Actual play with old friends using OSE

Players:

OSE Play recap with the old group we used google meet, and haven’t seen eachother in over 15 years!

Stanley, playing Abbyee Southpaw, a Lawful cleric 3 of the spider goddess from Petty Gods, and Lance, a fighter 2

James, playing Aria Silverwind, an elf 2 with sleep and magic missile

            And Drucila , a human magic user1 with protection from evil.

We started the main party with 4200xp and retainers at 2100. Characters were rolled with 4d6, dropping lowest, and arranging stats by preference, max hp for first level. Only one character, Lance, bought up a stat by reducing another.

Starting money was the base rolls only.

Two days from town and during a rainstorm, they came upon a brigands lair while the brigands were hunting, and sought shelter within.

After a quick survey of the area to rule out hostiles, they set a fire in the fireplace and began to search, enough to realize that the ruined tower with its collapsed roof and leaky upper story had been very recently inhabited.

One such sign was a bit of graffiti that matched a heraldric shield device of a group that had beenpart of an army that had laid siege to their town a few months before.

 Checking through the arrow slits on the damp upper level, they determined that the glow of the fireplace could be seen from the entrance due to the front doors and most of the furnishings having been used as firewood.

They also saw several lanterns approaching…

The elf was also able to spot a secret trapdoor due to rain water draining around its edges.

Lance, brute that he is, was able to rip it clean from its hinges, which left it obvious where they went, as if the barricade of the empty doorway and roaring fire weren’t enough of an indication that they had been playing goldilocks, which factored in their decision not to parley with the larged armed party approaching. 

Down they went, Aria scouting ahead and finding a door below that led to two more doors.

A quick check of the left showed a row of cells,and to the right a staircase further down.

They decided to head deeper in, and kicked in the next door into… a crypt. They all froze, and decided immediately not to mess with any of the 4 plain sarcophagi or the two with carved effigies, and prepared defensive spells to deal with the brigands they could hear approaching. 

Lance’s primary weapon was a polearm, due to poor starting cash rolls, and he carried a sword and club as backup… with 18 ST it was quite effective. 

Dulcinea cast pro vs evil on herself, and Abbyee cast it on Lance.

First order of business when the door was yanked open by ten spearmen in leather and shield was to cast sleep. 13 HD affected, and only three saved. Lance charged out and brained one, followed by Abbyee with her mace, and Aria with her bow and a natural 20. They quickly stripped and bound the captives, and prepared to politely interrogate them. This was facilitated by Lance bashing another who tried to pull a knife on them.

After a fistful of super low reaction rolls, I got a 12 and the beans, such as they were, were spilled, after a Samuel L. Jackson monologue from the others.

They moved their encampment upstairs after gagging the prisoners and deciding wisely not to sleep in the crypt (Abbyee has an 18 wisdom).

While they got a fistful of copper from each, along with weapons and armor, a better search in the morning revealed 200gp and 160gp worth of furs from a trader the brigands had robbed, along with a freshly killed deer. They paused to properly bury the dead to avoid creating some species of revenant, and frogmarched them in to town with their gear slung behind them.

I used 25% as the base rate of sale on used cheap goods, so they made an additional 133gp and received xp for defeating the foes as well.

A great deal of listening, great open doors rolls, and a lack of interest in stretching themselves too thin. Real ease of use of THAC0; Stan was my first DM back in 1982.

Lets see how this tower restocks itself next week!

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Minicon Recap

• Last weekend at Manhattan Minicon, I ran and completed The Redoubt of Hades over two play sessions.

Players were Greg, who I met for a pickup game of GURPS Infinite World, and who has played through two of my other con games, Beneath the Fallen Tower, and Shame of the Deepguard. He played Jelani the halberdier, and made great use of called shots to the neck

Next was Andre, who has played several characters in my online game, Northport, including the goblin priest of the Erl King, Zeelzeel Shadowspear.  He was torn between Marlo, the thief of indeterminate gender, and Zeelzeel’s necromancer cousin, longtime NPC Razakeel Shadowcloak , who had some zombie allies. He ended up settling on Marlo, due to his love of knives.

Mark, enthusiastic and new to GURPS, was also attracted to Razakeel, became torn between Ofelia, the Sleep centric mage from Shame of the Deepguard, and Thornstripe, a movement and missile mage, equipped with both fireball, and the now off-book Winged Knife. He succumbed to the sweet lure of pyromania, which worked well against the undead being faced.

