Fantasy

Palantir Quest (1994): look at those ballz (review part IV)

David Skelector Fantasy, jeux de rôles, Lord of the Rings, middle-earth, review, Roleplaying Game, RPG

We’re now covering chapters seven, eight and nine of the adventure. With the first two doing all the wrong things in a rpg book and with the latter being actually interesting.

Part I

Part II

Part III

The adventurers have found the locate spell in the Royal Library of Annuminas and upon reading it, they get a strange vision whereas one player get to make a bunch of rolls, of course, and then learn three things:

  • There’s in fact two palantiri to be found!
  • They’re in a cave near a rocky shore.
  • Somewhere in the Bay of Forochel in the North.

The Plot Must Go On

Now they must get back to Tharbad as instructed. Commander Cilis requisition a boat, a crew and twenty fighting men to go with them. Before they can leave though, their boat will be the target of sabotage. The player characters can try to pursue the arsonists but as written they’re just impossible to catch. However, a Medium perception roll reveals a document detailing the plan for sabotage and written on a concert program coming from the Juggler’s Hall. Hilariously, if the PCs failed to get this clue they’ll automatically find: « Three, round, wooden balls uncomsumed by the fire also serve as a clue (they are juggling balls) […] ». Just to be sure that the players make the connection (or more likely, shrug it off).

And that was the whole of chapter 7, showing the players that they do indeed have opponents, the kind that bring their juggling balls everywhere they go, whatever they do.

« The Evenstar leaves Tharbad with sailors still repairing the fire damage resulting from the efforts of the saboteurs. »

After 12 days and a check on the seasickness table, the boat is now on the open sea north of Forlindon and gets caught in a tempest. The Evenstar manages to take shelter on a natural bay of the Isle of Himring. Why don’t the PCs go explore a bit while the crew make the necessary repairs?

On top of the steep cliffs lie the remnants of the fortress of Himring, which has an impressive backstory (taken from the silmarillion) as it was built in the First Age by the Noldo Elf Maedhros, the eldest son of Fëanor (and almost a demi-god really), as part of the defences against Morgoth. The structure, originally 900′ feet tall, is almost erased aboveground and what the PCs get to explore is that:

So, hmm yeah, a bit underwhelming isn’t it?

This is chapter 8.2.1 and it’s rightly titled « Digression on the Isle of Himring ». This « digression » it must be said is haunted by the 60th level (!) ghost of Uldor the Accursed, a First Age man who sided with Morgoth and is paying in his afterlife for his bad life choices. This Uber-ghost does have a stat block provided and, unsurprisingly, he’s a beast with 145 hit points, a +205 scimitar attack , +55 defensive bonus and can only be harmed by Elven made weapons, hugely outclassing the adventurers. Except that he’s been nerfed, his sword attack does no damage but inflicts a 1-5 temporary constitution loss (don’t forget that it’s Rolemaster, a character has most likely 60+ constitution) on the target. They still have to harm him with an Elven weapon though but serendipitously, this 7’8 » dude Maedhros has left his 12′ practice 2-hands sword there to be picked up millennia later. A very unwieldy weapon to be sure, even for a super strong character, so what we’ll be getting I think, is the most inefficient duel of all time. Just picture this ghostly warrior howling in frustration with his sword going through his adversary without apparent effect and his opponent just having a hard time swinging his final fantasy weapon around…

That resolved, there’s many other very strong magic weapons and other precious items to be found in fact, if the adventurers get part the locked doors on each side and get their hands on them.

Hmm, a totally uncharacteristic amount of treasure, including magic items, in one haul. Something fishy going on?

Leaving the Isle of Himring behind, there’s a few more days of travel before arriving at the Ice Bay of Forochel. The read-aloud says that the bay is a full 100 miles long and the plan is simply to follow the shoreline until there’s something worth investigating.

Which happens a few hours later, the PC who read the locate spell and received its vision recognizes the headland. It’s the spot!

They enter a cave:

The adventurers found the palantiri! Hurray!

And then they get screwed BIG TIME.

Because you see the bad guys are already there, hidden. Remember the guy with the disturbing laughter from the Juggler’s Hall? His name is Vacros and he’s here with 60 men, his damaged ship now sunk and the plan is to capture the PCs’ ship and leave with the palantiri…

« The GM is warned that Vacros’ success is crucial to the plot of the campaign: the ruffian should obtain both Stones and leave the PCs stranded in the Ice Bay. This does not mean that a fair fight won’t ensue, merely that Vacros must win. »

So a rigged but fair fight. Huh huh.

There’s nothing the PCs can do.Their boat is gone. Their equipment is gone and bye bye the cool stuff you just found like an hour ago.

Okay this is like all the worst sins a GM can do combined into that last scene but at least the coming chapter is interesting.

It’s about surviving.

