Play Report: MÖRK BORG Party B: session 1 (Rotblack Sludge)

Player characters:

Alberta von Dup, Wretched Royalty,  with a small but vicious dog, Maurice von Cip
Larv, Gutterborn Scum
Urvarg, