Dungeoncrawl procedures

Not long ago there was a post on the Alexandrian about the lack of dungeon keying guidelines nowadays. Fast forward to this week when I was chatting with someone on Discord about scenario structures, which led me to try looking for procedures for certain scenarios, which led me to an older post on the Alexandrian with a summary the dungeoncrawling procedures from the original Dungeons & Dragons. Somehow, I had missed this post before, or hadn’t paid it much heed, but this time, I was in the mood to fully port these procedures to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. So, this is it, with commentary below:

1. You can move a number of yards equal to twenty times your encumbered Move each turn. A turn is about 10 minutes long. Alternately, a party can move one room each turn.
2. Non-movement activities also take up a turn or some fraction of a turn. Searching a 10-foot section of wall takes 1 turn. Secret passages are found a Search roll at penalty, average -5; roll 2d-2 if you need a random number.
3. The party must rest 1 turn in 6. If a flight/pursuit has taken place, it must rest for 2 turns in 6. If they do not rest, the characters are down 1+Encumbrance level FP until resting.
4. Wandering Monsters: These show up on a 6 or less on a roll of 3d each turn; 7 is a clue if moving.
5. Monsters: When encountered, roll 3d on Reaction Table. Poor or worse is a negative reaction (fight); Neutral is an uncertain reaction (wary); Good or better is a positive reaction (welcoming). Apply appropriate modifiers.
• Monsters sighted at 4d yards, or edge of the room.
• Surprise: Per check. If failed, must make a DX check to keep from dropping a held item. Monsters are sighted at 2d yards instead of 4d.
• One side can try to avoid the encounter unless it is surprised and within 7 yards of a non-surprised side. Flight is a simple comparison of encumbered Move scores. Handle this in blocks of 15 seconds (since that's the threshold for a HT check); if the fleeing side gets a lead of 30 yards, the other side stops chasing it. If the PCs turn a corner or go up stairs or go through a door, there is a 2 in 6 chance the monsters keep pursuing. If the PCs go through secret door, there is a 1 in 6 chance the monsters keep pursuing. (See Running Away! (Exploits, p. 22) to handle obstacles for each side.) Burning oil keeps many monsters from pursuing; handle this as a Reaction roll: Bestial monsters will stop pursuit on a Neutral or better reaction, others stop on a Good or better reaction. Dropping edible items will force monsters who lack Doesn’t Eat or Drink to make a Will check or stop pursuit (Gluttony modifies check per Fright Check modifier); Bestial grants -5 to this check. Dropping treasure also forces a Reaction roll (Greedy modifies check per Fright Check modifier) to stop pursuit; monsters will stop pursuit on a Neutral or better reaction unless the monster is Bestial, in which case it will ignore treasure.
6. Other activities:
• Many doors must be forced open with Forced Entry at a penalty; roll 1d-1 if you don't know it. Failure means that you get the door open, but the GM makes another wandering monster check. Up to three characters can force a door simultaneously (each trained helper grants +1 to Forced Entry), but forcing a door means you can’t immediately react to what’s on the other side.
• Most traps are sprung 2 in 6; roll for each delver.
• Listening at doors (Hearing at -(DR+HP)/5, and at an additional -2 if you do not have a spy's horn) detects monsters behind closed doors. Monsters with Doesn’t Breathe advantage do not make enough sound to detect in this way.

Some comments:

1. The rates I give let PCs move a little farther in a turn than in D&D; the D&D rates translate to sixteen times Move for unencumbered movement. There are a few reasons for this. First is that it’s easier to multiply by twenty in your head. Another is that Dungeon Fantasy characters are much more likely to be slightly encumbered than D&D characters; almost no starting character is unencumbered without dropping all gear or having the Lighten spell always on. Countering this is that base Move for most Dungeon Fantasy characters is slightly higher than normal (Move 6 is average). A third reason is that the D&D rate is really slow, or 4.8 inches a second unencumbered. I get that this is abstracting searching and being on your guard as well, but still, you’re talking about the slowest you go.
• A handy coincidence for the 10-minute turn is that FP recovery rates are keyed to 10 minutes base. You can just say that a resting character gets back 1 FP in a rest, or 2 FP with Fit or Recover Energy-15, or 5 FP with Recover Energy-20.
2. I think we can assume that the movement rates above assume some general searching already. Again, D&D characters move 240 feet every 10 minutes. Unencumbered. If all they’re doing is moving, they're turtles. Characters in plate armor are moving half that.
3. The idea for this being the penalty comes from Travel Fatigue on p. 24 of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures. Having said that, I’m not wholly sure we need this; spellcasters are going to want to rest often in this system anyways. Anyways, OD&D doesn't list a penalty for not resting; Tom Moldvay's Basic D&D set has -1 to hit and damage. If we do want to go this route, docking FP is the way to go since this greatly weakens spellcasters and fits with how things otherwise work in GURPS.
4. Right now, wandering monsters in Dungeon Fantasy are mostly 9 or less on 3d every hour, or a 38% chance. Checking wandering monsters every turn keeps characters on their toes (and keeps the spellcasters from resting) and it’s easier to remember if you’re always doing it. Regardless, a 6 or less every 10 minutes translates to a 44% chance an hour, which is in line with the current rate. The chance of a clue is my addition; I’m keen on clues. Regardless, I pre-roll these, and just go down the list each turn.
5. This is a lot, but I’ll start with reactions. Not all monsters will fight. Granted, the reaction modifiers in Dungeon Fantasy make fight more likely than in D&D, but there always needs to be a chance. My own game's last session had an encounter which went well due to a good reaction roll. It would have been either a TPK or PCs skedaddle out of the dungeon had it not. Like wandering monsters, I preroll these.
• Sighted: This is a literal translation of D&D distances.
• Surprise: A Perception check works well for Dungeon Fantasy, and the rules (Surprise Attacks, Exploits, pp. 26-27) support this. This also lets me just halve the roll for the encounter distance.
• Avoid: I’ve done some fretting about how to handle running and you can convince me that there’s a better way. A more comprehensive system is on pp. 31-35 of GURPS Action 2: Exploits. Archon Shiva has another system and more thoughts on this. Regardless, I fixed the likelihood that going through doors or around corners stops the chase; Justin Alexander just transcribed things from The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures wrong or was writing it fast. (I think he was going from memory, and the exact rates aren’t important in the article or change its point.) I’m not wholly sold that I’m handling dropping treasure perfectly, but I like the basic idea: you can get away if you get rid of a precious resource. I’m sure bigger monsters need more food or smarter monsters need more treasure, but I don’t feel like working about that now. 
• Note on handling Greedy and Gluttony: Phobias in GURPS have modifiers to Fright Checks based on self-control roll. Apply this as-is (negative) to an attribute check or the inverse (positive) to a Reaction roll. Thus, a monster with Gluttony (9) will be at -3 to the Will check to keep from stopping to eat.
6. Other things:
1. Doors: I got rid of the auto-shutting doors of OD&D; that’s just too weird for too little benefit. If you want them, just use the OD&D rules for wedging open the door.
2. Traps: One benefit of being familiar with early OD&D (my knowledge comes from running Caverns of Thracia) is the idea that PCs do not auto-spring traps. The die roll abstracts the room and keeps you from having to suddenly force PCs to start showing you where they are on a map.
3. Listening: I did like being forced to think about how to handle listening at doors, and what that means. That’s part of the reason for this exercise. Thus, listening at the door means trying to see if there's a monster given non-obvious activity (I'm sure that if the monsters are covering Camel songs the PCs don't need a Hearing roll). Since undead don’t make a sound, that leads me to think that there’s something about the characteristics of being undead that avoids sound, and that led me to using Doesn’t Breathe for this. I took the penalty from the spy's horn on Adventurers, p. 26 (or p. 113 for the one in the boxed set), with the additional -2 to incentivize buying a spy's horn and thus treating it as equipment. Anyone can press his ear to the door and try to listen; spy's horns just make it better.

Hue and Cry

Because I realized I had need for something like this, both through play and through chatting with someone outside my group, here are rules for handling reinforcements when you fight part of a group of monsters inside their lair.

Hue and Cry: Not all monsters will be in their lair at all times. While this makes it easier to fight a small group, the others may show up and fight later! When fighting some monsters in their indoor lair, make a Per or Per-based Observation roll for the monsters; add any bonuses for Acute Hearing or similar Hearing-based traits. On a success, a number of monsters equal to one plus the margin of success will show up in a minute, and they will be aware there is fighting. Any not showing up in this group will show up in 1d hours, and will be unaware there is a fight. On a critical success, that number of monsters will show up in 3d seconds, with any not coming in this group will show up in a minute; all will be aware there is fighting. On a failure, all of the monsters will show up in 1d hours, unaware of anything amiss.

Outdoors, folks are usually farther away, leading to a lower chance of someone being around to hear the fight. Faster monsters wander farther than slower ones. Thus, take the lowest encumbered Move of the monsters, not including any bonuses for Enhanced Move, and look it up in yards on the Speed/Range Table (p. B550). Apply twofold this as a penalty to any Hearing-based rolls as above; don't apply a bonus for Move less than 2.