Nick briefly contemplated an adventurer, but decided to complete the classic quartet and wonderfully played the cleric Sister Clarissa

(Note: her will is 13, not 11)

Nick is French, and my campaign is set in a caricature of medieval France, so there were some awkward moments as I mangled the names of some of my NPCs. He took everything in stride and was hilarious in his depiction of the charitable but severe priestess.

“Good morning Heretic, we are here to enter the Undercity.”

The adventure started in the common room of the Adventurers Guild, which is my conceit for accommodating a West Marches style of play.  They were called upstairs by Bellarius (high elf Agent from DF15), the secretary of Camilla the Quest Coordinator (Agent+Adept) who brought them to her, where they also met with Plutocrat Remulos of the Hadereum (cleric+a couple of social lenses with rank and wealth), Margeaux le Manifique (the apparent sole survivor of that poorly managed expedition by a bad player), and Karlow the orc working for the Department of Acueducts and Sewers.

Due to increased cult activity in the Undercity, several members of the hadereum (12 cultists and 2 initiates) had entered to rededicate a long abandoned temple of Hades in order to strengthen the presence of law amid the chaos below. Two weeks ago (a week before Margeaux returned) they went dark, and a guarded caravan of food and supplies sent to them disappeared.

The route from the Hadereum has been blocked, as something large (the bhole {super dire Rotworm} that came through the Ymid’s Bone Gate) collapsed part of the tunnels. Margeaux’s story suggests another route, and Karlow will be their guide.

Margeaux is accompanied by the ghost  dof her dead husband Claude, who really wishes their wedding vows had included “to death do we part”, and she talks to him, suggesting he keeps himself hidden with the Plutocrat present. (The Hadereum likes everyone to stay dead where they belong)

Claude spells out something in water drops from a glass nearby “Anything to get away from you!” Which is spotted by Thornstripe on a critical perception roll, allowing the mage to see the shimmering form of the spirit.

Sister Clarissa, having higher purpose: slay undead starts chanting an exorcism, which is interrupted by Remulos, who asks her to refrain from her non-pagan ways in his presence (Sister Clarissa is a Triunist, and comes from the Bishop of Sonne, who is currently paying Adventurers to fight wights in the abandoned Monastery).

They proceed to Ashbury’s Abattoir , meet the crew their, and find their way to the ladder well left unsecured when Margeaux’s group had lowered their dwarf sized iron golem down it. This caused grumbling from Karlow, who closed the hatch. Now on the second level, they ran into the terribly hungry and frightened young speaking Otyugh (IQ6) in a catchment room, trying to keep out a handful of horde zombies who fell to fireballs, thrown knives, halberd work, and True Faith. (The zeds had been released from impromptu burial chambers by evil cultists with the Brotherhood of the Dead perk).

Karlow grumbled some more, fed and locked it in its pen and the catchment room., And they determined that the local Sewer employee had been killed by a member of  Margeaux’s group…

They dove into a room that recently held dead to avoid a horde of plague zombies, and Jelani rolled a critical strength failure trying to push the door closed, and instead pushed something out…

Just the TiP

After this encounter, they entered the pool room, where Margeaux’s party met their demise, (along with a crowd of undead whose corpses were  the scattered about)  along with the reanimated remains of her party. The guild was paying them to recover their guild badges, so they collected all but Timeon’s. When confronted with the puzzle of lighting fires atop the pylons, the mage fireballed one, and critically failed another, stunning himself.

Lighting both pylons (in a very Legend of Zelda way) caused the fountain to spill gold coins into the mildly caustic water (the golem had rusted through in a week). Unfortunately, not lighting them simultaneously (which two people with torches could have done) released The Thing in the Pool, or as my players called it, “just the TiP”. It was a multi-tentacled elder thing that had a fear aura, and laid heavily into the party. We even used a bit of Gaming Ballistic’s Fantastic Dungeon Grappling when dealing with the TiP wrapping tentacles around Jelani before it could eat her.

After it was defeated, with both haste and great haste being cast, and both the gold and the golem’s orichalcum maul, which Sister Clarissa took despite lacking the requisite strength.

They exited the pool room into a nearby storage room where Timeon was holding out, using one ancient barrel of rations for food, and another for used foods, and he shot Marlo with his crossbow, and the tribe accepted him as a member, finding out while resting and healing that he had been unwilling to re-enter the pool room for fear of the Void Brute that Frer Noe had summoned to kill the previous party, and  because he broke his lockpicks on the outer door. Once some fatigue was recovered (including some from Lend Energy) they exited the anteroom by means of Karlow’s key, and ran into a horde of plague zombies

True faith and great haste again ruled the day, as they cleaved,  mauled, stabbed, shot, and fireballed their way through the fleeing horde, and ended up Fantastically Grappling a cultist who had been herding the dead.

