5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 5 - Undead unleashed!

The party, along with their torchbearer and lock picker Paulo, descend once more into the ancient halls of Dwimmermount. Bittersalt wished to put out some her giant rat poison, and thinking she knew the way, headed south from entrance hall, this however wasn’t a way they’d been before (your humble DM was at fault here). However her keen hearing detected footsteps approaching, things were marching in step and headed her way, so she retreated back to the main hall where the rest of the party were once again commenting on her recklessness.

From the gloom approached six horrific animated skeletons. They clutched antique khopesh swords or spears and bronze shields, and moved like well trained soldiers. However it was their bones that drew the most interested, for they were covered in the magical silvery-black metal Azoth. even with the warnings from Bittersalt the party failed to maximize their circumstance and attacked as individuals rather than as a team. A few blows were traded, and Tyche the luck goddess seemed to have deserted them, with the barbarian Zoilus taking a critical blow. His incredible fortitude saw him recover and beat back these Eldritch dead. To his horror though he saw his weapons were less effective than they should be.

Brother Spenzar, seeing that the party might be in trouble called upon Typhon to turn back these undead spirits. Throwing all his will and might into the exorcism, his holy power was deadened by the protective Azoth. At that moment the desecrated statue of Typhon that he’d cast down in anger days before stirred and rays of white light shot into the undead, temporarily flaying the power from the metal and allowing Spenzar’s turning to drive some of the skeletons back. Typhon’s reward was forthcoming after all. The battled continued, and still Tyche was in a cruel mood, with Errol charging down and wilding overshooting the skeletons so that he became trapped between their front lines and those who had retreated in the face of Spenzar’s fierce righteousness. It was a tough fight, and the party were exhausted at the end of it.

Realising ‘their’ mistake with the map, they explored the two new doors that southern corridor present. Behind the first was an odd room that had a large iron face of Turms Termax attached to the far western wall, and mouldering benches lined up facing it. When the party approached a strange sound murmured from face. After applying a little oil to the jaw, it spoke out in Old Thulian “Ask a question, if you have one. I’ll answer truthfully, but then you’re done.” Wishing to have nothing to do with cursed Termaxian magic, the party left without speaking to the face.

Seeing that the chamber from the other door contained the disturbing black basalt monolith they’d already found they amended their maps and saw how everything joined up. They then found an empty set of ceils, and rested for an hour to regain some of their powers.

After debating the next steps the decided to push north, away from where they’d spend much of their time so far. Going through the doors leading north from the entrance they discovered a round chamber lined with six fearsome demon masks. Remembering something from history, Brother Spenzar correctly identified them as Thulian Warmasks, used by the ancient Thulians to cower their beastmen armies. Bittersalt, after a cursory check to see how the masks were attached to the wall pulled one off, to be rewarded by cloud of biologically corrosive poison gas! With her lungs burning from the poison, Bittersalt collapsed to the floor after falling a save versus poison, followed by a series of tense death saving throws. Thankfully she survived, and was dragged backwards away from the room and was healed by Spenzar. Using mage hand cantrips, the masks were pulled from wall and tossed into the parties loot bag.

Reaching yet another junction, the party go west and find the corridor ends in a heavy locked door covered in protective iron. The door is successfully unlocked and pulled open. A terrible sight welcomes the party, as stood in the room is menacing figure silently screaming at them. The pale skinned, once human thing looks ancient and a blackness surrounds it, sucking the energy from the very air. It launches itself on Bittersalt, grasping her head with it’s two frozen hands. Bittersalt feels the very life drain from her, as the horrible Wight attacks.

This time however Tyche is very much with party, as swords and spells slam into the once living guardian. It goes down very quickly and fails to drink anymore life force from the elf. As the shadows recede and the Wight dies again, the party spy a large metal chest. While Calphis fails to pick it’s complex lock, Paulo’s small and nimble fingers prove their worth and the heavy padlock is removed. The chest contains a fortune in treasure! Golden candlesticks, bowls and other items lie on top a pile of old Thulian coins. The parties eyes widen as they spot the beautiful longsword, untouched by age that also rests within the chest. After searching through, an ivory and silver wand is removed along with a magical broach.  

We finished the session here, with the party considerably richer than they were and with talk of a trip to the city of Adamas to sell the items they have discovered.

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 3 - A rescue and return to the surface

Snacks!

Knowing that I'd be away immediately following our sessions, one of the players (Jonathan) very kindly wrote up last session.

In the aftermath of the second ambush of the day our brave heroes had a quick discussion over the freshly slain Orcs. To continue exploring, to find a room and fortify for the night or leave the mountain and return to town having gained a bit of gold and a few weapons to sell. A quick vote was called and it was decided that we would check out a few rooms and make way back to the entrance.

Bitter Salt lead the way showing us all the meaning of stealth by sneaking forward then calling loudly back what she saw, an oddly carved door. Calphis recognized the carvings as those of a playhouse and together he, Bitter Salt and Flandar checked out the room while Errol, Zollus and Brother Spenzar guarded the rear making sure no more Orcs would ambush them.

Bitter Salt walked brazenly into the room not waiting for Calphis to check for traps. The room was a designed with a stage and a large curtain which Bitter Salt once again proved her stealth skills didn't quite match up her combat ability and with a loud crash the curtain came crashing down.

