Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part VIII - The Farewell

We wrap up with the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine by Evlyn Moreau. Links to the review and part I of play using it, Part II - Adventures in Paintings, Part III - the Rescue, Part IV - the Show, Part V - the Tour, Part VI - the Chase and Part VII - the Delve. A final round up of the zine as a supplement is at the end of this write-up.

Significant time has passed since last the party directly interacted with the Kobolds - they had quested without them to recover the masterpiece painting they sought, fighting mimics, carrion-crawlers and a terrible ethereal predator - fierce enough fights that they had not brought the kobolds along with them. The masterwork recovered, interactions were handed off to the Lady of the House, the bards mother, while the party dealt with conspiracies, magical artefacts and divine visions. As the party now prepares to depart the palace at dawn to settle the unrest that has shaken the north of their family realms, the cleric decides to bid farewell. The kobolds portal painting should be finished and they ought to be well on their way to moving on to their next location.

Curator Zosk + Scout by Evlyn Moreau

Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part VII - The Delve

The kobolds of the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine by Evlyn Moreau return once more. Links to the review and part I of play using it, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V and Part VI.

The hour has passed midnight after another busy day spent trying to unpick a conspiracy against the realm. The howling winds outside have kept everyone indoors all day and blown the deep snows all over the city and palace. The party makes its way back down into the sub basement of the palace fully equipped for venturing into untouched sections, bringing along a younger cousin who has insisted she wants adventure and two of her entourage, the adept and the swordsman.

Down into the depths of the palace they go, past the old throne room to the gallery where the kobolds have been set up. A short discussion in pidgin draconic explains their intent to go find the second masterwork the kobolds say they had discovered and Curator Zosk assigns a troupe of junior volunteers to lead them - junior scout Zoogr, apprentice treasurer Vazrur, apprentice painters Ralral and Kedri and wax-collector Yeep with her two fire-beetles. Equipped with a map, packed snacks, spears and lantern-staffs the kobolds lead off into the depths.

Sketch of a junior kobold by the bard

Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part VI - The Chase

The kobolds of the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine by Evlyn Moreau return once more. Links to the review and part I of play using it, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

The party stumbles home from a long day and tucks up in bed. They had not acted on their discussion to move the portraits out of their bedrooms and all are sleeping soundly when the next tour of the Kobolds arrives. The Sorceror is woken to find Historian Drap, two of the Clerics sisters and some other mixed nobles of the city filing in.

With some sputtering and complaint the Sorceror orders everyone out, but with the nature of tours, people are filing in to get the message and then shuffling past each other in the doorway to leave. The Bard and Cleric have both been woken by the commotion and the Cleric steps out into the passage way in her housecoat to see what is up. The Bard guesses correctly what is going on, pens a 'do not enter note' to hang on her door, arms her bat-cat-imp thing with a poker and shoves it out into the hall on guard duty. The imp-thing hams up its role and snarls and froths before the Bards door, making the tour members in the hall back away down towards the other rooms where another cousin and one of her entourage have opened their doors.

Meanwhile the Sorceror, muzzy with sleep, decides the best way to emphasize his point is to summon a giant spider to scare everyone off. This works to a point; the giant spider accelerates the departure of the few remaining tour members but then fails in that it is an actual monstrous spider. Usually the Sorcerer summons celestials he can talk to but this is a standard big spider and he promptly loses control and it leaps on Historian Drap.

Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part V - The Tour

Following up on the previous posts about playing through the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine by Evlyn Moreau. Links to the review and part I of play using it, Part II, Part III and Part IV.

The exhibition begins to wrap up as the time creeps into the small hours of the morning. Half of the guests join one of the three tours that the Lady of the House has arranged with the kobolds and our party follows Historian Vru. The sorceror is momentarily dissappointed that the tours are not going to be into paintings of the palace but foot tours.

Curator Zisk, sketch by the bard

First they troop across the hall into the Old Throne Room where the historian starts in kobold, notices the crowds failure to follow him and pulls out a scroll of tongues, casts it and continues briskly. Marched rapidly around the room the party has works they would have identified as quality pieces denounced as derivative junk, things they thought were war trophies praised as outstanding vernacular works of giant- and dwarfcraft and the trio of great pieces along the back wall, the bi-part Kingmaker portrait and the huge saddle praised as masterworks.

Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part IV - The Show

Following up on the previous posts about playing through the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine by Evlyn Moreau. Links to Part II and Part III.

The Kobolds cross paths once more with our party on the night before the pre-wedding ceremonials.