Roll Per or Per-based Observation as for indoors, with the penalty above for distance. On a success, half of any monsters out wandering will show up in 1d/2 hours (keep fractions), and will be aware there is trouble. The other half will show up in 1d hours, unaware of anything amiss. On a critical success, half the monsters will show up in 3d minutes, and the other half will show up in 1d/2 hours (keep fractions), all aware of the fight. On a failure, nobody will be aware of the fight; half will show up in 1d hours, as will the other half (roll separately for each half). Divide any times for monsters who are aware of trouble and using Enhanced Move to fight by one plus the level of Enhanced Move.

Signaling: Any monsters outdoors may try to signal their fellows out wandering. Use the rules for Signaling on p. 28 of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures. Assume that each half of those monsters are 1d times Move/2 miles away; roll separately for each half.

Either indoors or outdoors, if the delvers start fighting any reinforcements, make another Per or Per-based Observation roll for anyone else still not in the room or lair. Handle as above, except this goes for all monsters that would show up as reinforcements, not half or margin of success plus one. This keeps the GM from having to roll for smaller and smaller groups!

The upshot of all this is that players never should be sure they have cleared the room or lair, which is as it should be.

Game log: 3 March 2019: Day of the Triffids

Dramatis personae

Mayhem, short barbarian
Caleb, wizard
Xóran, fox-man swordsman
Ash, squire
Kôštē, cleric (NPC)

Quid occurrit

Kôštē healed Mayhem as the others buried Uruk. Xóran, out of grudging respect, insisted that they bury Uruk with full gear, other than his arrows (which Xóran took) and food (which the others took).

Once they filled the grave in the cave with the draugr, they wandered through the dungeon a bit more. They went back to the room from which they had turned back before, and went through it, taking care to stay away from the basin on the side. They left the room, and Mayhem took care to light the torches in the crude sconces along the tunnel. Once they went down a tunnel without any sconces, and found it to be a dead end. The ogres, while mostly being stupid, didn't waste sconces on dead ends.

They at last made it to a door. Caleb listened at it and, having heard nothing, let the others open the door. Once they did so, they found the bodies of eleven dead ogre women and their five dead children. That wasn't as grim as what else they say: six nine-foot-high green plants walking on three legs. They had no arms but instead three branches, while atop each plant was a funnel with a long lash. The plants were eating the dead ogres with their funnels, and these jerked up when the door opened.

And I really got hot
When I saw Janette Scott
Fight a triffid that
spits poison and kills

These plants were, of course, triffids.

Mayhem, of course, charged into the room. Caleb charged an Explosive Fireball, while the nearest triffid lashed its stinger at Ash, who shot it as he got out of the way of its lash. Another one's lash slapped Mayhem's side, but it didn't hurt him through his armor and tough skin. The others lumbered nearer.

Into the room dashed Xóran to smack a triffid, though it stayed up. Mayhem likewise put his axe into a triffid that didn't fall from the blow. Ash dropped his bow and pulled out his sword, while Caleb kept charging his spell. Three triffids struck at Mayhem, though only the one on his flank harmed him, while two more struck at Ash, not harming him. The last one got nearer to Ash.

Xóran swung both his swords at a triffid, taking it down. He screamed for the others to "help Mayhem" as Mayhem swung his axe and lost his balance, leaving himself an easy target for a triffid. Ash smashed his shield into a triffid. This did nothing, but Caleb's Explosive Fireball burnt one to a crisp, burned another, and made the air near Ash and Xóran hot. The one by Ash moved away, while the three on Mayhem each took a smack at him. Two of them hurt him a bit through his armor, while one got its stinger on Mayhem's eye. Mayhem winced from the burning feeling, but somehow kept his sight.

Xóran moved to help Mayhem, who pulled himself upright again after his bad swing. Caleb started casting Flaming Weapon, Ash charged towards the fleeing triffid and traded misses with it, and the three triffids kept trying to hurt Mayhem though didn't. Xóran made it to the triffid smacking Mayhem's side and cut it badly, while Mayhem took down one of the triffids before his face. Ash and the triffid again traded misses, while Caleb got off his Flaming Weapon spell, making Xóran's magic longsword burn with fire. The triffids fighting Mayhem and Xóran tried to smack their eyes but missed.

The fire on Xóran's sword helped him hurt the triffid fighting him, but it was the other sword that ended it. Mayhem moved away towards the doorway. Ash slashed the triffid he was fighting, while Caleb, now weary, fired up a small Fireball. Kôštē the cleric moved from the hallway to the doorway, waiting for Mayhem, and the triffids missed their foes.

Again Xóran charged with his sword at a triffid, but this time, he dropped it. Mayhem stepped back, and Ash lost his sword when the triffid's stinger smacked it out of the way. Caleb lobbed his weak Fireball at the triffid but, still weary, missed. One triffid's stinger grazed Ash's eyes but he kept his sight, though lost his grip on his shield. Xóran parried the stinger of the other triffid, and Kôštē cast Major Healing on Mayhem for the second time that day.

Xóran, now down only to his magic sword, hit a triffid, while Mayhem moved back to help him. Ash gripped his shield anew, while Caleb lit up another small Fireball. One of the two triffids caught its stinger on Ash's shield, but the other hit Xóran in the eye, and its poison blinded him. Kôštē leaned forward and cast Lend Energy to give Caleb a boost.

Although blinded, Xóran fought onward, though his sword work now was like Chris Davis at bat. Mayhem rushed forward to help him, but also missed. Caleb dumped more might into his Fireball, and the triffid pushed back on Ash's shield bash. The shield likewise blocked the triffid's stinger, but Mayhem was unable to get himself between Xóran and the other triffid, and the stinger smacked Xóran, and its poison this time got into the wound.

Xóran staggered around, and Mayhem at last got his axe into the triffid, bringing it down. The other triffid pushed back on Ash's shield, but that was its last deed—Caleb's Fireball struck true, killing the triffid.

The gang sat around for a few days and healed up, eating triffid oil, until Xóran's sight came back.

Res aliae

Steph, who normally plays Mayhem, was gone this week, so Roman, who plays Xóran, also played Mayhem. Brandon, who played the late Uruk, didn't have his new character ready, so he played Caleb, who is usually the one grandfathered-in "extra" character. (Chris played him, as well as Mayhem. He's easy for almost anyone to handle, and for me, the characters let a little bit of Chris still live on in the game.)

The triffid was a monster that I wrote from the John Wyndham book, and it shows why we playtest these things. As I had written it, when it hit the Eyes, it also did damage. This is not only not how it worked in the book, but it's superfluous. It did 11 points crushing to the Eyes, which I realized was a killing blow, not a blinding blow. When you're dead, you're automatically blind, so the roll to resist blindness was silly. While I don't want to coddle my players, this isn't what I was trying to have it do, so I had the damage instead lower the chance to resist blindness, by 1 for every 5 points of "damage." So, rolling 11 on 2d+1 meant that Mayhem resisted at HT-2. Which he made, while the blow that blinded Xóran was a mere 4 on the damage dice, giving him no penalty. Weird how that works out.

Thankfully, it is now back to exploring and travel again. Since we play short sessions and are slow to get going—really slow today since Brandon was late—we seem to have sessions of combat, sessions of exploring, and sessions of roleplaying.

Dynamic dungeons

I’ve read a few times on the OSR blogs and other websites that dungeons should be dynamic places, with a thriving ecosystem. Earlier this year, I figured out a way I could handle that. I felt the need to have a blog post breaking that out, rather than leaving it as a throwaway comment in a game log.

The first part of my epiphany was that most wandering monsters should have source rooms. Alright, I had read this before and you have too, but while keying a dungeon, I went about enforcing this for once. It gets rid of the idea that there will always be monstrous centipedes even though your players have already rooted out their nests.

Something kept bugging me, however. When you encounter some giant rats in their room, there’s the whole lot of them, but elsewhere, there might be two or there might be seven or whatever. And especially I had an issue with one lone monster that was on the wandering monster table. I wanted it to move, and having it always show up in that room bothered me.

Or, in short, I wanted something like the One-Page Wilderness System that worked in a dungeon.

The lone monster was the easier problem to solve. For it, I just gave it a frequency of appearance roll in its own room. So, when the players go in that room, I roll 3d6 (GURPS habit to always use the d6; you could easily use another die, especially percentile) and if it goes under that number (typically 9 or 12), it’s there. If not, it’s wandering. This also is the way to handle monsters that stay together but still wander.

For gaggles of monsters that don’t stay together, this was trickier. I’ll copy a room key to show my solution:

There are 2d-4 doomchildren here. On a roll of less than 1, all are wandering; this room is the lair of 8.

That's 2d6-4, for those whose dice vary.

So now, most encounters in this room will not be with the full lot of eight doomchildren. There will be just three on average, and one-sixth of the time, there won’t be any. This makes it less certain that the players have cleared the room. On the flip side, you might need a higher maximum per room than before to keep up the challenge.