Thankfully no Orcs where hiding and after a quick search Calphis and Bitter Salt found a hidden stage passageway with another door. Hearing the sounds of someone being tortured the group quickly gathered and decided that it was time for a little ambush of their own. A simple ambush was devised, open the door and shoot the closest Orcs. With a quick prayer to Typhon the door was opened and the trap sprung.

Not all went exactly as planned. On seeing the three Orcs beating a Dwarf, Calphis failed to control his fear and his spell missed wildly, Brother Spenzar called upon Typhon to burn the closest Orc and Zollus upon seeing the Orcs flew into a wild rage and forgetting the plan charged forward into melee against a different Orc dealing it a mighty blow. Bitter Salt's shot missed and struck Zollus but bounced off his armor. Errols shot also went wide and Flandar's summoned cloud of poison failed to infect the tough Orcs.

Now the Orcs overcome the shock of the ambush Calphis panicked and missed once again with his spell, Brother Spenzar did yet more damage but now the Orcs were able to retaliate. The Orcs fighting Zollus pulled out a hand axe but his wound was too great and the axe shot out of his hand killing his burning companion. The third unwounded Orc tried to run past Zollus to escape but he dispatched it as it tried to flee then dispatched the last one.

The sound of more Orcs enjoying themselves in the next room caused our heroes to grab the dwarf and move back the way they came. The Dwarf said his name was Balfur and from Muntburg and begged them to flee the Orcs and return to town of course the promise of 500 gold coins had nothing to do with the decision made. Leaving as quickly as possible they saw a few rats the size of dogs running away with some left over Orcs.

Nothing followed the brave adventures' out into the world, talking to Balfur they heard that he was attacked by Skeletal warriors and after two days hard travel they reached Muntburg dropped off Belfur with his family getting him to promise not to speak that he had been in the mountain. Brother Spenzar went to stay at his Church (edit: Where he arranged to report on the goings on in Dwimmermount, keep the parties entrance a secret and will swap ancient gold coin for less mysterious modern coins) while the rest went to get a well earned hot meal at the Flagon And Scroll with a vast amount of Ale and a half dozen chickens (one for Typhon of course).

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 2 - Deeper into the Path Of Mavors

After a short rest, during which the fallen recuperated and the others search the bodies of the orcs, the party decided they wanted to avoid further confrontation with the violent and hardy orcs so left to try another door from statuary hall. However the heads of Turms Termax sat upon the statues of five of the gods of the Great Church were too tempting for the vandals in the party and too blasphemous for Brother Spenzar and they set about knocking them down one by one, but not before Spenzar rocked the statue of the woman back and forth enough to topple that too. While a din was made, the strange too-loud crash of the first head was not repeated.  

Opening the door in the north east they found an empty guard room, replete with smashed weapon racks and cobwebs. This chamber had a locked door in the north, and deciding to be a little more cautious the wizard Calphis checked the door for traps. He found something that made him suspicious, possibly a tiny magical rune of fire scratched into the metal of the lock plate. After some talk of smashing the door with the hammer of barbarian Zolius or using the warlock’s Eldritch Strike the party decided it was too dangerous and once again returned to the main hall.

This time they set off through the massive double areonite doors in the east, beyond which lay a well appointed 20 foot wide corridor that disappeared into the deep darkness. Both the north and south walls were punctuated by alcove set doors. Investigating the first door in the north wall they party uncovered a grisly sight, another guard room with the stone bodies of three dead dwarves in a pool of possibly alchemical red liquid. The dwarves had been murdered, and one had swelling indicating some kind of poisonous sting. Searching the bodies the party looted weapons, armour, rope, relatively fresh dwarven trail bread and a strange cylindrical hard leather wine skin, with unusual dwarven design carved into it. The chamber had a further door too, to the east which the party opened and discovered some kind of apparatus.  Metal rods, cogs and poles rested in grooves cut into the floor attached to which were a variety of purpose built weapon-like metal shapes. Along the south wall a metal cabinet with polished wooden rods sticking out of the top suggested some kind of control mechanism. Overall the device reminded some of the party of jousting training constructions.

Rather than risk injury, the party perhaps wisely beat a retreat to the main corridor where they continue further down, seeing a statue in the dark down the hall. Opening the south door they were confronted with an eerie sight, two apparitions, human guards dressed in archaic gear sat at a ghostly table arguing over the rules of the ancient game of zatrikio, of which the party only knew the name. Brother Spenzar dropped an amount of holy water onto the unresponsive apparitions, to no effect and determined that they were magical, not spiritual in nature, yet were not illusions.

With nothing to loot and without any way to interact with these apparitions the party went through the doors to the west to find yet another battle damaged and dusty waiting room which they exited through the southern door. This chamber, which had exits to the east and west was unusual in that the debris had been recently cleared away from the centre of the room where a odd 3ft tall black basalt pillar stood. Strange and unintelligible runes covered the surface of the pillar. Again the party avoided interacting with the thing.

Following the door to the east, the corridor beyond turned south and ended in another chamber. This one had two things of interest to the party, a large if fragile mahogany throne and three beautifully made blue and gold shields hanging from the wall behind it. While the wizard investigated the throne, looking for secret draws and seating himself upon the throne, they others carefully took the ornate but functional shields down from the walls in the assumption that they’d be able to sell them.