And making allies of distrustful locals. Fighting dangerous beasts. Exploring lairs. Making a deal with a dragon.

All very nice.

And a somewhat restored agency to the players. Of course, the chapter is only nine pages long, it could have benefitted from being a bit more meaty.

Which way will you go?

Next, we’ll witness a wild goose chase going all over the place because clearly 3000 miles is not enough for an epic adventure. And then I might have some suggestions on how I would do things with the more interesting concepts of Palantir Quest.

Palantir Quest (1994) – dungeon à la sauce Rolemaster (review part III)

David Skelector Fantasy, jeux de rôles, Lord of the Rings, middle-earth, review, Roleplaying Game, RPG

I’ll be dividing my review of Palantir Quest in something like 7-8 parts I’m thinking. Yeah I’ll be quite thorough with this one, I’m not exactly sure why I feel the need to do so to be honest. On the one hand I don’t think there’s ANY real review of this product that exists at the moment. On the other hand I would be really surprised if someone was waiting for it at all. So that’s one of these things, just for the heck of it…

Part 1

Part II

We’ll now be examining the content of chapter five and six of the book. The player characters are leaving behind the kingdom of Rohan and should reach the reconstructing city of Tharbad into the Eriador region after a journey of about seven days.

There’s one fixed event on the road whereas the PCs have the opportunity to save a wounded Eriadorian guy and defeat some hostile nameless Dunlendings. In similar fashion to the earlier chapter, the rescued NPC will ask if he can be escorted to the next point on our map, in this case the town of Larach Duhnan. There, the PCs will have to take the soul-rending decision of which of two inns will they sleep in for the night. As there’s nothing to do (and no npc roster), I suppose the Game Master will encourage the PCs to leave asap and get to Tharbad not that far away.

Maybe it’s time to address somewhat of a big flaw of the book: there’s no side–quests hooks anywhere to be found to go along each chapter’s background history, truly excellent maps with keyed locations, nice buildings layouts and a « People of Note » section. Of course a GM worth its salt can add his own but it’s still a glaring omission.

Then, the player characters reach Tharbad and, as they were told to do so by the Royal Seer back in Minas Tirith, meet Commander Cilis in the restored Royal House. The latter expresses his doubts that there’s any books left in the library, he has seen it a few years ago and it is « no more than a moss-covered ruin ». They also meet Chief-Engineer Hearon who brings them on a tour of Tharbad and we get: « this is a good opportunity for the GM to adlib some meetings with the multi-cultural work force enjoying a well-earned drink in the cool evening air. » Nothing else from these two NPCs, not even a if you happen to find a… or a be on the lookout for… You know, something signaling opportunities, danger, anything!

I’ll note that Tharbad, with a bit of work, would make a very interesting homebase for adventurers as it should have a central role to a resurging kingdom of Arnor (northern Eriador) with its strategic location and afflux of newcomers.

So after after this talk with two NPCs and a rest at the Royal House, the adventurers will leave Tharbad behind and go further north.

Fortunately things will get more eventful in this next chapter.

It takes about 10 days from Tharbad to reach Annuminas, with a stop in-between at the town of Bree. But before reaching Bree: « The air is oppressive. You notice standing stones and strange monoliths littering the downs to the west. Strange, unnatural hillocks deform these western ridges. As you contemplate the scenery, a small figure runs across the hills waving its arms frantically and shouting in a high-pithced voice. »

The player characters have the opportunity to save the hobbit’s friend who was foolish enough to enter a barrow (as in Barrow-downs) – as a great pastiche from The Fellowship of the Ring (the book, it’s absent from the movie). The barrow, Lord Ravenor’s tomb, is a small eight-keys dungeon. There’s two wights within in one corner of the dungeon performing their morbid ceremony on the poor unconscious hobbit. There’s some treasure to be gained too: a few pieces of jewelry, gold coins, a nice magic ring (not powerful but useful) and some magic arrows.

Serviceable and, like I said, a nice pastiche.

After that, the PCs arrive in Bree. It is assumed that they relax a bit at the Prancing Pony, of course, I mean why not, and then continue on their way.

Top-notch art, as Middle Earth/ I.C.E. products were known for.

And now in Annuminas.

The city is completely in ruins, has been for centuries. The map (below) provides us with 10 keys but except for one (the Royal Library), they’re only for ambiance (i.e. « King’s Star Tower. A half-ring of stone remains from the royal observatory. It provides a sheltered camp site. »). There’s no encounters table provided either, though I suppose one could use the Old Arthedain‘s table of the Roadside and Wilderness Encounters found with the others at the end of the book.

Annuminas is not completly empty as there’s a family of seven trolls (3 males, 2 females, 2 youngsters) having a camp, guess where? Right at the PCs’ objective: the Royal Library! But I’m not really complaining, players must have challenges to overcome after all. The trolls would be quite dangerous to fight without a solid plan, probably impossible to beat in a fair fight in fact. Which is fine by me.