The second cultist ran ahead and opened a door, releasing three New and Improved Wights.

Unlike my previous versions, which were unkillable with an Achilles heel of Silver or Magical Weapons, these had Injury Resistance (50%) to attack forms other than fire and silver or enchanted weapons. Skeletal undead take 2x from crushing weapons, which cancel out the injury resistance, allowing Sister Clarissa to pound the wights, which is good, because two out of three resisted true faith.  Jelani was closed with after missing a neck shot with her halberd, and was the first to suffer energy drain (FP) from the wights. Marlow made a head shot count, and Karlow stepped in, and was eventually overrun, losing enough FP to end up in a HP lowering Death spiral.

Weakened and afraid of Karlow turning, they took out the wights.

Soon after, they rescued the worshipers trapped in the Redoubt, and headed home.

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A resolution to part of a campaign, and some play reports

For several years, I have been running a Wuxia pastiche campaign within my Northport setting.  The population of Northport is quite mixed,  having a large number of goblin artisans (the goblins have lived in the city since its founding a few thousand years ago), humans, orcs, and a fair amount of mixed folk, given the situation to the east, where the nation of Shevnia lost a war with orcs because of a lost paytrain for their army, sort of like the post goblin war of Lesserton & Mor.  There are nations with different cultures to either side of Northport, which is set in an area inspired by Banestorm, in the old empire of Aral, with Valdassya to the west, and Shevnia to the east.  In addition to the Aralaise speaking Orcs, Goblins, and humans, there are two other communities: Little Shevnia to the east, and Little Sahud to the west.  I was sort of looking at Tredroy as an inspiration for part of this.  (Of course my city was also informed by the advenure Banrnacus, City in Peril. from Dragon Magazine # 80, as mentioned on my last podcast, along with my frequently recommended Ruins of the Undercity)

I know that using a pan-Asian pastiche like Sahud in my campaign is pretty crassly not PC, but I had a request by several players armed with google translate and wikipedia articles and a general knowledge base of cheesy kung fu films that wanted to play in that kind of setting. With apologies to the large number of people who may be offended by this kind of colonial cultural appropriation, this is how the long running conflict between Sakemoko , the patron of these characters, roughly 450 points:

Sakemoko is a squire+treasure hunter+ 50pt genin lens
with born warleader 3 ,charisma +2, social regard 2: respected,
(Social stigma minority, code of honor: bushido, sense of duty to
Sahudese,) guild rank 4, status 2 filthy rich
Large ally group of catfolk ninja office:master of funerals,
He also has several points in independent income based on
His involvement in numerous side businesses

and Akira Aku No, his enemy, roughly 500 points

half oni boss, head of rival ninja clan

Brute +treasure hunter+ 50pt wizard lens+ 50pt ninja lens+
 infernal + half ogre, has bloodlust, berserk

Both of these figures had extensive ally groups, each having at their service numerous ashigaru, and rival ninja clans.

The Team consisting of Chye Isuel, an ashigaru with some distant dragonman heritage, Chou-Zen Mou, an elder infused wizard specialized in lightning spells, Ales Konstantin, a Shevnian Squire+Adept, Iskander, a Valdassian martial artist (the player was using mostly 3e to build him), Tanaka Kojimaru, a Samurai warrior poet. Jin the Yak and Airis Moonshadow were no longer with the group.

Along with them were Di San Ge Er Zi the one eyed Ashigaru, and a number of mercenaries they hired away from Akira Aku No’s mercenary recruitment drive  for promises of better pay, the swordsman Xu, and his partner Chung Wang (Thank you Jackie Chan) as with most of my npc’s, I give a super brief stat block pulled usually from DF15 until more details are needed.