The elf Bittersalt, who had been increasingly disappointed by the lack of saleable items so far was particularly happy with this and in a fit of rash excitement threw open the doors to the west only to be hit by crossbow bolts fired by two of the six orcs that were clearly prepared for the party in the chamber beyond. A desperate fight ensued in which the elf immediately fell to the blades of the orcs, shortly followed by the barbarian. Calphis used both his sleep spells, evening the odds and Brother Spenzar used his potion of healing on the barbarian, whose rage was so great and wild and beserk that he struck the cleric with his sword. Fortunately he then charged in amongst the orcs hacking one in two immediately. The dwarf joined him in the melee and the two set about their deadly work with efficiency. Flandar the warlock, seeing the moment was dire stepped into combat himself, leveling his hellish rebuke at an orc who struck him, incinerating the beastman. The party, almost against the odds, won the day and immediately put the sleeping orcs to death.

Finally though they were rewarded with coin, and found the orcs had a sack of 500 old Thulian gold pieces.

This is where we ended the session, with the party out of healing, spells and many of them wounded but with tangible treasure. Brother Spenzar vehemently entreated the others to tithe a portion of all treasures to Typhon, lord of civilisation and justice and much to my astonishment they agreed to. Impressive roleplaying from both him and the other players.

I’m really looking forward to the next session in two weeks. Once again the players proved to be both good humoured and willing to get involved in the world around them. They managed to travel to a number of plot-rooms that may make more sense later. I get a bit of anticlimax blues when getting ready and then starting a new campaign but this session completely dispelled it if I had it at all this time.    

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 1 - tomb robbers and Orcs

Last night we had our inaugural Dwimmermount 5e D&D session at the Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts club in Bethnal Green. The first couple of hours were spent in character generation, and since I’d already presented the group with some background material and talked through some of the questions that naturally arise it went relatively quickly. Two players took the option of rolling their stats in order, and received an extra +1 to their highest stat of choice, while the others took the rolling and assigning route. I strongly dislike point buys for this kind of D&D, as it sets a strong gamerist, adversarial tone from the outset. The players should neither be in competition with each other so having unequal characters shouldn't matter, nor should they be overly concerned about the game rules.

The two in-order characters are Zoilus, a Hyperborean barbarian of vast strength and magnificent charisma and Flandar, a sturdy gnome Warlock. The other characters created are Brother Spenzar, a capable Typhonite Cleric, Bittersalt the elven fighter noted for her strength and nimbleness, Errol, a rugged dwarven fighter and Calphis the wizard of dubious heritage.

I decided that I would start the game ‘in media res’ with the players already in the Dwimmermount dungeon. My reasoning was that an entire session without any action might not engage with all the players, and it allows them to gently define their characters rather than having to talk about their backstory immediately. This however was slightly forestalled by their interest in the Areonite doors that guard the dungeon, and if it was possible to remove and sell them. A sign of things to come I suspect, and some of the characters nailing their motivations to the wall early.

They then made their way down into the dungeon proper, and although they spotted recent tracks in the centuries old dust, some proceeded cautiously while others enter the first room, a hall of statues, nonchalantly. Including the exit to the dungeon five doors marked exits from the hall, while six statues, five male and one single strikingly handsome female lined the walls. Brother Spenzar immediately recognised the male statues as defiled representations of the Thulian gods Caint, Dorn, Mavors, Tenen and Typhon. The heads of theses had been replaced by that of the stern, and bearded face of the man-become-god Turms Termax, a great magician who had become a god on the day of his execution and then ruled from Dwimmermount with his hordes of beastmen and demons.

While the party further examined the room Brother Spenzar became incensed by the desecration of the statue of Typhon and cast down the head in anger, producing an unnaturally loud crash.

I had wondered if I should force a combat, using wandering monsters, but this event meant that what happened next was by the players own hand.

A crossbow bolt struck the cleric in back, as the door to north was flung open and a party of 5 orcs attacked from the moulding reception room beyond. A huge and chainmail clad orc lead the beastman and orcs are already tough in 5e, so these five managed to put down both Errol the dwarven fighter and Zoilus the barbarian, but took vicious wounds in response. The combined attacks of Bittersalt and the magical attacks from Spenzar, Flandar and Calphis managed to overcome the weakened orcs however. Brother Spenzar stabilised the dying dwarf and barbarian, but he lacked the spells to actually cure them. However 5e provides significant natural healing by resting for an hour so at the end of the session the party was well restored.

In all fairness I think that the party did as well as it did because it has three fighters, all of whom dealt large (10+)  amounts of damage when they struck and they're good at hitting things. However having two character go to zero hit points could be unsustainable, although the ability to regain so many hit points between encounters does start to mean you get into the wilderness encounter situation of early editions. Something I may have to think on, and perhaps limit the ability to heal between long rests.

I very much enjoyed DMing the game. I'm lucky to have a well intentioned, amusing and intelligent group of players who so far seem to pull together as players, if not characters. I'm annoyed I didn't take any pictures at all of the group playing, and will endeavour to take some next time. Edit : Thankfully one of my players did take these snaps.

         

5e D&D Lost Mines Of Phandelver part one

Last night I ran the first session of The Lost Mines Of Phandelver, which is the adventure that comes with the 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. TLDR; It was a huge amount of fun and the rules were fluid and natural.

We played at HATE VI, my gaming groups club nights, at The Blacksmith And The Toffeemaker pub in Angel, London, UK. It was a boardgames night rather than a full-on wargaming and boardgaming event. Playing in a pub, even in the back room comes with advantages and disadvantages : beer vs noise. I think overall the beer won out, but at times I had to raise my voice, and it was clear once or twice that the party was struggling to communicate. However the venue is central, does good provisions and had a big table.