The trolls dealt with in some way or the other, the adventurers are free to explore the Royal Library. There’s not much aboveground anymore, a building with half of its walls ruined, but stairwells lead underground. An undergound library? That’s a terrible, terrible idea for books conservation! But, er, yes, maybe there’s some magic involved, let’s not delve on that too much.

« The most valued records and documents were removed from their ordered resting places to occupy the largely vacant shelves of the buried lowest floor of the library. Hasty but deadly traps were contrived and armed to protect the wealth so carelessly assembled. Then the last, brave, hopeless men turned to fight and fall to the hordes of the Witch-King. »

The Royal Library is a single Level dungeon with 29 keys, the only « real » dungeon of the adventure, such as it is.

(Side note: Not surprising, dungeon-crawling isn’t a primary feature of the I.C.E./MERP books. There is certainly some to be found of course and you know, there’s this little thing called the Moria fortress in the series. I guess you could also include Dol Guldur, Mount Gundabad and Angmar. Well, it’s more like stealth missions than dungeon-crawling as a real assault on either of those places would be suicidal even with high-level PCs.)

So, the closest thing to a dungeon in a MERP book let’s say. Let’s take a brief look at it.

Now the first thing that strikes me is that it doesn’t look like an underground complex at all. Yeah I know we must be lenient with dungeon architecture but this isn’t what I mean. The room at the center that you reach with either stairs is the Central Dome. Now, height isn’t mentionned anywhere for any locations so maybe there’s enough space for a dome. But way more revealing are rooms 5 and 7, East Garden and West Garden (which are in fact North and South on the plan, oops): « broken glass allows the filtered rays of the sun », « Prolific greenery has overflowed », « A reflecting pool filled with rainwater, sketchily mirrors the green splendor surrounding it. » This seems obvious to me, this is a refurbished dungeon (not the first time I see this), for an aboveground structure and the authors didn’t changed everything (or much?) from its original purpose.

With that out of the way, lets get back to the entrance.

The two stairs are both on the verge of collapsing and won’t support the weight of more than three men at a time. The way the Rolemaster system works, it’s odd but this is considered a trap and you have to detect it (Very Hard -20 and Extremely hard -30 for the other staircase) and somehow you can disarm it (?) (Sheer Folly -50 in both cases). One of the two staircase has also a (+10) fireball trap set off by the mere presence of intruders. That’s weird design. Shouldn’t the PCs just see that the staircases are damaged and take precautions if they wish so? Even more problematic is that there’s no way to know about the fireball trap – any dungeon designer worth his salt will give some realistic hints – a visible rune, some traces of burning or an incinerated badger maybe? Something to induce players agency you know.

So, a roll for this, roll for that unfortunate tendency I’d say.

But the PCs are now inside (and a bit crisped if they chose the wrong stairs). They already have the Royal Library’s master key from the start of the adventure, convenient as almost all the doors are at least « Extremely Hard -30 » to lockpick or will set off a spell if forced open. They have to find a specific book within the library with 20 out of 29 rooms having books in them. The objective is like sixty feet away from the entrance but the PCs will have to search randomly room by room, or maybe they have the right Seer spell available and will find the right room and the book in like 5 minutes, that’s a possibility. If not, what they have to contend with is mostly a handful of animated statues and hostile spells at almost every door. There’s also a 10% chance per hour of a ghost of one of the deceased librarian to appear and simply attack the PCs.

The books they’ll be finding everywhere are mostly abstracted (this section has lore on beasts, this one on astrology and so on) except for a few canonical ones (i.e. the silmarillion). No value is given to any books and nothing else can be found in the vicinity. Well, this isn’t a gold for xp game but still, unfun.

I’d say overall, the dungeon has good texture (rooms descriptions are nice if impractical), but it’s severely lacking in interactivty.

To be blunt, I don’t think this dungeon is worth it as is nor is the work of adapting it to one’s campaign unfortunately.

Adventure-wise, we have reached the next milestone, the PCs have obtained the spell to locate the palantir and will be sent to retrieve it.

Coming up, after a digression or two, we’ll see the adventurers become arctic explorers!

Part IV

A glimpse of Tower Dungeon 2

David Skelector Books, Fantasy, manga, megadungeon

Book 1

Just a glimpse, as advertised and focusing on the dungeon.

The trio of adventurers have to go up all the way to Level 100 of the Dragon Tower, which by the way is still very low on this oversized megadungeon.

