I cut down on startup time by assembling a stack of illustrated pregens using my stock art. We had seven players, one of whom was in the InfiWorlds game I participated in earlier this summer. He built an elf using my template (I will be eventually attaching a pdf of the pregens and his character) and there were a couple of people with prior DF experience.
Noah Green, who had played a cleric of Nodens for the prior playtest using Swords and Wizardry Continual Light, did so again, using a custom character; igave him the off-template characteristics of Weirdness Magnet and the perk Weird Dreams from DF14, and Dreaming Skill as his patron deity is the god of the Dreamlands. I outfitted him with an Errol Otus grade horned helmet, a shield emblazoned with a Nightgaunt, and an Elder sign as a holy symbol. The others played a brigandine clad halberdier, who was excellent in the few combats we had, an apprentice wizard who served as a powerhouse with both Mass Sleep and Diplomacy. Our oversize barbarian woman managed to avoid going berserk, and employed her size enhanced intimidation more than her gigantic greataxe. We rounded out with a knife weilding thief, who did a fair amount of climbing, an adventurer character who used her double dose of luck to shoot up goblins with her crossbow, and sadly, the low strength of the elf made some of his attacks less than effective.
Their primary opponents, wolves and SM-2 goblins were largely cut down by the halberdier (who took out the wolves and a giant centipede) and by the use of Mass Sleep boosted in frequency of use by paut and Lend Strength from the cleric.
Along the way, they encountered the tinker, and glommed some information about the woods from him. they met the patrol, and directed them towards a purported campsite of the bandits, met the Death Vision addled bandit who had run afoul of the necromantrix, and hastened him on toward his envisioned death at the hands of Mama ogre. They actively sought her out after finding her lost son, and reunited the family, much as the first group had, although they did that before getting to the ruins, instead of taking him along to bash wolves with. They ran into the elves, had a neutral engagement with them, and almost headed to the lost shrine in search of pilgrims, but were working on rescuing Wyatt for the reward money.
After knocking out goblins and slaying wolves, they negotiated for the release of Wyatt and the other prisoners, offering a trade of the only treasure they had found, magic arrows and a silver knife.
Like the previous group, they frequently showed people the wanted poster, while covering up the part about the reward.
They also found the bugbear’s well entrance, but instead of coming in the back way, they used Magelock on it and went in the front door. (Someone must have played Rappan Athuk). They saw the skeletons, and like the goblins, did not engage them.
Lost of scrounging, search, some cartography, diplomacy and intimidation used.
Spells used: detect magic, detect illusion, mass sleep, magelock, lend energy, and lend health.
Not a bad run for four hours. If we had had six, they might have gotten to the south end of the map.
The alchemy room has a no mana area, as demonstrated by the “broken” continual light object, and can be used to open the magelocked chest.
The lab has an assortment if potions, and books (primers) typically worth $50 on Alchemy, Thaumatology, and Thanatology. The actual spellbooks are worth several times that amount.
The skeletons are programmed to ignore those wearing amulets, which all have Melchiir’s mystic mark.
Get Beneath the Fallen Tower Here for 2.99
Get the DF lite templates
Get the conversion notes, and the actual pregens Used and prepared here
Like any of this? Support my Patreon!
I had originally intended to run a second session, using leveled up 125 pt versions of the pregens – get that here
Northport 