Anyway, the players blind drew the characters, with only one swap. One player really wanted to play a cleric and the player with the Cleric was happy to change to the Noble Fighter. Naming took no time at all and we ended up with Tor Wightbane, a Folkhero Fighter, Imowen the Halfling Rogue, Zarrfron The Elven Wizard, Brookn The Tall who is the Dwarven Cleric and Lord Strakken the Noble Fighter. The party found their bond very rapidly too, Imowen had used to Tor to help smuggle when he was a dock hand. Brookn had sought to arrest the pair, but had had to join forces with the pair to fight off underdwellers in the cellar he’d cornered them in, and became friends since. Zarrfron had seen Imowen in a strange and cursed vision, so sought the halfling out, and finally Lord Strakken had need of specialists to help regain his wealth.

The adventurers assemble

Gundred, the NPC who acts as the PC’s hook was 2nd cousin to Brookn, so they party were only too glad to help and gain coin. On the road they efficiently dispatched the goblin raiders, although a wounded goblin did escape up the trail only to forgot his own snare trap, where the party found it hanging half-dead. After securing the oxen and cart, the group then set off up the trail and found the cave mouth that led to the lair of the Craig Maw goblins. I embellished here with a bit of purple prose as I found the initial description of the cave mouth a little dry. The party defeated the goblin guards, but took several wounds in the process and decided to take a short rest to heal a little more. Then the fun started.

They explored the cave mouth and had the dwarf use his darkvision to spot the wolves without drawing attention to themselves. The wizard, who’d had bad luck up to now cast a powerful sleep spell and sent two of the wolves to asleep, but a third in hiding ran out and attacked. After an epic battle in which two wolves were killed in single blows the group pushed on deeper into the wolf lair to find the chute that crawled up into the dark.

The dwarven cleric decide to use his climbing tools to ascend the chute, but then changed his mind, realising that hammering pitons into the cave wall would be very noisey. He fell slightly once, then reached the top and was able to see into the cave beyond, where two goblins, a wolf pet and something huge and furry sat upon a crude throne. Descending to tell the rest of the party, he slipped badly (rolling a 1) and fell. Taking enough damage to put him on 0 hp, the party realized he was dying so they desperately set about trying stabilize him. Thankfully they succeeded, but without his healing skills they carried him out of the cave and headed back to cart to rest overnight and revive him.

Failing from a great height!

Overall I thought the new rules are pretty effortless and fluid. I love the advantage/disadvantage system but hate that long rests completely heal characters as it removes any kind of attrition, especially in overland settings IMHO. Of course it’s D&D and an RPG so I can change what I don’t like, and so far there isn’t a lot of that at all.
 

Star Trap Lvl 1 monster manual

The first half of the first level of Star Trap Dungeon has a whole bunch of OSR style monsters, all now written up with AD&D / Labyrinth Lord style, with brief descriptions and is over five thousand words. I used the 4e format for splitting monster of the same race up into their own entries rather than having notes in the text detailing leaders and special types. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to working on the second half of the list, although it probably won't be as extensive as some of the creatures, such as the Pig-Faced Orcs live in the further reaches of the dungeon's upmost level.

1. Angry Owlbear
2. Banshaer Hermit
3. Barghest, Juvenile
4. Beetle, Fire
5. Beetle, Boring
6. Brain In A Jar
7. Centipede, Giant  
8. Crawling Claw/Severed Hand
9. Dimension Shambler
10. Farspawn Returned
11. Farspawn Mind Worm
12. Farspawn Teeth Eel 
13. Fungal Guard
14. Fungal Herder
15. Fungal Priest Of Decay
16. Fungus King
17. Gelatinous Cube
18. Ghoul
19. Goblin Archer
20. Goblin Acolyte
21. Goblin Bully
22. Goblin Hexamancer
23. Goblin King
24. Goblin Runts
25. Goblin Skull Cleavers
26. Goblin Stabbers
27. Goblin Strategist
28. Goblin Warrior
29. Green Slime
30. Grey Ooze
31. Horrible Black Tentacles
32. Iron Hound
33. Killer Bees
34. Lesser Demon, Demonic Two-Headed Warthog
35. Lesser Demon, Grarthrax The Meddler
36. Maggot Wraith
37. Ochre Jelly 
38. Pig-faced Orc Killer 
39. Pig-faced Orc Bannerman
40. Pig-faced Orc Sticker
41. Pig-faced Orc Shieldboy
42. Pig-faced Orc Demon Warriors
43. Pig-faced Orc Murderers
44. Pig-faced Orc Heart Eaters 
45. Pig-faced Orc Champion
46. Pig-faced Orc Warlord
47. Pig-faced Orc Teeth Caster 
48. Rat, Giant
49. Rat, Swarm
50. Rot spider
51. Shrieker
52. Skeleton
53. Skeleton Archer
54. Skeleton Legionnaire
55. Skeleton, Ramshackle 
56. Skeleton, Skullspider
57. Snake, Pit Viper
58. Vile Creeper, Barbed
59. Vile Creeper, Suckered
60. Wolf
61. Wraith
62. Zombie
63. Zombie Rotter
64. Zombie, Famine

Slave Pits Of Khasarn

Slave Pits Of Khasharn is a zero level funnel adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game (DCCRPG)

Set in the dungeon arena beneath the Autocaliph’s palace, the characters are poor souls sold or captured into slavery and forced to work their way through the hideously dangerous pits for the pleasure of the Autocalph Shazoon and his guests. While the PCs fight and die in the pits, betting between the city’s elite goes on loudly above them. Those slaves who make it through alive through the pits are promised their freedom. Those who don’t, remain in the dungeon as undead warriors doomed to fight a never ending supply of slaves.