They found a way to Level 15 but it’s blocked by two of these dangerous guardians, better seek another way.
Navigating this confusing Level isn’t easy.
But with careful mapping…
That didn’t worked that well.
Fortunately, diplomacy can go a long way with some of the Tower’s denizens.
And with their help they get to a spiral staircase that go all the way to Level 80! That’s a massive find!
But it’s never that easy in dungeon exploration…

Book 3

Palantir Quest (1994) – players are actors (review part II)

David Skelector Fantasy, jeux de rôles, Lord of the Rings, middle-earth, review, Roleplaying Game, RPG

Just to be clear, I’ve never ran this adventure (nor played in it).This is a 3 decades late, external look at it we might say.

Part I

At page 14, after having informed the Game Master of relevant background information, the adventure begins with… extremely long read-alouds.

Well-written mind you, interesting for a true Tolkien aficionado perhaps, but boy if my mind would drift away as a player if I was read all this by someone!

But notice, between two grey boxes, a first challenge for the player characters! On how to deal with a « ten-foot portion » of muddy road. Yeah, well, small beginnings and all that…

Railroading into Middle-Earth’s 4th Age

(Side note: There’s a big hint on how the adventure will present itself on chapter 1.0 Guidelines: « Fantasy role playing (FRP) is akin to a living novel where the players are the main characters. Everyone combines to create a story which is never short of adventure. They help forge a new land and strange new tales in which the characters are forever immortalized. » (bold emphasis is mine)

After their mission briefing by the Royal Seer, the Player Characters (PCs) are ready to leave Minas Tirith.

The utlimate goal is to retrieve the lost palantir but in order to do that they first have to reach the Royal Library in ruined Annuminas in the north, to find a tome of spells that will help pinpoint its location. First stop is in Rohan in a place called The Juggler’s Hall.

It takes 10 days of travel to get there and somewhere in the middle we get this fixed event: upon arriving at the Inn of Greys the PCs see that it’s being attacked by bandits and the adventure just assumes that the PCs will intervene (and to be fair, why wouldn’t they?). Upon defeating the bandits the PCs meet Turibor the minstrel who’ll ask if he can accompany them on their journey north. This guy is a key NPC, I mean key as in unlocking another scene kind of thing. He’s the one who will bring the PCs to the Juggler’s Hall and if you had players that were expecting to go to Edoras and meet rohirrim riders they’d better forget about it, aside from taking new horses nothing happens in Edoras. No, instead you get the Thespian Intrigue in the Juggler’s Hall, involving the PCs in a theatre play (about the kin-strife that happened in Gondor, again. not really a nice fit for Rohan). The leader of the Wandering Conscience Company will offer 10 silver pieces and a choice of nice clothes to each character, for participating (acting) and help guard against sabotage from a rival company.

I’ll add that the Juggler’s Hall is oddly, really in the middle of nowhere, but it’s also a base for smuggling operations so there’s that. Talking of smuggling, there’s a bit of foreshadowing in this chapter as it’s mandatory that the PCs witness two NPCs shaking hands in « business-like fashion ». One of these NPC « may draw attention to himself by way of his disturbing laugh ». BUT: « However the PCs should be given no grounds to become suspicious of him ». Well, good luck with that Game Master! Hey players, here’s this fixed scene involving two shady NPCs, one has this disturbing way of laughing, y’know like a cartoon villain would laugh just sayin’, but don’t be suspicious! No no no, no reason at all!

And then the Thespian Intrigue.

The play itself is nicely conceived I’ll say, with a nice plot as mentionned taken from the kin-strife period (a Cromwell-like usurper gets hold of power in Gondor) and plenty of stuff happening (including a real knife stab (instead of a fake one) that the PC victim should try its best to go along with so that the play isn’t disrupted!). Of course the whole thing is nonsensical and out of place (irrelevant to the mission) but I’m pretty sure it could be great fun for the players. The Game Master though, in true Rolemaster fashion, has the cumbersome job to evaluate which + and – to use in the provided chart and get the results for the « Audience Appreciation Level » (AAL): « Having totalled the appropriate modifiers, the actor should roll on the appropriate column. The result is the number to which the GM must roll equal or less than in order for the AAL to increase by 5. If the GM rolls over the number, the AAl decreases by 5. At any time, an AAL of 0 means that the audience boos the company off the stage and leaves, while an AAL of 100 means that the audience immediately rushes the stage in a frenzy of hero worship and adulation. If the play end naturally, then the AAL should be added to an open-ended roll on the Hard column of the maneuver table, and the result is the number which the GM needs to roll under in order for the critics to like the play. »

Phew. I wonder why Rolemaster isn’t a popular system anymore!

Anyway, the PCs can get a substantial bonus reward (or not) depending on how well the play went and also experience points based on what happened so far or « as we recommend, he or she may just award points in a subjective fashion corresponding to how well the players are able to cope with the stress of being onstage ». How well the players cope with the stress of being onstage. Wow, that’s a weird thing to say. I thought the players were like, around a table with pens & papers & dice, not onstage.