EDIT (27 June 2019): And reinforcements are coming.

Game log 10 February 2018: Don't poke the pudding!

Dramatis personae

Xóran, fox-man scout
Kim, thief
Mayhem, short barbarian
Ash, squire
Áttikos, holy warrior of the sun god
Grymalkus, whiny cleric of the war god
Caleb, wizard
Kôštē, cleric of the farming goddess

Quid occurrit

As they walked through the halls, they chatted among themselves as to how to handle the "demon dolls." They thought a shield wall would be best.

They walked back to the room where they had fled from the pudding, and sure enough, they had a chance to put this to work as there was a doomchild there. After the first volley of arrows and fireballs, the little doomchild bum-rushed them.

Mayhem stepped out from behind the shield wall, grabbed the doomchild, and tossed him back to whence it came. Its ass burst open as it landed, making it go boom well away from the heroes. Doomchild handled.

After Kôštē patched up Mayhem's booboo from the doomchild's knife, they pushed onward. After winding through a few rooms and Kim not finding any secret doors in any dead ends, they found themselves looking at five doomchildren.

The opening volley all missed, and sure enough, the doomchildren bum-rushed them again. This time, they all missed, and were now before the shield wall. Ash took a poke (Defensive Attack) from behind the wall, and … kaboom! It hurt, but the shields did take some of the damage.

After some more patching up—Mayhem especially took some bone fragments—they rested for a bit, letting Kôštē get back some oomph. They pushed farther inside, looking for the stairs to lead them down to the Workdesk of Doom or whatever it was, with Kim always looking for hidden doors. After a turn to the north, they ran into six big rats. The rats, however, did little but get a lone tooth on Áttikos, while Mayhem and Caleb (with Acid Jet) each took out a rat and Ash took out two before the not-so-little buggers fled.

So, back to wandering. In one room, which had a rotten drapery in its doorway, six striges flew inside. They must not have been hungry, since they flew back out, squawking.

Mayhem squawked back.

Kim's hunt for hidden doors did pay off not long after this. A big wooden chest was in the corner, but Kim's hand went through the chest as if it were air. Caleb looked at it, and found that the chest was truly three feet to the left of where it seemed to be. Kim figured out how to open the chest, and found 90 copper and 50 silver inside. Grymalkus told her not to take the loot. "It's a tomb! It's burial treasure! We're not grave robbers!"

Mayhem, however, said, "Yeah, we are."

After taking the loot, they wound through even more twists and turns, then stopped at a door. Kim listened at the door, and heard a gurgle behind it. After some chatter, she kicked open the door, and behind it was a grey pudding, much like the one they had seen before.

Mayhem and Xóran wanted no part of this. "Stay away from dookie!" yelled Mayhem. Xóran thought the "whelp" (Grymalkus) should handle this if he wanted to fight it, and ate some snake jerky. As always, Kôštē hung back with them, both because she didn't think fighting the pudding was worth it, and because she wanted to be ready if the pudding hurt someone.

The pudding could withstand their blows, but had a hard time landing blows itself. Caleb's Create Steam on the pudding did slowly sap it of some health, but he ducked back after a few spells. Ash did the most harm, leading Mayhem, while digging in his pack to make a Molotov cocktail, to yell, "Mom, he's poking the pudding!"

At last, however, the pudding landed a blow on Attikos, who fell right away. Caleb scorched it with Acid Jet, but the pudding moved onto Attikos and at that time, Xóran and Mayhem knew they had to help out. They helped Ash wail on it, while Caleb, again trying to hit it with Acid Jet, lost his footing, and stumbled past it trying to keep standing and wound up scorched in his own Create Steam. The pudding smacked Kim, who somehow stayed standing, but had to stagger back a few yards. Xóran tried to grab Attikos from under the pudding but couldn't win a test of strength with the pudding. It was looking bad, and then …

The pudding blinked out.

Stunned from their sudden luck, they healed up, and luckily the striges, which flew past again, weren't hungry.

Res aliae

Did I give them three points or four points? Well, to tell the truth, in all this time since the session I kinda lost track myself. But, considering that I'm the game master and can kill characters for no good reason, you gotta ask yourself one question: "Did he give three points or four?" Well, how many, punk?

The striges kept getting good reactions to the party, being as that they weren't in their lair room. I interpreted that as having eaten. No, I'm not trying to be kind; they could have taken them out easily.

The fight with the pudding was one that only happened the way it happened because folks were playing more than one character. (Well, other than Steph playing Mayhem only.) I'm pretty sure Roman would have had Xóran jump into the fight earlier had he only been playing Xóran, as doing nothing is boring.

Anyways, as Kim had made her Hearing roll and, as the pudding wasn't trying to be quiet, she heard something. As the murderhoboes weren't trying to be quiet, it heard them, and tried to time its coming to the material world with them showing up, but, having only IQ 4 (which is brilliant among slimes, remember), timed it wrong as the gang talked about goodness knows what before opening the door. So it wasn't quite as deadly as it could have been, seeing as that everyone always got defense rolls and, with skill 14 to strike, it wasn't making any Deceptive Attacks. It kept taking damage, but Damage Reduction and high

I do now see Kromm’s comment about how the grey pudding could have taken Attikos with it to the astral plane (I was thinking it had to kill him first), but Joe wasn’t there and so Roman was running Attikos, so I wouldn’t have pulled that on someone not there. But now it’s out there for next time, so don't put missing players' characters in the way of grey puddings. Or your own, for that matter.

I might write an easy overview of GURPS combat for my players, especially Steph, who is having trouble with the whole second-by-second nature. She wasn't happy about taking range penalties at 10 yards, as Mayhem hadn't aimed.

Game log 19 November 2017: The dead need to stay that way

Dramatis personae

Ash, a squire (John)
Xóran, a fox-man scout (Roman)
Kim, a thief (John)
Mayhem, a short barbarian (Steph)
Caleb, a yellow-robe wizard (Joe)
Kôštē, a cleric (GMPC)
Villûdē, a guide (NPC)

Quid occurrit

First up, they heal themselves after the fight against the mummy and skeletons. Ash takes the broadsword from the skeleton, while Xóran takes the other from the mummy.

Then they head south. Right away, they find themselves in a room with many skeletons lying in beds, which Caleb incinerates with a Blast Ball. Caleb stars in the next room to the south of that one, spotting some Evil Runes, casting Levitate on himself to float over them, then casting Explode on the floor to make the jump over them easy enough for everyone to do it.

After a few twists and turns, they find themselves in a smithy, with rusty swords. Kim is able to find a flagstone in the floor on the western wall, and, after letting everyone rest again, pulls it up, opening a door on that wall.

They go through the door and into a garden of mushrooms. Xóran tosses a meal of rations (he never said what, but one figures some of the monster meat they’ve been keeping) at the mushrooms, which do nothing. The mushrooms have grown a little bigger than a fist, with a flat top and a rusty hue. Caleb has seen them before in one of his books and knows that they can raise one’s heart rate enough if in a potion, but has trouble harvesting. The only way out is a hallway to the south. Kim, after covering her face and nose, takes a moment to listen down the hall, but hears nothing.

Kim and Xóran lead the gang into it and take a turn, and see it lined with pretty paintings. Xóran, Kôštē and Villûdē stare at one to the north that is of a sage, while Kim stares agape at one of a wizard on the south wall. As Caleb casts Create Fire on the painting of the sage to break their gaze, a woman in a pink dress walks into the edge of their light.

Ash grabs a sack and puts it over Kim’s head as the woman walks towards them. In accented Mannish, she tells them to put away their weapons. Xóran, needless to say, nocks and arrow and fires; the woman dodges. “Please save your arrows for later, I could use them,” she tells them. Caleb lobs an Explosive Fireball at her, but she also dodges that’s blast and swiftly moves towards them.

Something is amiss with this woman. Whatever it is, Xóran drops his bow and draws his swords. Kim pulls off her makeshift mask and she turns, while Mayhem, who has started to move towards the woman, spots a fetching painting and stares at it. Everyone else moves to fight, and the woman wiggles her fingers.

Uh-oh.

Xóran howls, which doesn’t bother the woman in the slightest. Ash moves up to strike, but misses, as likewise does Caleb. Luckily, Caleb also missed Ash. The woman swats Ash with her staff, which Ash parries. While everyone still moves to fight, Ash takes another swing at the woman, and this time hits her. It doesn’t do as much damage as he would have though, however—something is amiss with this sword!

Villûdē slaps Mayhem, and Caleb casts Flaming Weapon on Mayhem’s axe. The blonde woman in the pink dress suddenly looks less cute to Xóran and Ash after she waves her hand, with Xóran stunned. Forever after will he not trust blonde human women. Kim takes a shot at the woman and misses, and luckily also misses Xóran. Mayhem rushes forward to strike, but breaks Caleb’s spell as he does so.