A regular dungeon, with running commentary.

The dungeon itself is built around a series of large chambers that can be reconfigured by the dwarves that maintain the underground site. The Autocaliph invites his guests to create, also known as sponsoring, chambers to entertain their fellows to show off their creativity and wealth. During the events the audience bet heavily on either the number of slaves that will fall in a room, or sometimes towards the end of the ‘show’ the odds of survival of particular slaves. As each chambers roof is open to allow the audience to watch the grisly performance, the characters are well aware of the bets place upon their lives. Worse still, the Autocaliph likes to win, and guests who are able to control the events that unfold in their chambers are known to subtly target individual slaves that are being bet against to please him. It is of course up to the dungeon master how much commentary they wish to add to game. By adding cruel comments about the players performance, and changing tone from betting on how many will fall, to who will survive the DM can bring dark humour and a growing sense of desperate success to the games sessions. If you wish however to run the Slave Pits as a more regular adventure you could have the chamber roofs covered in one way mirrors, or even having impervious floating eyeballs following the party around.   

Introduction to Khasarn, city of jewels.

Khasarn is a sprawling coastal city that sits upon the mouth of the River Of Black Pyramids. It’s fertile delta and excellent trading position has given it an enviable situation in amongst the city states that line the blanket sea. Ruled by Autocaliph Shazoon Khandiz The Golden One, who snatched statehood from his uncle as a young man, the Autocaliph is despotic, whimisically cruel and wickedly insightful. Under his rule the city has mostly prospered, thanks in part to his patronage of the slave gangs that raid across the lands far and wide. These gangs sell their wares in the market of chains and pay the ‘red tax’, sending one in twenty slaves to the palace.

Khasran is beautiful to behold, with a thousands of coloured glass minarets gleaming in the relentlessly sunny skies. Beneath though it is a dangerous place for those who cannot defend themselves or show a relationship to the many trading houses that make the city their base. While exotic slaves from far of places or strange races command the highest prices, local smaller gangs are not above selling their own neighbours or even family at the market.     

Autocaliph Shazoon Khandiz, The Golden One

Shazoon is a now a fat aging man, who seeks more and more to indulge his primal fantasies and his love of the gambling. He was once an aggressive expansionist but he isn’t the strong military strategist he thought, and although his political acumen is beyond compare he could never trust his warlords enough to let them led. He employs a number of wizards to provide him magical toys, devices, illusions and auguries, although it is rare that they receive the title of palace mage as Mecalca Nhoul has. Under his rule the slave pit games have grown in both frequency and creativity. He politically favours those of the city elite who large sums of money on the creation of interesting scenarios for their sponsored chambers.

What I'm working on - Dungeon Masters

I've got a head full of ideas at the moment and two are particularly cornucopian. The first is a tile game based around dungeons, where the players take the role of dungeon masters digging and stocking a single dungeon together. In the points scoring final phase a 'party' of adventurers descend into the dungeon, moving at random, slaying monsters and taking treasure. The object of the game is to have as much of your treasure as possible still in the dungeon, as well as having had your monsters kill members of the party.

Much like Carcasonne there are both competitive and cooperative elements to laying dungeon tiles. There are also some unique 'rooms' that cause special actions to occur in the final stage. Games should be run in the 45-1hr time frame, and the ruleset and will be as simple as possible.

As per usual I have both more ideas than time or money, however I found an online shop selling square white cardboard tiles, so I bought 100 and hope to build a prototype at the very least. I'll be very interested in finding alpha playtesters for this. The very few people I've talked to about in face to face all seem to think it sounds fun.

Day 2, Hidden paths, deep and dangerous

So having defeated the wicked goblin cook and his rabble of staff, the brave adventuring party set about searching the large and chaotic kitchen of the Purple Bruise clan. A floor to celing wardrobe or cabinet yielded the first interesting find, in the form of a bound and gag human male. After some discussion as to what to do, the first instinct was to shut the cabinet again, the party release the prisoner, who is a tall, well muscled man named Druss. Druss is played by our Belgium Javascript Engineer Julien.

Druss remembers nothing about how he came to be found in hidden in a goblin kitchen, but was once a guard captain and the last thing he does recall is being a battle. Druss was rolled randomly using 4d6 for each stat in turn and produced a very physically strong character. The slayer subclass of the fighter fitted nicely and I suspect will decidedly help the party take down foes more quickly.

Helja the dwarf knight decided to search the cabinet some more, and it proved wise to do so as it had a false side. When he pulled away the hinged panel a delicate glass bottle of green gas slipped out from the top, but in an amazing piece of luck he caught the bottle (I rolled a 1). The high elf wizard, Riardon who seems to be rapidly becoming a pyromancer, found a box and layered it with material to transport the bottle, which is a suspected poison gas trap, around for later use.