This concludes this chapter, a weird one for sure. Next the PCs will leave to continue their journey to Tharbad, en route to the ruined city of Annuminas where they will get to explore a dungeon! Yay!

Part III

Frosthaven – Frozen Treasure (90)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Play reports

Satha, Math’s character has the personal quest of destroying a number of undead monsters whilst using the Axe of the Abyss to do so. The axe is a « spent » item, meaning that a long rest is necessary in order to use it again. So this is one of these funny situation where in order to achieve a game goal you have to completely forego verisimilitude (i.e. resting abnormally often) to be efficient about it…

Characters

  • Zam Boni the Frozen Fist (David) lvl 5, big dude but very graceful on ice
  • Satha the Mayor of Frosthaven (Math) lvl 4, taking matters into her own hands
  • Hail the Irritable Enchanter (Guillaume) lvl 4, will she get irritated enough to care?

We’ll be fighting on 4 different icebergs that often join together (as determined by a random counter). Unfortunately for my character who gets all kinds of benefits from ice, there’s oddly no ice tiles on these icebergs.

This is a straighforward kill them all scenario, except that the frozen corpses are not mandatory to kill but give good money if we do.

Closing comments:

  • Easy scenario, fun, a bit too constrained though (no shooting across or teleporting to another area). We’ve stretched it in order for Math to achieve his PQ. And he did, yet another new character next time!
  • We could afford to kill all the frozen corpses and thus earned good money.
  • Satha was a flexible and useful character, she’ll be missed.

Palantir Quest (1994) – tunnel vision (review part I)

David Skelector Fantasy, jeux de rôles, Lord of the Rings, middle-earth, review, Roleplaying Game, RPG

I’ve been rummaging through my collection of (twenty-something) I.C.E. middle-earth books lately. I could get good money for them – last time I checked Palantir Quest in particular was on sale for 175 usd on ebay despite being in terrible condition (mine isn’t much better!). But y’know, I’m quite sentimental about these, they are the first rpgs books I’ve bought, some thirty years ago, at age fourteen-fifteen with my hard-earned money as a field hand at the time.

So, no selling.

Paid for in sweat and sore knees.

Palantir Quest is in fact an unusual one among this collection as being one of the rare Adventures book along with Kin-Strife, as well as several much slimmer adventures compilations. All the others in the line are sourcebooks, as far as I know. Incredibly detailed and well-researched sourcebooks I must add in case you haven’t heard of them, something that doesn’t exist anymore in rpgs I think, that required an entire team of dedicated people to do. Something to be nostalgic about no doubt. Keep that in mind if you please, because I’ll be a bit harsh with this one: I.C.E’s sourcebooks were absolutely great.

But back to our current subject.

From the book’s back cover: « Strange portents in the great Seeing-stone of Minas Tirith give promise that one of the lost palantiri of the North has returned to the lands of Men. Can the adventurers find this legendary treasure and bring it to King Elessar? Rogues of the wilds, blizzards out of the Forodwaith, and the greed in Men’s hearts all conspire against them. »

Adventuring into Middle-Earth’s 4th Age

The premise is quite interesting, unlike most of what has been published by I.C.E. this adventure takes place some years AFTER the events of the Lord of the Rings. Sauron has been permanently defeated, what remains of his forces has been scattered away and Aragorn, as the ruler of both Gondor and Arnor is now known as King Elessar. This is the begininng of a new era, the 4th Age of Middle-Earth, and what better news to go with this time of triumphant joy than the resurfacing of a long-lost palantir that could help unite both halves, North and South, of this new victorious kingdom?

Elon: « Imagine holding this super heavy bowling ball in your hands, straining your mind in a superhuman effort, and talk to ONE other person in the world … »

Yes, thank you Elon, very impressive.

But you need two palantiri to do that.

Aragorn/King Elessar has the one from Orthanc of course and the one that Sauron had has been destroyed (or is lost, buried under the ruins of Barad-Dur presumably) and Minas Tirith’s palantir (this book says) has been unfortunately imprinted by Denethor’s last moments of agony (a rather unpleasant sight to behold), this is why finding this other palantir would be incredibly useful.

Enter the PCs.

(Side note: Suggested starting level is 4, the PCs are presumed to have some prior accomplishments. There’s also a provided list of pre-made characters as well as suggested eventual replacement, one for each chapter.)

They’ve been convoked to Minas Tirith by NPC Tarquillan, the venerable Royal Seer, to do the king’s bidding and find the lost palantir of the North. Or not exactly that way – they’re told that a spell from a tome called « A Treatise on Subtle Magika » has been discovered to exist and (much faith has been put into that it seems) it could be used to locate the palantir that has only been glimpsed at. (a written spell? a bit peculiar to me thematically speaking but okay, let’s get on with it). The most likely location of the tome is in the Royal Library of the ruined city of Annuminas.