Ash knows something is amiss in spite of this woman’s evil eye, and takes another swing. However, her brace of her staff to his blow makes him drop his sword. No! Not his beloved new sword! The woman starts to back off, and the gang moves to press her. Mayhem makes a wild swing and misses, and Caleb misses with a Fireball. Ash grabs his sword as the woman wiggled her fingers.

Xóran snaps awake to see that the gang had moved a bit down the hallway. The woman parries Mayhem’s swing, then tries to make a swing at Ash who then parries. Things are like this for a few seconds—Mayhem and Ash pressing the woman back, while she keeps parrying. Kim takes a couple of shots in there, while Xóran sees a picture on the wall of the blonde woman—the one of which the whisper in his ear spoke. Unluckily, Xóran again stares at it like an idiot. Caleb moves forward with the Continual Light torch, and yells at the others to keep the woman in the light.

The woman keeps stepping back, and Mayhem drops his axe and grabs some rope. As the rest slink back, he tries to snare the woman with his rope, but misses. Ash stabs the picture of the blonde woman with the sword, snapping Xóran awake again. Caleb gets the woman with a small fireball, who backs off. Xóran awakes, and reaches behind the picture and takes the emeralds, and gives one to each of the others, keeping the rest. They turn and leave the dungeon, and make sure to slash the paintings as they do so.

They relaxed outside, as the evil turkeys were asleep.

Res aliae

Roman’s nephew Joe played Caleb and Chris’s cousin Steph played Mayhem. Ten character points for the last two sessions.

The players know what’s amiss with the blonde woman—she’s a lich—but the characters don’t.

Game log 5 November 2017: Inside the tomb of deadly deathful death

Dramatis personae

Ash, squire
Kim, thief
Xórin, fox-man scout
Caleb, wizard
Mayhem, short barbarian
Kôštē, cleric
Villûdē, guide who held the horses

Quid occurrit

They quickly got the horses inside and shut the door, lest the evil turkeys kill the horses. From there, they started down the stairs. Kim went first, and when she stepped on a flagstone at the bottom, a strange music played. Loudly.

Kim was also blind, so Caleb told everyone else to jump off the stairs lest they step on it and go blind too. They took stock of the room, and found they were in the middle of a good-sized room. Instead of normal corners, the walls went slantwise, making an irregular octagon. There were four ways out: one to their west, one to their south, and two to their east. Kim’s sight came back after a few minutes, so they started west.

After a short flight of stairs down, they found themselves in a room with scorch marks. There had been a four-poster bed, but only some of the posts were left, the rest gone, likely having gone up in flames. On the south wall were scorched bookshelves, with no hint of the books that had been on them.

They heard a rustling in the wreck of the bed. Ash went to check it out, and a carpet viper struck at him. It missed his legs, and Ash cut off its head. Caleb tried to get some poison out of its fangs but couldn’t, while Mayhem took its body for later eating.

On the south end of the room, Kim saw that there was a door in the southwest corner. Caleb came near and felt its magic aura, but nobody could find a keyhole or other way of triggering it. Caleb thought it had a command word, but, being Caleb, blasted it with an Acid Jet. Nothing. Kim yelled out, “Open sezme!” but nothing happened other than Kim sounding dumb.

They walked back to first room, and found there was a squad of six skeletons. It was a short fight, with Xórin falling down and trying to kick a skeleton while on the ground but missing, Kim dropping her sword, and Caleb, after lobbing a Fireball, trying a new idea: Flaming Weapon on Kim’s dagger. Kim didn’t hit, however, and wound up picking up her sword. While she did so, she saw the words “Undying fame” on one of the skeletons’ blades. As she did so, five big centipedes came, but after Xórin killed two with his two strikes, the others fled.

They sat down for a rest. However, after only a few minutes, four skeletons came from the northern-most of the two eastern hallways. Caleb mostly held his torch with Continual Light, not wanting to waste his energy, while the gang quickly took care of the skeletons, with only Kim getting hurt. From there, they rested to let Caleb be at full strength, and then went down the south hallway. It did nothing but curl around and come back to the room with the stairs as the hallway in the southern of the two east wall hallways.

Though they thought that “undying fame” might open the door in the scorched room, they chose to go down the one hallway they hadn’t checked out—the northern one on the east wall. After a few turns, they came to a room, with eleven shady beings—skeletons, with one in bandages.

They held the breech as the hallway became room lest the skeletons put them in the middle, and two skeletons, one with a broadsword (the others had shortswords), came up to strike Kim and Xórin. After some misses, Ash and Mayhem moved to the sides, and Caleb, seeing the bandages on the one, started casting Flaming Weapon on Ash’s sword. It was a good move, as more skeletons came up to fight, the one with the bandages came into full sight—a mummy. This frightened Kim into doing nothing.

The gang held its ground, and the mummy moved up to strike Xórin after he felled a skeleton. Caleb cast Flaming Weapon on Xórin’s swords, and Ash tried to hit the mummy. Instead, he dropped his sword. A skeleton hit Mayhem, but he held his cool, and the mummy, trying to end Xórin’s life, dropped his sword. Xórin, for his blow, hit the mummy, but couldn’t get through the mummy’s armor, Caleb started casting Flaming Weapon on Xórin’s other sword. Kôštē, the cleric, moved up to Kim. Mayhem took out a skeleton, while Ash reached to grab his sword.

The mummy lunged for the knight in shining armor and tried to bite Ash. Ash’s armor stopped him, but he lost his grip on his shield. The cleric moved Kim out of the way while Ash tried to do the same to the mummy, but couldn’t. Mayhem’s axe nicked Mayhem’s leg. Caleb got off Flaming Weapon, lighting up Xórin’s second sword.

And the mishaps kept going, with a skeleton, trying to hit Ash, hitting the mummy in the back. The mummy, realizing that it couldn’t get through Ash’s armor, tried to bite Ash’s face, but missed. It was near enough that its spit would have dripped onto Ash’s face if it still were alive and had spit. Xórin, seeing the opening, stepped behind the mummy and put both hit swords into its back. The mummy dropped, and a voice came into Xórin’s head, saying, “Thank you. Your reward is behind the painting of the blonde woman in the hall.” Xórin, of course, had no idea what that meant.

Kim, after the cleric’s jostling, snapped back to the world. Ash got his sword and shield ready, and Kôštē, seeing him hurt, moved up to Xórin. The skeletons let out a flurry of blows, but only hurt Mayhem, who dropped his axe trying to ward off the blow. Mayhem gritted his teeth and punched the skeleton, doing nothing to it. Kim got back into the fight, Ash smacked a skeleton, and Xórin tried to take out a skeleton, not bothering to defend. He missed, and Kôštē got up to Xórin cast Major Healing on him. This was good, as a skeleton hit Xórin right after that.

Xórin again went all out, ignoring the pain, and tried to take out a skeleton, but dropped his sword. Mayhem grabbed his axe, while Kôštē cast Minor Healing on Xórin. Xórin came back and took out a skeleton, while Kim’s sword broke. Mayhem and Ash both hit but couldn’t take down skeletons. A skeleton stepped up and smacked Xórin, while another hurt Kim to where she was dizzy and seeing stars. She staggered, but stayed up.

Mayhem took down a skeleton, while Caleb and Kôštē handled healing—Caleb gave Xórin a Minor Healing potion while Kôštē cast Major Healing on Kim. Mayhem and Ash took down the last two.

Res aliae

Roman’s nephew Joseph was supposed to join us with a new character (a holy warrior), but slept in. Roman, who was supposed to bring a new character (a war cleric), instead ran Caleb, while I handled Mayhem. With the NPCs, I often let the players direct what they do in a fight as much as reasonable. I don’t want to be handling NPCs and leaving the players on the sidelines.

So, how do you handle gaming after your gaming buddy of 15 years died? Surprisingly quickly. As a result of being in the nursing home, our games went truly slowly. We had to deal with Chris’s meal times and sometimes wound dressings, so it took awhile to even start games. One of the front desk staff was a busybody and at one point made us move for no good reason (an administrator who saw it told us as much), there were the aging zombies who had never seen a roleplaying game, and the usual friendly chatter on top of all that. I wouldn’t have traded those last months of Chris gaming for a fast game, but I did like things flowing fast again.

For some reason, I had critical successes on parries become automatic hits against the original attacker. While this wasn’t according to Hoyle (and I had to explain that phrase to Roman for some reason during the game, incidentally; obviously, Roman’s father didn’t have Hoyle’s book of card games in his house!), it did speed things up a bit since the parry often took down a skeleton. No, I shan’t do it again, as it’s a bit much; I wasn’t thinking.

Two other matters for the players here, that happened at the end but I didn’t resolve as we were leaving:

• Everyone will lose FP according to their encumbrance level. Yes, this means the cleric and Caleb will lose 2 FP, which will make everyone rest even more.
• Caleb can see that both the mummy’s and the skeleton’s broadsword are magical. No, he doesn’t have Analyze Magic so he can’t be more specific.