Some time has passed and much of the senior family including the Earl and the General, mother to the cleric, have returned from the war-front for the wedding. During this transportation the foe managed to strike the court wizard who is locked in temporal stasis to prevent his own death. The bard and sorceror sought help from the head of the Mage University who gave them a horrid bat-cat stitched together thing that they are to kill to let the master of the university know they want him. The party is not keen on dealing with this and have been pushing the horrible thing off on one another over the course of the day.

As night falls, the sorceror shoved it into the bards room while she was at dinner with an old pal. After some late night altercations once the bard spotted that her fireplace was blinking at her, the thing they have named an imp has been left to sleep in the fireplace with a screen in front of it. The bard tucks in and everyone sleeps soundly. The imp is just resting however and so when the kobolds come around distributing invitations for their exhibition it is the only thing to rouse.

Invitation bearing younger Kobold by Evlyn Moreau

Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part III - The Rescue

Following up on the previous posts about playing through the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine. Part II found here.

Impression of 'Ward Against Self', inspired by Marguerite Frieda Harris

Once again our party - children of the rulers of the realm - return to the depths of the palace to visit the Kobolds. This time they seek to rescue a palace servant from the cursed painting "Ward Against Self" by a Pit Fiend that they have named 'the murderpainting'.

Content warning - minor body squick, ~PG-13.

Actual play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part II - adventures in paintings

Following up on the previous post about playing the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine.

Our party - children of the rulers of the realm - found the Kobolds in the sealed up basements of their family palace as the dying Duke tasked them with reopening things. After a first encounter where the party reopened and defeated the guardians before a masterpiece, the party returns with the Lady of the House while price negotiations for the masterpiece happens. As the Curator and the Lady of the House negotiate the party is pulled aside by one of the junior kobolds. In pidgin draconic they convey that there are kobolds lost in a painting that they need help to recover and the party agrees to help.

Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition zine by Evlyn Moreau

tl;dr: Kobolds Art Exhibition is a great piece that has dropped nicely into an ongoing campaign - low effort to spin up, great visuals, definitely check it out.

I am a long-standing fan of Le Chaudron Chromatique since the OSR first crossed my radar. This particular zine is from June 2018 and I was happy to have the opportunity to slot it into a running campaign. Note links in the article are broken, find a copy through the 'PDF versions' link under My Zines at the RHS of Chaudron Chromatic.

Back drop setting is the old family fortress of which the PCs are the 'new generation'. Above the ground is still working but the old works built into the hilly have been under seal since the current Dukes father died. The party has been down in these labyrinthine basements a few times, fighting off magi-vore ooze-like things.

As the zine is described "a tribe of kobolds who move from dungeon to dungeon in search of artworks to collect." This is a neat setup that can be refitted to any dungeon and was particularly fitting for my campaign of sealed depths that were forgotten, trapped and abandoned with art on the walls. It would be both more of a 'refresher' and I suspect harder on the Kobolds to drop into the traditional caverns full of predators.

Prepping the zine for inclusion was low effort. The format is 'walk through' - I suggest skim first to get a sense of all the parts, then dice up the version you will use yourself.

I rolled up a collection that had originated from a Sagacious Warlord and had ~ 3 weeks remaining before they re-painted the portal and the tribe had spotted an important piece! Next I diced up 11 artworks off the random list of d100, a few failed portal paintings and a pair of 'troubles and sidequests'. With all this on a page it all clicked into place.

First the players spotted the lights of the kobolds scouting the old section at night, then found their trail where they had inspected the closed sections. The first session encounter ended with them encountering one of the 'sidequests' which was a pair of runaways that they rescued from the magi-vores. The first session closed with the grant of invites to the exhibition to the party of rescuers.

Second session, the party descends into the depths, finds and tours the art gallery and are asked to help open up one of the old throne rooms where the kobolds had spotted the masterwork but were not yet able to access it. The players cracked the door and scouted the room, and did not trigger the guardians due to their family bloodlines. When the kobolds entered, the guardians woke (dog constructs) and the party fought a tough fight to make sure their 'guests' were not harmed by their own houses ancient defenses.

Upcoming sessions look to hang on whether or not they want to trade away the uncovered masterpiece and at what price...

If the measure of content is how much the party takes the NPCs to heart, then this 'zine is a hit. I liked it, the players have liked it, I would recommend you check it out for any campaign with an urban or planar component or where an interesting faction would be an addition. Note, while the kobolds themselves have a few tricks up their sleeves for combat, their nomadic nature means that unless you give them enough time and space to become Tuckers Kobolds they will get eaten by murder hobos.

For a second opinion see here: The Kobolds' Art Exhibition Review

Edited to add: actual play adventures continue here.