Chung Wang is a Brute
St 15 DX 12 IQ 10 Ht 12
Hp 15 per 10 will 10 fp 12
T/s 1d+1/2d+2
Bs 6 mv 6 dodge 9 parry 10
DR 3 torso 5

Skills brawl 13
Two handed sword 14 tetsubo, 2d+4 crushing
Gluttony, overconfident, compulsive carousing, greedy

 

Xu is a Skirmisher
St 11 dx 14 iq 10 ht 11
Hp 11 per 10 will 10 fp 11
T/s 1d-1/1d+1
Bs 7.5 mv 7 dodge 11 parry 12
Dr 3
Combat reflexes, ambidexterous
Extravagant, impulsive, compulsive carousing
Ambitious, suspicious, jealous

Broadsword 16 1d+2 cut
Shortsword 12 1d cut
Karate 12
Fastdraw katana 15
Fastdraw shortsword 15

Light lamelar and helmet with ear and neck protection,
Cheap ornate katana and wakizashi

Having decimated the forces of Akira Aku No on the initial raid to recover the tea set containing a divine being or two, and then by robbing his casino, the oni blooded boss had to resort to hiring mercenaries, including, initially Xu, and Chung Wang and a couple of naginata wielding ashigaru, along with Ale’s enemy, Bresnark, a magic user equipped with Rain of Stones and also accompanied by a Created Brute Warrior, who was defeated and robbed of his mundane gear by Iskander and Tanaka. Bresnark could probably have been taken out, except that he has plot protection as an enemy, and has to be defeated by Ales.

During the assault on Sakemoko’s compound, with rooftop ninja archers and assorted poorly armored mooks attacking the gate, a couple of ninja’s got in ( one disguised as a new ashigaru hireling, who was spotted as odd by Di San Ge er Zi,) and  poisoned the food stores in the kitchen  and then through poison shuriken at the two ashigaru it was hired with. They then led a chase through the complex, cutting holes in shoji paper walls and hiding in the rafters before being cornered in the library, where they were cornered and threatened to burn the place down (Ales stepped in and used Extinguish Fire) They were locked in irons, from which they made an escape, and were eventually hunted down.  Chou-Zen had eliminated another ninja who had been on the roof, by casting grease and causing them to fall into the koi pond in the courtyard. Another one was dispatched after the shoji walls were all collapsed and it had no place to hide. The poisoned Ashigaru were treated by the house physician, Yodoko no Hana, who is based on Ehi Shiina from Audition

Yodoku  no Hana (poisonous  flower)
125pt sage, with Alchemy, poison, physiology first aid, physician,
 herbary and
esoteric medicine, Psychology diagnosis and surgery and detect lies,
but no modular
 book learned wisdom. (Instead, she has the ninja lens)
She has callousness, sadist  and curious and has torture, pressure secrets and
 massage? She is attractive  and immune to poison and has high pain tolerance.
 She makes poisons and potions
That cause sensitivity and reduce will

In the end, Sakemoko siezed a coveted office, MAster of Funerary Services, from Akira Aku No, who had botched things when his barrels of salt packed dead waiting shipping to the homeland were animated by a toxifier demon, and arranged for all of the funerals of the people who had attacked him, and even gave stipends to the families, building him more Social regard.

Akira Aku No appeared a day later with a full procession including dragonmen and musicians, and sued for peace, saying that he was relocating to Little Shevnia for a beaurocratic job, and sold off his remaining interests in Little Sahud to Sakemoko.

From here, the crew will be heading to Veroigne, a region south of Northport where rice is grown for the Sahudese of Northport.

Veroigne developed in the campaign because a new player wanted to play a member of royalty and his husband, captain of his guard. I had little trouble building them, except for the general absence of Social Status in DF, and settled on giving him a couple of levels of Courtesy Rank. The two, both handsome  Chivalrous knights, had a backstory that created some campaign setting. By not accepting an arranged marriage, Baronet James forfeited the barony to his sister Loraine, who had married Marcel Pequenaud, the baron from a neighboring comunity that had serfs, while most of the Veroignese had died during the plague forty years ago, leaving the small barony struggling.  Pequenaud is a horrible ruler, and most of the family retainers loyal to Sir Percival and James have become Robin-Hood like bandits dedicated to protecting the peasantry from the Barons predations. As his soldiers are largely collecting taxes, Several other PC’s from Northport (Kirpich Rockson the Priest of Grom, Syvanus the elven archer/thief/wizard,  Marlena the Seasoned Apprentice and Snorry Rosslovich the Seasoned Guard, all of whom searched for the lost paytrain in the Shevnian Hexcrawl, along with Dionysus the faun swashbuckler, Aethul the ranger, and Balir Ironhide the Dwarf are on their way to hunt the Terrible Beast of Veroigne, which is terrorizing the peasantry.  Along the way they have met a party of Dolmenwood creatures,  a moss dwarf, a woodgrue, a frost elf and a grimalkin, and had little issue with them except for the compulsive playing of the woodgrue, that affected a party member or two, and a fantastic creature, the Stag of Veroigne, which gave Aethul a blessing when he approached it nicely. Killing it would have brought on a curse, which would have intensified if they had eaten it. It would have resurrected itself like Frey’s Goats the next day had they done so.