Unbeknownst to the PCs and their employer, Taladhan, a powerful evil magician no one has ever heard of (he apparently hasn’t got the memo that evil has been defeated) who’s scheming from his hideout in faraway Greenwood, knows everything about the plan to recover the palantir because the Royal Seer’s assistant in fact spies for him. Very astute of him to have put a spy there I must say, just in case there would specifically be news from a resurfacing palantir. But anyway.

Thus begins one of the most Tangential Fetch Quest in the history of RPGs. Probably.

Palantir Quest – Contents:

  • 1.0 Guidelines
  • 2.0 Introduction
  • 3.0 Minas Tirith
  • 4.0 The Juggler’s Hall
  • 5.0 Tharbad
  • 6.0 The Royal Library of Old Arnor
  • 7.0 The Docks of Tharbad
  • 8.0 The Ice Bay of Forochel
  • 9.0 Return to Civilization
  • 10.0 Return to the Riddlemark
  • 11.0 Search in the Wold
  • 12.0 The Fourth Tier
  • 13.0 Lake-Town
  • 14.0 Into the Forest
  • 15.0 Return to the King
  • 16.0 Master Tables
  • 17.0 MERP/Rolemaster Tables
  • 18.0 LOR Tables

Part II

Frosthaven – The Lady in White (86)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

Math, with his new character, has the personal quest of slaying a bunch of different undead monsters using his Axe of the Abyss. So here we are, with an optional scenario that got Ice Wraiths in it, among other things.

Characters

  • Zam Boni the Frozen Fist (David) lvl 4, big dude but very graceful on ice
  • Satha the Mayor of Frosthaven (Math) lvl 4, taking matters into her own hands
  • Hail the Irritable Enchanter (Guillaume) lvl 4, will she get irritated enough to care?

We have to kill the Lady in White, an evil spirit that hides in the forest. This a simple destroy the objectives (three trees) scenario with a mini boss at the end. There’s one complication though – each time a tree is hit and not destroyed right away, they spawn a black imp.

Satha wants the Ice Wraith for herself. It’s okay, there’s plenty of those pesky Black Imps to kill for Hail and Zam.
We’ve surrounded this big bag of hit points, an Earth Demon.
Let’s smash down this evil tree.
Further in the forest, there’s still work to do.
Where’s the Lady in White?
She has nowhere to hide now!
Satha is having a hard time in a duel againt an elite Earth Demon. Let’s switch places…
This is Victory!

Closing Comments:

  • A real slog of a scenario, it took a long time to kill the monsters (not mandatory, to be fair), the trees and the mini boss one after the other.
  • I coulnd’t do Brittle on the objectives/trees as per the rules, that cut a big part of my game right there. Annoying.
  • Hail, as a low stamina character, has it relatively easy with two tanky companions to protect her at all time. She could even afford to exhaust near the end of the scenario.

Gunderholfen – Repelled by the orcs, again (session 20)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Gunderholfen, jeux de rôles, megadungeon, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

Short session with one big fight taking a big chunk of it. Very dangerous situation that they got themselves into and the PCs had to flee again.

1h30

Gunderholfen by G. Hawkins: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/265629/gunderholfen

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, he likes his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
  • Grimoire, Goblin Mage, frail but smart (Isaac)
  • Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
  • Torch, Goblin Knight, not expendable anymore (Edmond)

This session’s main goal: finish the orcs

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: training in Longfelt
  • The Protectors: adventuring, left Longfelt for Gunderholfen
  • Black Axes: adventuring, try to find a tower in Ganfal swamp
  • The Musers: adventuring, left Longfelt but kept quiet on their objective

