The Black Wing Furled

The high priest of Tiamat, Thord Skül, led his congregation of a dozen disciples in their ceremony. The helmet weighed heavily upon his shoulders, crafted from a giant's skull and dipped in iron then riveted with spikes around the temples. He struck an imposing figure in the crackling glow of the sword. Encased in its own protective shield of lightning, the Sword of Cuiraecen hovered in the center of the chamber but was impossible to reach without being scorched by the thunderous light around it.

The Termaxian sorceress, Ellora, watched from atop the highest ridge within the cauldron of black volcanic rock. Her fingers brushed the dirty pages of her spellbook, hanging from a strap across her shoulders and wrapped in the skin of an elf wizard she had slain herself. The demonic hounds she had summoned patrolled the ridge around her, to give warning of any interlopers who might interrupt the ritual. She finished chanting the incantation which would enshroud Thord's staff with a poisonous aura.

The disciples of Tiamat faltered, their droning chant shattered by the scream of an attacking swordsman, "I'm gonna cut your balls off!" He had launched himself from above Thord, along one of the ridges above the flat disc of volcanic rock where the sword hovered. The blonde warrior landed, sinking his axe deep into Thord's shoulder.

Our "heroes" confronted the cultists as they were performing a ritual and though they were split by the terrain and circumstance, and very nearly died in the attempt, the cult was slain.
Ooplar Junior beheaded their leader, Thord Skül, and compelled a surrender by throwing Thord's head at a group of disciples.
Big Bertha strategically retreated while pelting her pursuers with arrows.
Edgar Childbanger kept his friends alive with healing and made prodigious use of Atgir, the spear of Saint Sigrid
Two disciples were taken prisoner and marched back to Silverhead Keep, where they were barred entry. The Castellan had issued an arrest warrant for Sir Richard Fitzwell III, charged with assault of a militia officer.

...to be continued!

The Lightning Sword of Cuiraecen
1d10 damage, close, 1 weight
...anyone of Chaos or Good alignment may pick up the sword freely, other alignments suffer 2d6 damage upon first touching the sword
...while carrying the sword, the bearer has the Chaos alignment in addition to any other alignment they already have; if the wielder is already of Chaos alignment they receive double XP awards at session end
...when you point the sword at a foe and speak the name of Cuiraecen, roll+STR
on 10+, lightning arcs out of the blade, striking your foe and dealing 1d10+STR+WIS damage, ignoring armor
on 7-9, lightning arcs out and deals 1d10 damage
on a miss, the arc of lightning strikes something else unexpectedly

"really, are you sure you want to do that?!"

...is something I found myself asking repeatedly during the last session.

from left to right
Sir Richard Fitzwell III the Ranger and his wolf companion, Killory Klinton
Ooplar Junior the Fighter
Edgar Childbanger the Cleric
Big Bertha the Thief

They got ambushed by goblins, and during the fight Ooplar got trapped down a ravine. Big Bertha and Sir Richard spent their time performing trick shots to pick off the goblins while Edgar stuck to healing his comrades.

Ooplar explored the goblins' home, which was very obviously a former wizard's underground lab, while Big Bertha interrogated and tortured the last living goblin above ground. They pretty much ditched the place when they found the last remnants of that wizard's experiments. Edgar cast Speak With Dead quite a bit, so maybe I should keep littering areas with corpses - he discovered a teenager who had been murdered by his "friends" but the whole group collectively sighed and moved on to the caves.

They re-entered the caves where they rescued Mariya from and explored further, finding a library and a tomb - both of which I ripped off from Servants of the Cinder Queen but repurposed as a Rjurik paladin who served Cuiraecen. They BURNED DOWN THE LIBRARY after reading one book and waking the Stone Guardian. Then they plundered the Tomb without heeding any warnings.

We left off with them hearing screams of dying men and the howls of dogs coming from the corridors outside of the tomb...

