players engrossed and entertained, but we had lost one more player to the boiling mud, placing us at 3 deaths in 2 hours. I could see a faint twinkle in Becker’s eye as he accepted the award.

It was over all too soon, and the slow journey back (with one unfortunate getting sick in the car which I happened to attend, thank the gods he was in the front seat) gave me much chance to ruminate. It was truly a successfull con: the energy, the people, the games and the splendid hospitality. I do not know what the future will bring for any of us, but the future for AD&D in the Eurozone looks bright indeed.

Worth a repeat. And a celebration on behalf of Nexus. They could not have had a stronger start.

Fight On!