Gunderholfen – Level 4A – Great Altar Cave

  • The Battle Brothers have just killed the 10 orc archers that were guarding the entrance of the Great Altar Cave but now they hear many more orcs coming from around the corner to the north west. Two orcs with heavy crossbows come first, one shooting at Forka but the crossbow bolt bounces off his armor, and the other misses Torch. Two other crossbowmen run across the nearby rope-bridge in order to have a good shooting angle.
  • Aracyne makes a risky leap to the eastern cliff and manages to climb up to get atop the promontory. He quickly takes his bow and kill one crossbowman with two arrows (twin shot). The other plunges to his death after Grimoire attacks him with a Mental Strike (telekinetic push).
  • But more orcs move to attack the outnumbered adventurers, five brandishing falchions and five with spears attacking from behind, all wearing chainmail. Forka attacked one with his two-hands hammer, killing him with a massive blow but then the spearmen jab him several times and wound him badly. Jedri jumps into action with sword and light flail and kill an orc with two well-aimed blows.
  • Fearing for his life, Forka shove the falchion-wielding orc in front of him, sending him crashing into the back rank, and he gets out of his near-encirclement. Torch takes care to guard Forka’s flank and stab an orc with his spear, hurting him lightly. Jedri manages to dodge several attacks coming his way.
  • Aracyne does an headshot (crit) to an orc spearman, killing him instantly. A crossbowman aims at the goblin mage and hits him, inflicting a severe wound (1 hp remaining!), the other aims at Aracyne but the elf manages to dodge the incoming bolt. Forka kills another falchion-wielder. Grimoire avenges himself with another Mental Strike, pushing the two crossbowmen off the promontory to their deaths.
  • The adventurers have now the upper hand as they manage to kill several other orcs but they can hear yet more orcs coming from the same direction and only Aracyne is unscathed among them. Torch is okayish but Grimoire and Forka are both severely wounded, Jedri only lightly but is exhausted (no more willpower pts, can’t fuel his heroic abilities anymore). Grimoire does a Levitate on Torch to bring him on his side of the cave, at the entrance beyond the cliff. Forka and Jedri jump over there. A bigger group of orcs is now in sight with its bardiche-armed chieftain in the middle. Several orcs throw spears at the retreating adventurers but none hit their targets.
  • The Battle Brothers run to the west to go directly at their outpost. The orcs have no way to follow quickly and press their advantage.
  • En route, Jedri is attacked by a Giant Cave Lizard coming from the south but he slays it efficiently with his two weapons.
  • They reach their outpost and barricade themselves so they can rest safely. Not long after, they can hear some orcs looking for them close by, probably checking. the stairs to Level 3. The orcs still doesn’t seem to know that the PCs have taken over the Ogres’ den (and aren’t eager to inspect the place as they had been enemies).
  • Five hours later they hear a knock on the door, its Bayard’s guild, the Protectors! Aracyne asks if the allied guild would be so kind as to offer healing and Bayard answers that it wouldn’t be free: how about 80 gp, the amount that Aracyne once asked to the at the moment hard-pressed Protectors? No deal. But still, the allies are glad to see each other.

Closing Comments:

  • The PCs had decimated the orc archers with ease the previous session but now it was a very, very close fight, with character death looming just a step away. Aracyne and Grimoire were very efficient with arrows and telekinetic pushes respectively but the three melee fighters were in a perilous situation. Good armor and good evade ability have its limits when against 3:1 numerical superiority with a back rank able to reach.
  • The orcs have once again repelled the adventurers but it’s clearly a pyrrhic victory for them, having lost 21 warriors between the two sessions and 6 more if we count the first assault. They still have a decent fighting force but they’ve been weakened for sure, probably enough to warrant a change on how they defend their territory.

A glimpse of Tower Dungeon (manga)

David Skelector Fantasy, manga, megadungeon

I briefly mentionned Blade & Bastard in an earlier post and if you’ve been reading my blog a bit you know I’m a big fan of Ryoko Kui’s Dungeon Meshi (Delicious in Dungeon). Tower Dungeon by Tsutomu Nihei (author of Blame!) would be another one in this rare breed of manga that goes DEEP in the dungeon aspect of fantasy.

Or maybe I should say HIGH, ’cause y’know, it’s a TOWER DUNGEON…

Brought forth from the Heavens by the Big Bad Evil. It’s so colossal that I think oxygen-deprivation should legit be a problem.
The way to access it is via the old decrepit mountain fortress that is conveniently close to its base.
The Tower, Dragon Tower to be more precise, appeared very recently. A makeshift bridge is all there is. Watch you step.
The interior is a proper labyrinth, with nice verticality.
You can bypass some Levels by climbing these rickety stairs outside, which obviously entails its own risk.
The structural integrity of this 18km high, 3 km wide Uber Tower, is far from perfect.
As for its denizens… They’re a close-knit bunch, a bit exclusive of outsiders one might say.
And have seen better days themselves.
What is he saying? Some kind of warning?

I should add that Tower Dungeon is kind of the opposite of something like Blade & Bastard (or most fantasy stuff really) that follows a set of fantasy conventions to a fault. Most things in Tower Dungeon are unique to this original setting as far as I can tell.

Highly recommended!

Gunderholfen – Bad Neighbors (session 19)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Gunderholfen, jeux de rôles, megadungeon, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

Edmond had this idea of acquiring some sort of ballista on wheels and I had to explain the impracticality of it inside a dungeon environment sadly. Could have said yes and he wouldn’t have get past the chasm and rope bridge of Level 1 and crushed his dreams that way…

Short session: 2 hours.