As to what James and Percival were up to in Northport? Thjey joined up with a pair of warrior /wizards, Sederic and Grimaldi to hunt down the racketeering Connard DuMenteur (Asshole the Liar) who had informed the Guard of Vilgar’s underground fighting operation at the very start of the campaign, back in August of 2013.  Connard had a fortified building with all access to the undercity cut off, so as to prevent an attack from below.  Among his personal crew of kneecappers and fingertakers who collected money for him were five brutes (including Lourdad and Chienne LaChatte, a gigantic elder infused brute that collected fingers as trophies.

After bashing through the brutes, one surrendered (Lourdad) and they went after DuMenteur. He had holed up in his Magelocked lower appartment, and had time to load up on paut, and  set up a trap. He opened a secret door that lead into an L-shaped closet, and hid in an alcove behind an arras, and waited for them to break in the door. They had been using sense foes earlier, but they all blindly ran into the close, and had it Magelocked behind them, and were stuck for an hour. when they got out ( the door was stone, and the knights were in front, unable to squeeze past to attempt to break down the door), Both DuMenteur and Vilgar were waiting for them, having come to a financial arrangement. ( I have a lot of bosses parlaying).  Grimaldi and Sederic of the cursed, dancing sword went on to do some advertising work for the underground tavern, standing watch while some laborers nailed signs.

 

Another group, the one that had negotiated a truce with the ogres in the winecellars and are travelling with a four-armed demon hunting celestial descended from a servitor of Kali had tracked down a couple of cultists who were on their way to buy cuttlefish. The cultists of Saturnos the Devourerer have an initiation rite in which the supplicant dyes their robes in cuttlefish ink by placing it in a barrel with them and agitating the squiddos by drowning a cat. This leads to the typical markings of the cultists, blackened hands and scratches all over their faces.  Typically, they are led into what they think is a sex cult with offers of carnal relations with succubi and incubi, and up until now, the assorted groups of PC’s had thought they were dealing with a demon cult, especially due to all of the petty demons and Demons of Old that they had faced. They were forgetting about the Demons from Between the Stars… As it was discovered by this group, which included Oly the thief, who had funded the paytrain Hexcrawl with loot from fighting the cult when Ludlow the Munificent  accidentally blocked their ceremony and created a gate to Hell, Mancini the Guild agent (Agent+Treasure Hunter) and his guard ally Norman, Aoife the Leprechaun Druid who was on the mission to negotiate with the Trolls and entered the Library of Flax, Ardenas Barehand, who had been involved with Oly  in stealing the Jugga Trophy from the Orcish Dojo, along with Kalima, they discovered what the cultists were really about.

 

Note: Kalima has been edited with info from DF20 Slayers

Kalima - 300 pt celestial avatar of Kali

Att 80
Adv 149
Dis -50
Q-5
Sk 44
Sp  32
Total: 250

Attributes: ST 15 [0]; DX 12 [20]; IQ 13 [60]; HT 13 [10].
 Damage 1d+1/2d+1; BL 39 lbs.;
HP 15 [0]; Will 14 [0]; Per 13 [0]; FP 14 [0];
Basic Speed 7.00 [-10]; Basic Move 7 [0].

Advantages:
Celestial [75]
 (ST+1, dx+1,iq+1, ht+1, will+1, fp+1, bs +.5, attractive ,
  fit, spirit empathy, celestal nimbus,divine gifts,
  Divine curse (preferred enemy of demons) weakness to evil areas)
Half Ogre [20]
 ST+4 [40]; IQ-1 [-20]; HT+1 [10].
 Advantages: Damage Resistance 1 (Tough Skin, -40%) [3]; Fearlessness 1 [2];
 Night Vision 3 [3]. Disadvantages:Appearance (Ugly) [-8];
 Social Stigma (Savage)
2 extra arms [20]
Higher Purpose, Slay Demons [5]
Sharp Teeth [5]
power Investiture 2 [20]
signature gear, spear [3]
Charms [5]
Vampiric bite [30]
Blessed Touch [1]
Demon Sniffer [10]
Hell Vision [15]