A last note on Mayhem: running him made me realize just how well optimized Chris made him. Chris originally made him many years ago, for GURPS Third Edition. We updated him to GURPS Fourth Edition and tweaked things to fit the point level, which at first weakened him. But, now, the guy swings his SM -1 greataxe and parries as, for him, it isn’t unbalanced, and he’s at no encumbrance (ST 15, and armor sized for SM -1). He doesn’t have the reach a bigger barbarian would have, but he’s a tough little bugger.

Two days after the session, Roman and I went to Chris’s funeral. Roman, who also went to the visitation (I had to get stuff done at work before the funeral, and am not one for open caskets), put one of his minis in the casket with Chris, and I got to be a pallbearer at the cemetery. At the funeral, we may have picked up another player. Life works in strange ways.

Game log 28 August 2017 and 24 September 2017: Wild turkeys couldn't drag me away

Dramatis personae

Xórin, fox-man
Kim, thief
Mayhem, barbarian
Ash, squire
Caleb, wizard
Villûdē, guide (NPC)
Kôštē, cleric (NPC)

Quid occurrit

On 30 Néberos, they set out. That day, they met a one-eyed woman walking towards them. They hailed her, and she tried to sell them perfume.

Caleb: “We’re not in the market for perfume.”
Perfume merchant: “Maybe you should be.”

That night, they made it to Kerváron and slept at Caleb’s parents’ home. The next day, they passed by the market village of Dūtordôn, but kept walking west. The next night was rainy, and Ash killed a pesky rattlesnake right before they made camp.

The next day, they made it to Qadūšāt’s tower. There, a pudgy young hobbit opened the door for them, and brought Qadūšāt to them. She was a woman about thirty who had curly hair and big brown eyes, wearing pink and grey robes, and spoke in a light accent. From her, they found that she did know Praidīvós, their one-handed erstwhile patron, but didn’t like him, and knew about the pond. She didn’t tell them anything else, and was icy towards them, so the gang left without looking through her books.

They made camp outside, then set forth the next day. The next day, they made it back to Dūtordôn, and stayed at the Spirits tavern. They made it to the edge of the swamp the next day, where they made a swamp the day after that.

In the swamp, they heard a big boom that morning. They stopped for the night, and that evening, Mayhem led the gang as it scattered a bug swarm.

The next day was rainy, and they made slow headway. The next day, they made it to the edge of the pond. The pond was about 100 yards athwart. White elm trees with golden leaves were on all along the shore, and in them were jet-black lorises. In the middle of the pond on a small island was a cobalt-blue crystal statue of a wizard whose finger pointed towards the sky.

But first, the stymphalian birds.

There were almost 30 birds, as big as turkeys and jet-black, like the lorises. They flew at the heroes, who quickly slew a few. Between the losses and Caleb’s Stroke of Lightning spell, the evil turkeys felt enough fear to flee.

After binding their wounds, some of the heroes swam out to the statue. Caleb saw that the statue’s skyward fingertip was a prism, and if sunlight would strike it at the right time, it would make a ray that would show them something.

Sure enough, at sunset, the setting sunlight hit the prism at the right angle, and it shone on a spot on the shore. They went to it, and shoved away some dirt and brush, and found stone doors. They lifted them, and saw stairs going down.

It was a good thing, too, as the flock of evil turkeys was coming back.

Res aliae

I botched thunder bugs, as they should have been nastier. As such,

Two character points for each session.

I’m being a lazy rotter on this log stuff. I put together two sessions into one log, as they were both short sessions. As will be the one tomorrow, sadly.

Game log for 30 January 2017: It's booty time, booty time, 'cross the lands of Nandêmē

Dramatis personae

Xóran, fox-man ranger
Caleb, wizard
Mayhem, pint-sized barbarian
Ash, squire
Kim, thief

cum

Kôštē, cleric
Villûdē, guide

Quid occurrit

Caleb sensed the podium was magical. After some fretting, Xóran got curious about the podium, and touched it himself. It did nothing to him. Caleb put some paper on the lectern, and it fell into the podium. Same thing happened when Kim put the owl idol she stole from the other room on the lectern. Kim also prodded the lectern with a centipede's body and one of her arrows, and both came out. So, Caleb stuck his hand into the lectern, and it went past the top like it was air. He fished out his notes, Kim's owl idol, and a jar, which had 110 copper farthings and 7 gold pieces in it.

They went back into the altar room, then went through the other door. They walked through a banquet hall with old wooden benches and tables, then down a hall to a bedroom with a rotten four-poster bed, then from there down another hall. After walking about 20 feet down that hall, Villûdē, Mayhem, Caleb, and Xóran smelled an odd smell, and brought their hands to the faces, or at least weathered the gas that made the smell. Ash, Kim, and Kôštē, however, lost their sight as the gas hit their faces.

The sighted led the blind back to the banquet hall, and sat them down on the benches. They sat the blind on the floor when they found that the benches crumbled under their weight. Kôštē couldn't diagnose her own problem, though Caleb knew the gas was an alchemical gas. They chose to make camp. First, they tried going upstairs, but found that a rain storm was happening. So, they went back to the foyer to go to sleep. That night, Caleb had a nightmare about beavers striking him, but they kept away if he hewed near a wall. Kôštē couldn't see, but cast Watchdog right where she lay down to hopefully nab anything that got near. Luckily, nothing came.

(And the dice made sure of that. I have random encounters happening on a 7 or less on 3d, with a clue on an 8. For a long rest, I add +2, then the modifier from the Speed/Range Table, reading "yards" as "hours." Eight hours should be +6—+4 from 8-10 hours, and +2 from making 1 hour a zero rather than a -2. I suppose I should come up with a possibility of multiple encounters, like a second one for every 4 less rolled than the target number. Regardless, I rolled 18.)

The next day, they awoke, and found that the blind could now see. They went back to the room with the four-poster bed, and most everyone stayed there while Xóran and Mayhem went down the hall to see if they could find the gas. Xóran's fox nose smelled the gas, and once they stopped short, they easily found the flagstone that triggered the gas and pulled it up.

However, as they were doing this, the last few minutes of Kôštē's Watchdog spell caught some bother. Thus, nobody was surprised when three giant rats wandered towards them. The heroes made short work of two of the rats, while the third fled.

Kim ran after it.

The rat ran much faster than Kim, which didn't stop her. However, as she started to run out of the laboratory, she jumped back from a fuzzy pseudopod that lunged out at her. Hardly able to see, Kim shot three arrows at the jelly, stepping back as she did so. She drew her sword and missed with it before realizing that there was almost nothing she could do to the jelly, being as she could hardly see it. Thus, she ran back to the others.

The gang went forward, and walked down the hallway with the trap wrecked. After a turn, they walked into a room with a stone man, a dial and slot on a wall, a pillow below the slot, and a sword without a hilt. The stone man said to them, "Greetings. Would you like to play Swords and Ladders?"

The stone golem showed them how the game worked. The golem put the hilt-less sword into the slot, then started turning the dial. After three seconds, the slot let the sword go, falling onto the pillow. The one who made the sword fall straightest won, and the bet was a gem. If the player won, the golem said the game would twin the gem. If the golem won, it smashed the gem.

Kim tried three times. The first time was a tie, leading to nothing happening, while the next two times, the golem won. Both times it won, it smashed her gem. She chose to quit rather than spend her last gem, and gathered as much gem dust as she could.

From there, they went back to the foyer, and went into the privy that they had shut the other day. This time, Kim, Ash, and Mayhem lost their breakfast, and the rats started to fight them. However, the heroes made short work of the rats, even while Mayhem puked through the fight. Xóran took some damage, but Kôštē could not heal it at all, leaving the wound looking good but still hurting. After the fight, Kim opened a small box neared the toilet, and found 7 piece of gold.

Seeing no sign of the armor, they chose to look through rooms into which they had went the last time they were in the dungeon. When they got to the pantry, Kim looked into the cooking pot on the floor, and found a dial in it. After finding that they could not lift the pot, Kim turned the dial. The water pipes in the wall shifted, and when they met, everyone could see the door, which they could easily open. They walked down a short hall and found a room empty other than a rusted cage, then walked into a cave with a big chasm in the middle, a bridge athwart the chasm, a pool before the bridge, and a glimmer of light from their spell beyond the bridge.

They took a better look toward the glimmer. It was coming off metal. The metal of a breastplate.

Caleb talked about his dream, and they chose to give the pool a wide berth, sticking first near the wall then near the chasm as they made it to the bridge. Kim and Caleb checked out the bridge, and saw that it was rickety. Kim chose to try it, and slowly went over it. Ash and Mayhem tied together the ropes of the gang, and then around Ash's waist, and Ash started over the bridge when he saw that Kim was almost over the bridge.

When Ash made it to the end of the bridge, a wave of slowness hit him. As far as he could tell, Kim was moving fast as she walked towards the armor. She jumped like lightning as a spear shot out of the floor at her, and then gas flooded out and hid her from him.

Kim, however, saw Ash standing like an idiot, and walked towards the armor. She jumped away from a spear, then held her breath as the fumes from a gas started to pour out over her. She deftly leapt to the armor and back, grabbing it as she did so, then moved back through the gas towards the bridge, with only a lone spear going along the back of her armor. Kim waved to the others to pull Ash slowly over the bridge then, when he was over and out of the spell, she walked back over.