Gunderholfen by G. Hawkins: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/265629/gunderholfen

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, he likes his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
  • Grimoire, Goblin Mage, frail but smart (Isaac)
  • Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
  • Torch, Goblin Knight, not expendable anymore (Edmond)

This session’s main goal: kill the orcs’ first line of defense

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: training in Longfelt
  • The Protectors: exploring Longfelt’s underworks
  • Black Axes: adventuring, try to find a tower in Ganfal swamp
  • The Musers: left Longfelt but kept quiet on their objective

Longfelt

  • The Battle Brothers stay the night at the Hare & Hound Inn. They buy some field rations. Jedri pays to repair his morningstar. Torch would like to buy an oversized crossbow but finds it too expensive. Forca pays some rounds in taverns and listens to rumors: « The Wizard Balfour’s tower is rumoured to hold great treasure. » And: « A group of bandits is operating out of Prickly’s End Forest. They have so far been able to evade the Baron’s forces. Their leader, Uthbarth the Pike, is wanted, dead or alive. »

Ganfal Swamp

  • On their way to Gunderholfen they encounter a group of four hostile Ogres and have to fight them. Forca got hit by a powerful blow and barely stands on his feet but Grimoire heals him back to health after the fight. They find suspicious meat, foul-smelling tobacco, smoking pipes and a few coins but not much else.
  • Closer to the dungeon they spot some broken statues of hobgoblins in awkward poses. The elf hunter can see oversized chicken feet tracks all around. The « statues » are the work of a Basilisk it seems, but fortunately it’s nowhere in sight.

Gunderholfen

  • They make a stop at Fryniwyd’s new shop. They chat a little and buy a vial of paralytic poison extracted very recently from a local cave scorpion.
  • They go down via their usual shortcuts, have reached Level 3 and only have a few rooms to go to the stairs leading to Level 4 but… they can see that the series of doors leading south are all open! That means… Yes, there it is, you can see it, can you? The floating sword! The Gelatinous Cube is upon us! Torch the goblin reacts quickly and burns it with his torch and it seems that fire work amazingly well against it. The Cube counters on Torch, firing a big ball of corrosive slime but most of it didn’t touch the goblin (minimum damage). Forka is reluctant to get close to it, Aracyne let go of two arrows, doing very good damage. Grimoire channels maximum mana into a spell to send 3 Fireballs at once into the Gelatinous Cube and slays the big slime monster! The freed sword clanks on the ground. Jedri takes it, remove the scabard and everyone can see a dim purple light emanating from the blade. There’s writing on it, its name is Perseverance.
  • This done, they go directly to their Level 4 outpost. It hasn’t been disturbed in their absence apparently. They add another barrel of dry meat to their emergency food stash.
  • Thence, they go south and east to reach the great cave inhabited by the orcs. Exactly as the previous time there’s 10 orc archers, 5 sentries on each side of the cave entrance, on higher grounds than the invaders. The orcs act first and fire a volley, no questions asked, inflicting a few wounds on the adventurers but nothing too bad. Grimoire casts Levitate on Forka who lands on the western promontory and immediately kill an archer with a massive hammer blow. Aracyne kill two orcs with arrows. Torch wounds another with a thrown spear, finished by a thrown dagger from Jedri. Now five against six, the adventurers continue the onslaught as Jedri joins Forka with another Levitate, and kills an orc with his new magic sword. Aracyne kills another orc but then his bow almost breaks in two and is damaged. Grimoire the goblin mage is the target of a deadly arrow but he is saved by his fellow goblin companion who takes the hit instead on his armored self, with lesser consequences. The adventurers have the upper hand and finish off the orc archers who chose to fight to their bitter but swift end, their calls for reinforcement not yet answered.
  • The PCs can hear a lot of commotion from further north and west. The orcs are far from defeated.
  • TBC…

Closing comments:

  • The past few years I’ve slowly learned to embrace random tables as a Dungeon Master, having « learned » my trade (if we can say that) in the 90s when it wasn’t a popular thing to do at all. Random encounters are simple enough to use or design, and a staple of dungeon-delving and understandably a main component of OSR gaming. But I’m still trying to improve my homebrewed random tables, specifically for the other adventuring parties’ actions. I could easily decide by myself what they’re up to but that’s not the point. Impartiality is the point. Emergent story is even more the point I should say. Anyway, a work in progress it definitely is.
  • For the Gelatinous Cube I’ve used the statblock of the Giant Amoeba from the DB Bestiary, simply added a camouflage ability. It’s a pretty powerful monster in fact with 64 hp and ferocity 2, but takes double damage from fire, which fortunately the players exploited almost immediately.
  • Isaac had the idea of hiring mining folks to dig a tunnel to reach the orcs from a less unfavorable direction, but he changed his mind after I said it would take at least 10 days of digging, maybe a month, with something like 6 gp per day to pay the crew in salary and food. So it had to be a frontal assault instead. Their characters are better equipped and stronger than last time but the orcs are a lot more numerous than the players suspect.