Dis:
Unattractive [0]
Honesty [-10]
Pacifism, Cannot harm Innocents [-10]
Sense of Duty [-5 ](Adventuring Companions)
selfless [-5]
Bloodlust [-10]
Bad Temper [-10]


Unnatural Features 3, (3rd eye, Black glossy skin, flame red hair)
Q usually wears only silk loincloth, coral bracelets and anklets,
 marigold wreath, likes to dance


Charms
Aura
Invisibility
Turn Spirit
Final Rest
Eviscerate

Skills:
Brawling 8 15
Wrestling 4 13+2
Spear 12 15
Garrotte 4 13

Theology 2 12
Thanatology 2 12
Hidden Lore, Demons 4 14
Meditation 2 12

Intimidation 1 15
Detect Lies 1 11
Diplomacy 1 11

Stealth 1 12
Observation 1 12
Dance 1 12

Spells:
Protection from Evil 4 15
Invisibility 4 15
Final Rest 4 15
Aura 4 15
Turn Spirit 4 15
Eviscerate VH 8 15


Equipment: Spear Pussiant +1 vs Demons
Currently wearing a bolt of reddish linen as a sari.

When they followed the cuttlefish seekers back to their lair, finding their signature trap, Evil Runes that drain FP,  and stealthily took them and a couple petty demons out, they found a large crowd of cultists about to sacrifice a demon of old! the demon, along with some petty demons participating in the ceremony, immediately attacked Kalima, a favored enemy. The feeling was mutual, and she drained health on a couple, like her ancestor, and the demon ripped free of his silvered chains and flew up to attack her (he had berserk). She killed him by eviscerating him and eating his heart.  Unfortunately for the PC’s all of the deaths (and there were many) enhanced the ceremony in progress, the summoning of an Elder Servitor.  It took a lot, including Ardenas using Winged Knife on the cult champion’s silvered greatsword to kill the servitor but they did. The cultists of the Devourerer, who started the campaign by killing everyone who had the spell divination or any kind of oracular ability, are Cultists of the Elder Gods!

This was noticed by the Ymid, with his Sense Weird ability, but he was two bothered by the destruction of his skiff ( a nifty little contragravity craft he had parked on the other side of the Bone Gate) by a Bhole passing through the gate. Yaay there is now a super Dire Rot worm  somewhere in the dungeon (pencilling in a purple worm encounter). The Juniors group will be fetching alchemical components for the repair of the skiff. Additionally, they have just acquired some cultists of their own; some serfs fleeing Veroigne who were met on the road by thatr gorup, who are all worshipers of Vejovis, the roman defender of injustice, worshiped by Nodwin, the Initiate travelling with the Juniors group.

Now for some art updates:

 

 

These two are going to be in Gabor Lux‘s Echoes from Fomalhaut 5.

I am also working on a bundle of Dungeon entrances:

 

 

Links coming soon when I get a few more drawn.

In the meantime: Support my Patreon!

Buy my Stuff!

I am an affiliate of Drivethru, all of those links are affiliate links, except for the SJ Games stuff that goes to their website.

 

Also, I just won a contest on another blog. I should run one here… It is a great blog, Geek Girls Rule. I have two at home, I know it to be true.

Session Play Report for Manhattan Minicon Beneath the Fallen Tower using 75pt GURPS Dungeon Fantasy

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

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I had originally intended to run a second session, using leveled up 125 pt versions of the pregens – get that here

 

 

Crypts of Doom and recent play of low level GURPS DF

I just got these (minus the paint, and the Crypt of the Sorcerer box. These Heritage Dungeon Dwellers Paint ‘n’Play sets were where I started back in 1979, although I only had the Crypt of tne Sorcerer and the Level 2 Monsters and Treasures assortment. Due to lead content and small children in my house, and a fifteen year hiatus from D&D, and a lack of ability to keep up my storage unit, all of my minis and 1e books went to a friend, and I fear they were all lost forever when he and his wife divorced. Things happen, and my midlife gaming is nostalgic driven for the abe of wonder when I was reading Lieber and Moorcock and painting minis without an actual gaming group. These were my grail to acquire, and I will be paying for it for some time to come (Nostalgic ain’t cheap). Some unboxing/ painting pists should be forthcoming in the months ahead.

I also got to run Beneath the Fallen Tower using 75pt GURPS Dungeon Fantasy characters as originally intended. No casualties, lots of scrounging, search, diplomacy, and lore rolls! Slaughter of centipedes and wolves, some goblins, and effective double teaming of Mass Sleep and lend energy. More to follow!