Behind the panel Helja found a magical warhammer, his favourite weapon and two bags filled with gold coins and silver jewelry. It seems the cook had been hoarding things from his boss. Later Helja tried shouting the rune names found on the hammer and discovered it was a warhammer of thunder which could unleash lightning and thunder when it struck an enemy. He gave his precious old hammer to Druss, who also donned the chainmail vest of the goblin cook. Also stuffed into the area was old parchment map of what must be the surrounding area.

 

CC3 map

Then the party must have been blessed by the god of eagles, for they found not one but two well concealed secret door, going north and south as well as a silver dagger that the thief Lucan like the look of. He recounted a tale about how, when he was working as a fence, a thieves guild were buying silver weapons to fight against lycanthrope rivals. The secret doors were definitely too well concealed to be goblin made. Exploring the door to the south, the elven thief Lucan stealthy made he was along a rarely used narrow corridor that ended in a flight of steps upwards. Here he heard a screeching sound and out of the darkness shown many pairs of small red eyes. Then suddenly huge rats, some the size of dogs flew down and attacked. After putting an arrow into the first, biggest rat, Lucan retreat and a battle with giant and dire rats was joined. The party made a good tactical choice and boxed them in so that they only had to fight one at time. They dispatched the pack quickly, and remarkably none of the party succumbed to the filth fever the rats carried.

Rats in the walls!

After burning the bodies, the party explored further, finding the corridor leading away from the stair led to another secret door that opened into entrance corridor they'd fought in the day before. Then they followed the corridor up the stairs, and surmised that the dead end held a secret door that might lead to the area the goblin mapper had said the boss lived in. Not feeling ready for such a bold fight they decide to check out the northern secret door from the kitchen. It opened onto a short corridor at the end of which the thief could make out was a yet another secret door. The eagle-eyed god, Thurriak, had definitely blessed them, but it's a fickle gift if used without great care. Lucan boldly strode into the corridor and must have stepped on a pressure plate as large block of stone from ceiling fell on top of him, immediately knocking him out and crushing the life out of him. Druss and Riardon rushed forward to try and shift the block off of the body of the elf, but were too late even with Druss cleverly using his heroic effort to re-roll his athletics check. His organs had been pulped and the party had it's first death. I made Adam an award certificate in remembrance of Lucan's ignoble end.      
 

Lucan's death unlocks the second Dungeons & Dragons Essentials book - Heroes Of The Forgotten Kingdom. This means Adam has access to new races - half elves, half orcs, dragonborn and tieflings as well as the the new classes - druid, paladin, ranger and warlock. I'm not allowing drow in this campaign as they are, as intended in the original Greyhawk campaign, unremittingly evil. Another death will unlock further player options.

What the party don't know is that the original members, Thanus, Riardon and Helja have now made it to second level! 

Day 2, What's cooking?

Our intrepid adventurers decided to take refuge in the chamber that had held the goblins and walking dead monstrosity defeated in the previous session. They secured the doors and locked the remaining goblin a cell, then Riardon the high elf took watch and meditated over his precious and strange spell book while the others slept. Someone or something tried the door handle during the night, but went away again without further action.

Deciding to press further into the goblin warrens then entered the next chamber which they already heard muffled voices coming from. The goblins here, some of whom were unarmed, demanded to be left in peace rather than attacking the party and after various threats they put their arms down and surrendered without a fight. Apart from a huge green eye painted on the ceiling that the goblins said had been there 'forever' this was quite an unremarkable room that seemed to serve as quarters from the goblins.

One of these goblins with an artistic bent drew a map for the party that seemed to show some key points, namely the 'cook', 'nasty hexer' and 'boss' locations. As the cook was the nearest they decided to head in that direction, but not before exploring two more rooms they found. The first seem to be a nest of goblin-kids and apart from a brief discussion on morality the group ignored them. The second chamber though was some sort of temple to the goblin god Maglubiyet and was defended by goblin warriors and an acolyte, who seemed to gain power from the rough clay statue of the god that he stood next to. After a well fought battle Helja triumphantly took the magical amulet that hung from the statues neck. Thanus the dwarven war-priest of Kord struck down the statue in disgusted, bravely ignoring the possible curse that might come from such an act. It seems that the amulet protects the wearer from falling into pits and other dangers.     

Then finally they went into the goblin kitchen, which was a sprawling mess of pots and pans, horrible pieces of hanging meat, great steaming pots of foul smelling liquid and a number of goblin undercooks, lead by a huge blotted goblin creature, clutching a vicious meat cleaver.

At this point the party realized that they faced their first 'elite' foe, and immediately fell to planning the best way to maximize their damage. This was mostly down to the thief, whose sneak attack did a great deal of damage but relied on him having combat advantage. The wizard's Burning Hands spell dispatched a number of the undercooks, while the knight took the brunt of the attack from the cleaver. The head cook was turned out to be surprisingly nimble, but was eventually taken down from a combined weight of attacks from the party. A search of the chief revealed little of use, but the kitchen itself has yet to be and may reveal treasures beyond dried rat and boiled cabbage soup. 