As they walked out, Caleb saw that the armor, which was a breastplate with a bit of beads along the edges, a painting of an ape roaring on the middle, and the faint smell of blood, was magical.

Res aliae

This was the first time that the random rolls for Weirdness Magnet worked in their favor. I had kept forgetting to use the results in game for many weeks, and almost forgot again, only telling them a bit after the dream. But it had always been the dream. Feels like cheating, truth be told, as the terrible dire demon beavers are nasty, though the trap was theoretically tough. The rolls were with them, however—Kim and Ash didn't make the bridge fall down, and Kim did well with the trap near the armor, resisting the fatigue damage from the gas that could have made her fall down. Kim and Caleb didn't make the Per-based Architecture roll, but I didn't hide that the bridge was rickety. Seemed like something that would be plain to me.

Breaking Bridge

Every time someone new steps on the old bridge, roll 1d. If the roll is less than or equal to the number of folks on the bridge, the bridge falls apart.

Detect: Per-based Architecture at +2.
Disarm: No.
Circumvent: No, unless someone finds another way over the chasm. The jump is 20 yards, making it unlikely.
Evade: The last fellow who got on the bridge can Dodge at +1, as can the first person if more than three folks are on the bridge.
Effects: 6d crushing from the 45-yard fall.
Shots: 1.
Rearm: No.
Steal: No.
Offensive Rating: 27.

Armor Trap

The armor is on a stand on the far side of the bridge. This trap activates once someone is on the side with the armor and no one is on the bridge (or the bridge has broken).

Detect: Per-based Thaumatology, or Per + Magery for mages, at -2.
Disarm: Dispel Magic (resists at skill 20).
Circumvent: Someone can stay on the bridge, if it still stands.
Evade: Dodge to get out of the way of the spears. Anyone who has Decreased Time Rate (see below) is at -2.
Effects: Resist Will or get Decreased Time Rate (p. B129) as long as you are on this side of the chasm. Everyone regardless must keep away from the spears that shoot up from the floor every 2 yards. Roll 1d each second for each person who moves at least 2 yards. On a 1-2, a spear comes out of the floor and does 1d+1 impaling damage unless he dodges as above. Once someone is within 2 yards of the armor, all hexes within 5 yards of the armor stand fill with gas. Resist HT or take 2d fatigue damage. Holding your breath can help; make a Smell roll at -4 to notice the gas fast enough to do so.
Shots: Infinite.
Rearm: Automatic.
Steal: No.
Offensive Rating: 54.

They don't know how much the armor is worth, but it is one of the first bits of magical treasure they have found. Whether they keep it or sell it is up to them, though a breastplate would only be a boon to one character, likely Ash. They need to get it out of the swamp, regardless.

Game log for 31 January 2016

Dramatis personae:

Mayhem, a barbarian
Caleb, a wizard
Yémos, a cleric
Kim, a thief
Anêr, a swashbuckler
Kúflaug, an orc slave

Quid occurrit hoc in ludo:

Caleb got the pony to stop before it ran off the ledge.

Kim picked open the lock on the chest, but didn't see the trap, which squirted alchemical goo into her eye, burning it. In the chest was 12 copper farthings, 2 silver pennies, a bronze jewelry chain, a silver  jewelry chain, and an edged rapier that Caleb felt was magical and glowed when Anêr pulled it out of its scabbard. Yémos healed up Kim so she could see out of both eyes again, then the pony, Caleb, and himself.

From there they went deeper into the dungeon, away from the way where they had been before, which entailed a left turn. They passed by a lake, next to which was a shallow pit filled with glowing black goo.

The passage widened into a bigger cavern which had a stream cutting athwart it. Over the stream was a bridge, and standing next to the bridge were 17 dwarves. The dwarves did not take heed of the heroes until Caleb yelled at them, "Hail, all-mighty workers of the earth!"

One of the dwarves, who had a full head and beard of honey-blond hair and big forearms, greeted them back. "Hail, all-mighty moochers of our work!"

Dwarf: What brings you down here?
Caleb: A hole in the ground.
Dwarf: You would see the underground as that, wouldn't you? That's it? Only a hole?
Caleb: Admittedly we have yet to encounter any of the dwarven wonders that have been sculpted underground.
Kim: We're looking for some dwarven art, and to soak up its beauty and not take it.
Dwarf: If you find dwarven art down here, you'd be the first to find it. I think we'd do a better job of carving.

At this time, the heroes took stock of the heraldry of the dwarves, and guessed that they came from the northern lands of Mōr-Nembe.

Caleb: Do you know Likháfrikh?
Dwarf: Never heard of him. So, all you want down here are dwarven artifacts?
Caleb: No, no, no. I was just saying that if we find any, we'll admire the hell out of them, and let you know if we do.
Kim: Do you know of any bad things further in?
Dwarf: All we know is of a sword of amazing magic and might and it's ours. Ours, ours, ours.
Kim: Would you like help killing things on the way in?
The dwarf smiled: Well, m'lady, I think we would like that. I'm Gahfurúkhai.
After some introductions, Gahfurúkhai added, "As long as we find the sword, it's ours."
Caleb: What sword is this?
Gahfurúkhai: It's one that fights evil.
Kim: Cool!
Caleb: We don't like evil very much.

The now big gang went over the bridge, and into a cave that became paved and worked stone. They went down a short flight of stairs to a door. After listening at the door and finding it unlocked, Kim opened the door. Behind it were two big ochre puddles that seemed to shift forward a tad when she opened the door. Behind the jellies was a stone altar, and a hallway leading out.

Kim shut the door. Gahfurúkhai said, "You're all pussies," and opened the door. Kim and Caleb each took a shot—Kim with her bow, Caleb with a small Fireball—and then the jelly's pseudopod missed Kim. Anêr pulled out his new sword and went into the room, giving the jelly a slash, while Kúflaug missed with his smash.

Gahfurúkhai saw the flash of Anêr's new blade, and screamed, "You liars!" He rushed to strike Anêr, and smashed his mace into Anêr's back. Anêr fell forward into the room from the blow. Kim, however, dropped her bow and pulled out her sword, and lifted it to strike Gahfurúkhai. The dwarf, however, easily blocked her blow. Mayhem's blow, however, was true, and struck Gahfurúkhai in the back. The other dwarves, in the back of the hallway, started to pull away the heroes' pony, but she put up a fight.

Yémos rushed down the stairs and into the room to help Anêr, and Caleb fired up a Blast Ball, still eying the jellies. Anêr got on his hands and knees, while Kúflaug smashed the jelly. Gahfurúkhai, however, wasn't yet done with Anêr, and he dropped his mace and jumped on top of Anêr. This left Gahfurúkhai's back turned towards Kim, and she stabbed him in the neck twice. The dwarves at the top of the stairs, shocked, started to back away, and Mayhem turned around to look at them. Yémos moved Gahfurúkhai off Anêr, and Caleb lobbed his Blast Ball into the room to scorch the jellies. The jelly at the fore missed Kúflaug with its pseudopod, and Anêr started to crawl back. Kúflaug gave the jelly another whack.

Gahfurúkhai, now in pain, looked up at Yémos, and whispered, "We'll talk." Yémos instead healed Anêr. Mayhem grabbed the pony, while Caleb started casting another Blast Ball. Anêr again got on his hands and knees, and Kúflaug again hit the ochre jelly. Gahfurúkhai looked up at Yémos, and whispered, "Please." As he saw the dwarves holding back, Yémos cast Major Healing on Gahfurúkhai, staunching his wounds. Anêr stood up, Kúflaug kept wailing on the jelly, which went splat, and Caleb's next Blast Ball missed the jellies.

Gahfurúkhai at last passed out, and Kim glared at the dwarves, hoping to intimidate them with her blood-soaked body. Mayhem moved to smash the last jelly, but then the dwarves rushed to the top of the stairs. Yémos tied up Gahfurúkhai, and Caleb turned around and started casting another Blast Ball. The jelly missed Kúflaug. Anêr stepped towards the top of the stairs and missed a dwarf. Kim also stepped toward the top of the stairs to stab a dwarf, who blocked her blow. Mayhem turned around and started back up the stairs.

The dwarves swung at Kim, and one put his mace into Kim, who fell on her back. Another tried to hit Anêr, who parried the mace. Yémos grabbed Kim, and Caleb lobbed his Blast Ball at the dwarves in the back, scorching them. Anêr tried stabbing a dwarf in the face, but the dwarf blocked his blow. Kúflaug, with no jelly left alive, went back up the stairs.

Anêr, Kúflaug, and Mayhem made a wall at the top of the stairs and fought the dwarves. After a few seconds, Kúflaug took two blows that made him pull away. This let a dwarf move into the gap, but Yémos and Caleb, who had dragged Gahfurúkhai, pushed his sleeping body at that dwarf. "He's alive!" shouted the dwarf, and they pulled upstairs, while the gang went into the room and shut the door.

