#RPGaDay2025 - Day 21 - Unexpected

Day 21 of #RPGaDay and I shouldn't be too surprised the prompt is "Unexpected."  I am greatly amused that the most recent post from my BECMI D&D "Adventures in Gulluvia"  game is today's inspiration.  

I've mentioned on previous days that Gulluvia is a Basic D&D (Mentzer/Rules Cyclopedia) game, set in an isolated area.  Most of the campaign was run a few years ago, with a few filler sessions in 2023.  My goal this summer was to finish the storyline with one great adventure.  

I pushed the timeline forward about nine months, and resolved some outstanding plot issues with the PCs.

Gulluvia only has one halfling/human religion, "The Church."  For the bulk of the campaign, everyone knew that Father Joe ran the small temple of The Church in the village of Mere, with the help of his direct assistance, Brother Barry Manaslow, as well as a massive, deformed woman named Slothina. 

At the end of the main storyline, Father Joe had passed away from natural causes, Barry Manaslow had succumb to alleged werewolf bites, and Slothina disappeared soon thereafter. 

The filler sessions introducted Galastria and Gwendalyn the Bright, two very different acolytes of The Church, and after the previous adventure,  one of them was very likely going to be the head of the The Church in Mere. 

Galastria

Except that it didn't resolve like that.  Despite a bitter feud for the position, the High Priest Carathmus appointed one Bronte Argento to the position, sending both in a tailspin.  

Gwendalyn the Bright

A "simple" mission to solve a poisoned water, for a bunch of 1st and 2nd level BECMI D&D  characters was a massive undertaking.  I expected casualties,  I expected replacement characters coming from the edges of the dwarf, bandit (necromancer), and even goblin factions still in the mines.  

I didn't expect a theological crisis of faith and moral derail the whole thing, and (Spoilers!) prompt the death of one of my favorite characters. 

Gulluvia was always intended to be a dungeoncrawl/hexcrawl game, I had not expected a bunch of misfit characters (the entire village of Mere was just ugly and impersonal, the average PCs charisma was less than 8) get some developement... especially since players were playing 2 at a time (it is classic D&D, numbers count).  

And I certainly didn't expect a rather clean negotiation with "alleged" necromancers turn into a religious brawl.   

I should know better...  and enjoy the ride.