Day 1, Star Trap Cage Fighting

After the running battle in the goblin halls that marked the 1st session of our Star Trap campaign, the party ponder where they might rest to relearn their most powerful spells and powers as well as regain some curative ability. Lucan the elven thief crept stealthily through  illustrated and dank dungeon corridors, revealing more of the map and discovering a way up into what might be the chambers that the rain of arrows came from as they entered Star Trap. They also worked out that a side room, which held another door and was occupied by what was probably more goblins as well as a taller figure trapped in cage, might have a secret door into the great wide hallway that seems to run endlessly into the heart of the level. Searching for it however revealed nothing, but Helja the dwarf knight heard a strange and ominous hooting, like that of a great owl, coming from the dark. The high-elf wizard Riardon recanted the tale of the owlbear, a huge ghastly magician's experiment that crossed an owl with a great bear and resulted in a beast both huge and vicious. The party decided not to investigate in that direction further, but to surprise the goblins in the side chambers. Just as the plan was started, horrors from the dungeon appearing marching down the corridors, undead skeletons! The party dealt swiftly with them, the warpriest Thanus proving his worth against these necromantic nightmares, although the skeletons were snapping off their own ribs and using them as darts. Then they returned to exploring more of the goblin's lair.

Lucan mustered all his subtle might and shot the shaman of Maglubiyet who was commander four goblin warriors, between the shoulder blades causing serious injury. The rest of the party then charged into the room, with the wizard sticking to the rear. A vicious battle ensued, with Helja taking the brunt of the goblins attacks and everything seemed to be going well until a goblin warrior ran to the cage and opened the door to the prisoner, who threw of it's ragged cloth and revealed itself as a putrid zombie. It immediately set about attacking the goblin. Helja bravely bull rushed the goblin, hoping to push it and the zombie further into the cage where they could be contained or fight it out between each other. Such was the force of charge that the goblin and zombie were thrown to the back of the cage, but the recklessness of the knight (a 1 may have been rolled) meant that he too went into the cage, and the door slamming locked behind him. The goblin threw himself at Helja's mercy while the zombie drooled a single word - "braaainzzzz". Desperately Lucan tried to pick the lock of the cage, but to no avail and while Helja held off the zombie, Riardon enspelled the zombie with a bewitching psychic assault. This caused the zombie to momentarily pause, and Lucan, having heard from Thanus that zombies are vulnerable to beheading then succeeded in a trick shot, shooting two wide bladed arrows into the neck of the zombie. Victory!

The remaining goblin fell to it's knees and begged for clemency, and although it seems nobody speaks goblin the party are set to interrogate the weasel about the map they have been drawing.   

It was a classic session, and really enjoyable for me to run. The combats, while fairly decisive went back and forth, the party started learning that to survive they need to work together and they now fear a creature they have not seen.

Best of all was that there was no way this kind of story could be told through CRPGs. People who have claimed that 4e is a MORPG clearly have poor players and DMs.

Day 1, Star Trap campaign begins!

Last night the inaugural session of a new Star Trap campaign happened, with players from work and played in our office. A few days ago we went through initial character creation based solely on class and races from Heroes From The Fallen Lands. I was pleased that the players all decided to roll stats in order and pick character class and race based on that, although this is probably a little to do with the their limited exposure to Dungeons & Dragons.

One player had never played any form of D&D, two had mostly played CRPGS and the final player of the four had played tabletop D&D many years ago.

The characters, Thanus dwarven war-priest of Kord, Lucan an elven thief, Helja the dwarf knight and Riardon an eladrin evoker-mage started their adventures in the fading city of Corsent, that sits a days march from the Star Trap dungeon. The characters had heard rumours about how the dungeon reached so far down into the earth that it opened onto the underdark and that a group of mystics had studied the dungeon, known as the Toolizith Cabal. After donating a few silver pieces to the Kordian temple Thanus learned that beings from the Astral sea were said to avoid some sort of garden that somehow exists in the dungeon.

At last the fellowship set off, only to be waylaid before the city gates by thugs from the Scorpion gang. A band of cutthroats hated even by fellow thieves because of their vicious practices. The gang leader demanded they give over all their valuables, claiming they'd all die in the dungeon and it was a waste to let fine weapons and armour rot below. The fight was fairly short and a decisive victory to the party, however one of the Scorpions escaped.


Arriving at the dungeon gates, the party was met with a hail of crossbow bolts from the surrounding ravine walls, they quickly entered through giant doorway and faced with two doors and a vast corridor disappearing off into the darkness they took a door, only to discover a goblin guard detachment waiting behind it. A fierce battle erupted, with Helja rushing into combat with the goblin warriors and the Eladrine unleashing a fountain of flame down the hall. A well placed backstab sneak attack arrow by Lucan almost killed the a howling acolyte of the goblin god Maglubiyet in one shot, however it lived long enough to causes two huge fists of divine force to push the dwarf knight back. After disposing of two goblins, more appeared from a side door and joined the fray, and with the knight now badly wounded things started to look desperate. Thankfully the healing power of Kord brought back life to the party and they triumphantly chased down and killed the stragglers who sought escape.

So what now for the group? Will the contain to explore the goblin haunt or delve further into the unknown?


   

16,000 words

Star Trap Dungeon just hit 16,000 words. The first half of the level contains 86 location, about 2/3rds of which are now documented. The second half maybe slightly smaller, but will probably push the whole level to over 150 locations, which include two goblin clans, a death trap, the necromantic device of Thadrak the Black, The mushroom kingdom and several entirely secret areas. 

It looks like I'm going to start running the dungeon with some of my work colleagues in the next few weeks, which will force an accelerated pace in dungeon design.

I'm using Google Docs to write it, as it's entirely portable and I really don't care if Google scan it for targeting keywords. GD is absolutely fine for this kind of stuff, as right now it's just for me and requires no fancy layout or formating, which I'd do in InDesign anyway. 

Last Temple Of The Spider God

Before the rise of demon goddess of the dark elves there was a great primal spider god beast called Aranith. Ancient humans worshiped Aranith and built underground temples to it, to gain favour and protection from spiders.

The cultures that followed the spider god dwindled, while the demon goddess grew in power and sent her minions to destroy all traces of Aranith. However the god beast managed to protect and hide it's high temple, deep within the jungles of the south. An ancient clay map has somehow ended up in possession of the adventurers, that speaks of the location of the temple as well as the treasures and dangers that lurk within. Unknown to the adventurers dark elves have managed to open a magical gateway into the inner temple and are also in the process of exploring the temple from within.

The temple is a dungeon built vertically rather than not horizontally, and the party must contend with immortal guardians, mummified spiders, traps and the deadly mystic wells that are found throughout temple. Bring rope, a lot of rope.

Last Temple Of The Spider God is a high level OSRIC adventure.

History Of The Star Trap Dungeon

Smulhahoozin The Cowled, a primeval wizard of near godlike powers, was fighting a war against the great aberrant race in the dim depths of the past. During one of her forays into the underdark, she came across a wall of something that reeked of madness and the powers of the Far Realm. Her insatiable curiosity caused her to pause awhile to study the discovery. During this time she found the outsiders avoided the locale around the wall and because of this she built an underground fort at the site. Summoning her elemental servants to carve out much of the the rock around the wall she found it rose up further than she imagined, so she sent earth spirits out to detail the size of the barrier while she studied it further. Notorious for her impatience she never the less took her time and was careful to not let the radiant madness infect her. She summoned about her mind-mages, who were greatly disturbed by the object she now named The Obelisk Of Insanity. Some of these psionists died, went insane or were killed in mysterious circumstances while in study of the huge edifice. Eventually she gave custody of the Obelisk over to one of her thirteen daughters, Toolizith. Determined to win notoriety, Toolizith pressed ahead quickly and wantonly with further research, finally coming to the conclusion that the Obelisk could be used as some sort of cage and was built from the very stuff of the Far Realm. During this period her attendants fought battles with terrible beings that seem to slip into reality unnoticed near the Obelisk and the growing halls took on a more martial and defensive nature. Never the less Toolizith pondered what great entity she could catch and bargain with using the Obelisk. Eventually she decided to entice and capture a star being of immense power. It took a century for her preparations to unfold, during which she became more and more secretive and obsessive. It is even rumoured that she took to talking to the Obelisk alone for days at a time. Eventually her rituals were complete and as the stars aligned themselves as predicted, she rang a silver bell that called great Zhulbluhb'Tck'Nere, known as The One Who Gathers Whispers to astrologists. Surrounded by both arcane and psychic adepts, she fought a tremendous battle, both in the world and beyond but after much destruction on many planes, she willed Zhulbluhb into the Obelisk. Before she could recover her wounds and powers the soon to be god of secrets appeared with his then faithful servant and together they attacked and slew Toolizith, so that she might not learn the long forgotten whispers the star being could reveal. Events so mythically tremendous caused warps in reality and these two battles in such short periods of time created patches of magical and elemental oddity throughout the region.

Toolizith's followers were broken and fled, burying their leader in her own dungeon, setting traps and leaving immortal guards behind them as then left. Over the centuries that followed the dungeon has grown, both by those wishing to learn the secrets of it's deepest vaults and by others who use it as a home, a tomb or a hunting ground.

The Gatherer is still bound to the Obelisk Of Insanity, whispering promises to those that will listen, while the undead Toolizith rages in her tomb, waiting too to be freed.

The Chained God's Tabernacle

In a hidden oubliette layer of Star Trap, many levels down lies a temple to the Chained God. It sits suspended in a huge cave above a black sea. Vast taut chains keep the inverted pyramid held in place. A long straight passage leads to the cave and ends where one of the chains is fastened to the rock wall. The links are twenty feet wide and where the vertical meet horizontal links odd, oversized steps are etched into the cold metal. The upper surface of the stone pyramid is bare, save for a large circular plug that must lead to the interior.     

What's the Star Trap Dungeon?

Star Trap is my attempt at a old school megadungeon that is relatively cohesive for 4th Edition D&D.

Megadungeon means many things to many people, and has various subtle overtones. My straight up definition of a megadungeon is that it is...

• A large network of small scale locations. Technically underground, but that's not an absolute.
• A place large enough in scale and story to run a whole campaign within it.

 Star Trap adds a bunch of extra assumptions...

• Encounters are not linear in power.
• Areas can and should be devoid of hugely interesting features.
• Things that eat each other do not live next to each other.
• The party can find friends or at least temporary allies within the depths.
• Players should feel that death might lurk around the next corner.

I've also stolen a big fat leaf from Robin D. Laws Armitage Files sourcebook in that Star Trap details several ways of using foes, labelled Helpful, Harmful, Disdainful. Unlike the official 4e adventures Star Trap doesn't place foes on a battlemap for each encounter, although advice is given as to tactics on occasion. Dungeon Masters are better placed to decide on where monsters start than adventure writers and I've always find putting figures on a battle mat more time consuming when following someone else's plan. WotCs 4e strategy means that the online monster compendium means you don't have to list the stats of monster in every encounter either, allowing DMs to print out stat cards as they need.

Dungeon Doodles, Vault of the petitioners

Dungeon Doodle, Birthing Pools

Dungeon Doodle, The hidden basement