Yémos bandaged Kim, and started to work more on her wounds. However, from hallway into which the gang had not looked came nine skeletons—six with spears and spears, nine with swords and spears.

It was an odd battle, with many wild swings. Yémos not healing up Kúflaug came back to haunt him, as he had to heal Kúflaug once a skeleton downed him early. Later, Kúflaug went down again, and chose to play dead. It worked; the skeleton moved to fight Yémos. Caleb found that Acid Jet worked well against the skeletons, albeit slowly. Yémos, as he often did against skeletons, smashed them with his staff.

A skeleton who fought Anêr had a memorable (second) last stand. First, its spear broke. Then, it tried punching Anêr, who lobbed off its hand instead. Then, when Anêr tried to stab the skeleton, his new sword went flying. The skeleton then tried to bite Anêr, who quickly pulled out his old sword and lobbed off the skeleton's jaw. It still kept striking with its shield, though doing no harm. But in the end, it went down, along with the other skeletons.

Res aliae:

Boy, did I give rules I hadn't used much before a good workout. Grappling? Check, and I had an NPC start one. Lifting? Check, though moving the dwarf was mostly ad hoc. Since the one skeleton kept trying to bite and punch, those were unarmed attacks, and Anêr's killer Parry let him make attacks at its limbs. Shield bashes? Check; Biter (as the players dubbed it) didn't have many other choices left for attacks.

Not only for the sword, but also for the tactics do I wish Eric, Anêr's normal player, were available. He's willing to try Deceptive Attacks, which I had to point out to Chris, who runs Mayhem and Caleb. Striking the Face wasn't a bad idea against the dwarves, who had heavy armor, but not against the skeletons.

The three skeletons with swords were stone skeletons, which I rolled in the d30 DM Companion. Basically, they moved slower (Basic Speed 5.50 vs. Basic Speed 6.50) but with higher DR (DR 4 vs. DR 2).

The sword is indeed intelligent, though the characters don't know this. Its intelligence hasn't come into play, but I had always wanted to have one in a game. I might write a Pyramid article on these once I get some experience with these in play. Both the Weapon Spirit spell in GURPS Magic and GURPS Thaumatology have some advice, but both need some honing for Dungeon Fantasy. Obviously, I'm using rules I crafted from both Original D&D and Expert D&D. I feel I should remind everyone that Monsters & Treasure had swords as 20% of magic items, easily the most of any permanent item (scrolls were also 20%, and potions were 25%), which was intentional.

Peter V. Dell'Orto down at Dungeon Fantastic, the ur-blog for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy bloggers, had a discussion not long ago which touched on reaction rolls. As I said in the comments, I use them often. Today had many. So a tale of many reaction rolls:

The first reaction roll was 11: Neutral, when the gang met the dwarves. When Kim offered to help them in the dungeon, I made another roll, and I got 16: Very Good. That dropped a couple of levels back to Neutral when Kim shut the door to the room with the jellies. (There was something else going on which I shan't explain but had something to do with that spot in the dungeon.)

Let me back up a bit and explain something. Dropping a level, for a reaction roll, means -3. All the levels for reaction rolls are in groups of three. It's something to keep in mind when looking at penalties and winging it without rolls when that makes sense.

I didn't roll another reaction roll when Anêr pulled out the magic sword (and the players, incidentally, found it odd that dwarves would be looking for a rapier, which is odd when you think about it). He's a dwarf with Greed (12), so I made a self-control roll for him, which he failed. He wanted a magic sword, and someone else had one, maybe even the one for which he was looking. I thought it appropriate that he would go nuts.

The dwarves, worried for their leader, did have another reaction roll, and it was a 6: Bad. Their leader was in peril but quarters were close, so they started stealing the pony to start. (Unlike Caleb earlier, they didn't make Animal Handling (Equines) at default.) The dwarves failed a morale roll when they held back for a few seconds, but not by much (by 2), and they did outnumber the gang by almost 3:1, though they didn't have a spellcaster or missile weapons. When they got a good chance, they took revenge.

The last roll came when Caleb and Yémos threw their leader's body at them. It was another Neutral (I think a 10, but I didn't write it down), so I figured they would back off at that point, glad to know their leader still lived.

Game log 17 January 2016

Dramatis Personae

Anêr, swordsman 

Caleb, wizard

Kim, thief

Kúflaug, Orc slave

Mayhem, barbarian 

Yémos, cleric

Res stultae 

The first day, 29 Párūs, still had wet ground, but they still got good time. Nothing happened, and they camped for the night.

The next day was 30 Párūs, which had nicer weather. In mid-morning they stumbled on three wolves as big as ponies. The wolves struck for their pony which also was as big as a pony, but they ran after Caleb singed them with Blast Ball, Kim and Anêr also having them good whacks. (The pony failed her Fright Check and was retching, or whatever ponies do that is near enough to retching for game purposes. This was a hidden blessing, since it meant that the pony didn't run.)

That afternoon, they started to see twisted trees and then twelve armed men on horses wearing the crimson-tinged black sashes of Dībités Rock ran into them. They chatted:

Lead goon: “Identify yourselves!"

Caleb: “We are but humble travelers."

Lead goon: “Come with us and we can put you up for the night."

Caleb: “Where would that be?"

Lead goon: “We are but servants of a master of a castle that is but a short ride from here."

Caleb: “Nah, we’re not much into castles.”

Lead goon: “Come with us!"

Caleb: “You need not trouble yourselves with us."

Lead goon: “You’re the ones who have found trouble."

Caleb: “Hey, did you notice some big ass wolves?"

Lead goon: “Wolves do not concern us."

Caleb: “They’re really big! They eat horses!"

Lead goon: “Are you gonna come peacefully or keep stalling?"

Caleb: “We’re not interested in staying in a castle tonight."

Goons nocked arrows.

Caleb: “Alright, we’ll go."

The goons surrounded the gang, and told it to move along.

Late afternoon, they reached Dībités Rock. Aidīvós, the bald majordomo, came out to greet them, and had this chat:

Aidīvós: “You guys again? How the hell did you guys get out?"

Caleb: “It’s just one of those things. We were minding our own business when these guys showed up. Do you always invite everyone over?"

Aidīvós grinned. “You know …"

Caleb: “No, we don’t know."

Aidīvós: “Gimme your loot and I’ll forget I saw you."

Caleb: “We’re kind of poor travelers, really."

Aidīvós: “If you got out, you have some."

Caleb: “We spent that! Geez, are you kidding?"

Aidīvós laughed. “C’mon, just gimme what you have."

The gang shook its money bags, and the goons took them, with 197 copper farthings and 193 silver pennies.

Aidīvós: “You know, a pleasure doing business with you. Now get out!"

They walked north and got to the dungeon that evening. There was a flock of ravens around the cave. They pitched camp, and early in the morning, a bunch of ravens came up while Anêr was on guard duty. The ravens started squawking, and Anêr woke Yémos to see if Yémos knew what to do with the ravens. None of them knew, and they slept later, luckily with no one bothering them.

They went into the dungeon, and walking through the long tunnel they ran into a toad as big as a man, which they killed. Yémos cast Create Food on it, and they trod on. Once they walked into the dungeon, they walked with their pony and turned around a few corners when a blast of fire greeted them. In a corner, they saw a tarakk chained to a chest. The fire spooked their pony, but they killed the tarakk.

Res aliae

We broke after almost four hours. John won one of those H&R Block tax prep rewards for $1,000, and he wanted to get it. He still doesn't have it as of Thursday afternoon, though this might be different now. "Malum," dixit Pu.

The log isn't as verbose as some, but it was truly a good session. Stuff in-game has been helped along by my custom hexcrawl worksheets, but they lead to logs of less literary worth, whatever that means. When I get around to revising them based on what I've actually used in play, I might share them.

Game log for 13 April 2014

Present:

Yémos, human male cleric of Dōsaútōr, goddess of magic (Eric)
Mayhem, human male midget barbarian (Chris)

As NPCs:

Anêr, human male swashbuckler (Rett, Eric handled him)
Caleb, human male wizard (mostly held up a torch of Continual Light)

Log:

They started in the room with the shackles and found out that none of the shackles were worth keeping. Yémos tried looking for a tunnel that a man in bonds would have dug, but they found none.

They walked back to the small room with the five hallways out, and saw that the black pudding was slowly slinking down the hallway that led to the great hall. The pudding felt their air and started to turn towards them, and they chose to walk down the hallway to the right of the one that led to the chief's bedrooms whence they came.

Louis Farrakhan's favorite
D&D monster.

The door lacked a lock, so they pushed it open and walked down the hallway to a room which had some old broken chairs around a big dais. Atop the dais was a big nest, and before they could turn to run, five striges came out of the nest to fight. Luckily, the striges could never get through their armor with their stingers, so the fight was short. In the hive were 40 silver pennies and 3 gold pieces. After looking at the pillars along the side of the room, which were mostly carvings of the gods, they went out the other hallway, which was on the other side of the room from the one through which they came into the room.