As a GM: I kept the goblins simple and didn't make their attacks particularly threatening. I could have made the first scenario a lot more deadly but in the moment I felt like that would have been cruel. Even the surviving goblins in the underground lab acted defensively and never engaged the PCs. I won't hold back next time.
When they burned the library, they ended up missing out on some magic scrolls, a magic item, several maps, a secret passage, and several books that explain what's important around here. Kind of amusing since I know one of them has read my advice for playing.
I think the next session will have to serve as some kind of finale. Either they will have to definitively stop the Termaxian wizards, stop the Tiamat cultists, or they'll all have to die in the attempt. They also managed to piss off Cuiraecen, the deity who is most influential in this region, that will definitely have come up in the next session!

it's not *technically* D&D

I was asked if I would DM a game of Dungeons & Dragons for a group of friends (who're also standup comics), many of whom had never played before, and I agreed, but wavered on which rule set to use for awhile. I told them I was thinking of running Swords & Wizardry and a few of them revealed that they didn't like the talk about math and probability that I was launching into. I hadn't really prepped for a role-playing game in months, almost a year, so I started looking at all of my possibilities. I wanted to make everything simple so we could just get set up and start playing right away with little explaining of rules and a minimal list of choices.

I had almost given up and just said to myself "Fuck it! I'll just run 5th edition, complexities and all!" but my urge to play a system I enjoy won out... Dungeon World is a D&D-shaped hack of Apocalypse World, and Freebooters on the Frontier (FotF) is an OSR hack of Dungeon World, so... I'm running Freebooters for them! Using slightly modified versions of Maezer's character sheets, I've been running a game for about a month now.

Ooplar Junior is the Fighter
Edgar "IT'S JUST A LAST NAME!" Childbanger is the Cleric
Big Bertha is the Thief
Sir Richard Fitzwell III is the Ranger

During character creation I made use of Dyson's Totally Not A D&D Fiasco to tie all of the characters together. This worked really well, and everybody enjoyed it! - even as the choices became more limited.

Ooplar Junior fought in the militia with Sir Richard Fitzwell III
Sir Dick was in an assassin cult with Big Bertha
Big Bertha and Edgar Childbanger both carry a curse they acquired from an angry witch they robbed
and finally, Edgar shares a home with Ooplar

Then to start them off I read this:

The war in the south is threatening to spread northward. The duchy to the east has begun to grumble about past grievances, and the regent needs all of her most trusted advisers and scholars to counsel her in these troubling times.

You are not one of them.

Mariya Saisset is a sage that the Queen wants to consult with and, due to a personal connection you have with her, Count Oliver has commissioned you to venture north to Silverhead Keep to track her down. She traveled to the northernmost province some months ago and hasn't been heard from since. A message sent to Silverhead Keep has not been replied to and the worst is now feared.

You have been tasked with finding the sage, Mariya Saisset, and returning with her to Castle Haestead in the capital city, to an audience with the Queen. If Mariya has perished then her remains should be secured and brought back to the castle. You are being gifted a small retainer of silver coins and a riding horse to accommodate your travels, and will receive 100 gold coins from the Queen's coffers upon a successful return to Castle Haesrien.

Then I let the players draw randomly from a set of cards I had written with random backgrounds of how their characters knew Mariya, with little bonuses for them once they found her.

Big Bertha had traveled with Mariya deep into the elven forests of the southeast, finding Mariya would reward a permanent +1 to Wisdom

Edgar Childbanger had trained under Mariya's guidance for several years, finding Mariya would reward a permanent +1 to Charisma

Ooplar is only eight years younger than her and he grew up alongside Mariya, finding Mariya would reward a permanent +1 to Luck

Sir Dick is a close friend and confidant and was named the godfather of Mariya's daughter, finding Mariya netted double XP (effectively) for the session

With minimal prep and a short setup, we had a standard "go rescue this NPC from danger" kind of quest. Over the last three sessions, the players made their way to Silverhead Keep, got a venereal disease from a prostitute, got cured by a friendly elf sorceror, broke into an undead elven tomb (and then ran away with an artifact!), explored a nearby cave, stumbled upon cultists prepared to sacrifice Mariya and her two assistants, almost drowned in a flash flood, got into a fight with guards at the Keep, ran into members of Big Bertha's cult, and are about to be ambushed by goblins.

I'm not running an adventure, per se, but I'm using the castle from Keep on the Borderlands, a nearby mountain with a dungeon and Termaxian wizards from Dwimmermount, and Tiamat cultists from Zak Sabbath's blog pretty much following what would be a prequel to Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and all of this is set within my own version of the Birthright campaign setting!

Right now they're keen on destroying those pesky Termaxian wizards but, as I said, they're about to be ambushed by goblins!

Here's the current map: