The Mad Devil
In April 2025, I started what I was hoping would be a West March style campaign. However, circumstances and my gaming group have precluded it being truly West March in nature.
As of September 6, we are only five sessions into the game. Because, you know, moving, and family chaos, and now I live way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere, so getting gamers to come over is somewhat challenging.
Regardless, my goal has been to have heavy use of Dwarven Forge. With one session taking place at a local game store, that has not been 100% satisfied, but I can, in fact, build what I want. Maybe not all at the same time, but at least incrementally.
Raven Keep
What is a West March campaign? It started with Ben Robbins and has grown. But here is his own explanation.
https://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/
Session 4 had the party finally venture into Quesqueton. They explored the semi-maze with the kobolds and a fungi garden.
The session started above ground in a bandit camp where (off-camera) the veteran PCs had helped a patrol from Raven Keep ambush a group of bandits that had kidnapped a caravan. This was useful to introduce the veterans to the new players and let people figure out what was going on.
The bandit camp was in ruins that had a cave entrance into which the PCs ventured. In the small chamber were 6 dire rats. A long fight for 1st level PCs.
The larger chamber had 3 cave fishers. A tougher fight in some ways. It also let me use my Stairway to Violence.
The bottom level was a very tough fight with a giant stag beetle. When the party started the fight, they got some unexpected aid from a batch of giant centipedes. Apparently the centipedes were tired of being the beetle's main food source and decided to opportunistically attack their predator while the PCs were also distracting it.
There were some skeletons (and most of the treasure) in the longer dead end. But more importantly for Haken, a kobold summoner named Fimsi lived in the smaller dead end. Fimsi had been an acquaintance of Elwer Plont (a candidate to be Haken's mentor) and agreed to assist Haken in exchange for access to a library.
The party skipped the skeletons and the underwater river.
Session 5