This room was a court, and there was a spot where a throne had been. In its stead was a stack of books. Yémos took the first book, which bore the name Walk with Me, My Friends by one Feoílklis of Erstókkīs, an island land well to the west that once ruled the mainland. The book was about the worship of a god of whom Yémos had not heard named Glanéťūr, who seemed to like putting men through his tricks. Yémos put the book in his backpack, and they took a look at the torches in sconces on the wall. Someone had hand-lit the torches, and not all were lit.

Pushover.

To the right of the way through which they came into the room was another door, which they pushed open. They walked through the hallway into a crypt, in the middle of which were two skeletons. In the short fight, Mayhem took a hit, which Yémos healed with Major Healing after the battle. Yémos saw what looked like a door with no knob or hinges, and after some prodding, pushed it to yield a glowing dark teal light. They threw a rock through the light and heard nothing, and when trying to touch the stone door again, Yémos found he could not. Mayhem pushed one of the skeletons through the light as well. After some chatting, the gang chose to turn back, though Anêr thought he could handle going through.

Pushes over PCs.

Back in the old court room, they chose to go through the next hallway to the right of the last one. The walls and roof of hallway and the caves to which it led had a sticky amber resin all over them. In the back of one of the caves, they saw four men in shadows, and Yémos called out to them. They shambled towards the gang, moaning the one word all zombies can moan: "Braaaaaiiiin." The fight with the zombies was nasty, and swords were breaking or flying all over the cave. Mayhem fell unconscious at one point, but Yémos healed him back right away with Minor Healing.

For he served the
Dungeon Master.

After the last zombie fell, the gang could hear and see a red demon with horns and a big scythe, and a man in leather armor walking on the roof of the cave. Caleb said the wall behind where the zombies were standing was odd, and Yémos stuck his head through it, and saw a pile of gold coins. Alas, living was worth more than gold at this time, so the gang ran back the way it had come, and the man on the roof jumped to the floor when they went back to the court room. Once there, they outran the man and the demon, and the man yelled back at them, "Go to your goblin friends!"

Once outside, the gang went over the hill and set up camp. From there, they could see a bunch of withered trees, which they guessed to be around Dībités Rock.

Notes:

A lesson one of the players learnt was that your Dodge is almost always your worst active defense. A worthy lesson.

The long and short of this short session (Eric had to go after about two hours) was that the players got their asses handed to them. The zombies were hardly fodder, and Anêr kept fighting, being Overconfident and all.

We gave the chase rules in GURPS Action 2 a workout at the end. I let them get away when they won one of the Quick Contests; we were short on time and they were trying to keep from a total party kill. Besides, the evil cleric didn't care much about them.

I can't remember if I gave them two or three character points. No big deal.

Game log for 2 March 2014

Present:

Mayhem, 125-point dwa-er, human male barbarian (Chris)
Yémos, 125-point human male cleric of Dōsaútōr, goddess of magic and wisdom (Eric)

Absent:

Anêr, 125-point human male swashbuckler (Rett)

Retired:

Caleb, 125-point human male wizard (Nate, run for this session as an NPC)

Notes about the above: Nate quit the game, so I ran Caleb as an NPC until we get a chance to drop him off somewhere. Or he dies, I suppose.

The game starts on 12 Žnēâns 2852, right after the death of the manticore. In a flashback to the 9th, Mayhem woke up in the tavern. Praidīvós realized he forgot to give Yémos the letter of introduction to get the blood from Dībités Rock, so he hired Mayhem to do bring that letter, with a payment of 10 gold pieces, payable when Praidīvós gets his demon blood. Mayhem makes it to hex 2216, and hears the gang fight the manticore. He comes up to the others and and they talk about slicing apart the manticore. Anêr tried cutting off the stinger, but stings himself, which crippled his left hand. Yémos casts Minor Healing gives Anêr back most of what he lost. They choose to move on.

No Emerson, Lake and Palmer springs to mind.

A mile or so eastward, they hear some whimpering coming from a cave, and see some tracks nearby. They try to sneak up to the cave, and they hear a howl. Mayhem fails his Fright Check, taking going ashen and and stunned for 3 seconds. An elf-like feline (a caterwaul) comes out of its cave and charges Caleb, but doesn't hit him. Anêr gets near the caterwaul but doesn't swing; Yémos casts Shield 2 on Anêr. Caleb takes a step back to ready Fireball. Anêr makes a mighty swing, but the caterwaul dodges. The caterwaul tries to claw the wizard again, but the wizard dodges, but loses his spell. Yémos then whacks the caterwaul with its staff, but the great cat stays and fights. Anêr swings again at the caterwaul, but the it swats away his claws. The caterwaul steps back tries to put those claws in Anêr, but the Shield spell helps Anêr shun the blow. Yémos takes a swing, and the caterwaul doesn't dodge. The caterwaul parries Anêr again, then starts to withdraw, running towards its cave. Yémos steps in front of the wizard, who tries to cast Fireball, but he misses. Anêr moves back to defend as well. The caterwaul gets into its cave when Mayhem awakes from his stun.

The gang chose to go eastward and leave the poor cat alone. After some more travel, they hear growls, which Yémos identifies as wolves. Since the wolves are not bothering them, and looking for prey, the gang instead goes onward.

Add a little more snivel, and some self-soiling.

About an hour later, they see a cave, to which they go and see four goblins cooking a rat. Our gang sneak up on the goblins, and Mayhem shoots the nearest one with an arrow. The goblin pulls out his bow and ducks behind another goblin, who gather their wits to fight the gang. Caleb tries to cast Fireball, but fails. Anêr waits, Mayhem moves nearer, and one goblin steps towards Mayhem and draws his axe. The one with his bow takes a shot at Mayhem, who does not dodge, but his armor stops it. The other goblins draw their bows. Yémos and Anêr near, and Caleb gets Fireball ready. Mayhem, sword out, takes a swing, and the goblin falls to the ground, groaning in pain  The other goblins run off. 

The gang ties the goblin, named Kuflaug, who had six copper farthings on him. They ask him what's in the cave, and after a bit, he asks if they will kill the wizard and his "red man." He doesn't want to go into the cave, so Yémos wants to take him inside, and Anêr leads him in at sword point.

A little bigger and much more badass than a goblin.

They go into a big round room, about 50 foot diameter, and see the rotten tapestries on the walls, and listen at the door at the far end. They hear nothing. They push it open and go down the hall into a smaller round room, with four doors as well as the short hallway going into the room. They ask Kuflaug about traps in the rooms beyond the door to their right, and he says he doesn't know. They listen at the door and hear nothing. They walk inside, and see five orcs in a big barracks, which scares hell out of Kuflaug. The orcs ask what the goblin is doing inside the caves with the men, since the goblins are paying them to kill the wizard. As they parley about how much money the orcs should get (all of it, as they say), a black pudding seeps into the room from under the door through which they had just come. Man, orc and goblin all run to the one other door on the other side of the room, and find the door is locked. The orcs start to hack at the door, while the gang talks about what to do about the black pudding. After some mishaps, Caleb gets the Fireball spell going, and singes it. The orcs spot an opening, and run around the pudding instead of going through the door, which they have now hacked open.

Not for eating.

The gang goes into the room beyond the broken door. The room has fewer beds, and bigger, with a big statue of a humanoid with an oversized head. Mayhem goes first, behind the trap finder, and spots the loose tile, but the goblin wasn't so quick and stepped on the tile anyways and died from the bolt that shot out of the statue's mouth. Caleb and Anêr both took a shot, while Mayhem and Yémos get out of the way of two more shots. Everyone looks back, and see the pudding trying feebly to chase after the orcs. All choose to look through the room and go into the next one. After pushing in the stuck door, they go into the room, which is even smaller than the last one, and has oily rags and empty tin vials are in a corner. A lone big workbench, missing a leg, is against the far wall, which has some phosphorescent fungus on it. Random broken tools lie scattered on the bench. Caleb advises against shutting both doors after smelling the trap that comes out of a bottle in the middle of the room. They go to the other door and find the old prison, with rusted manacles and chains and some bits of little bones.

And we break here. The two characters whose players were there, Mayhem and Yémos, each got two points.

Notes: We gamed in Chris's apartment. Chris, can you clean up the place a bit if you're going to offer? And maybe show off some of the four decades of gaming material that you've accumulated? I know your foot is bum. Hopefully, the weather will let us do better in two weeks, either make your trek to Universe Games easier, or make it easier to get your excess stuff out.

I think I have the random encounters down, at least when they should happen. Now to worry about lead in for those.

Our barbarian is lacking in wilderness skills. Those will help the gang to get through the woods. Namely, a guide should have Hiking, Navigation (Land) and Weather Sense and some Survival (in these lands, mostly Plains, Swampland and Woodlands). The other characters can soak up whatever Survival skills the guide does not have.

Speaking of Mayhem, he lived up to his name by shooting a goblin before I could even get in a Reaction roll. Who knows how they would have handled someone talking to them? The orcs didn't take it too badly.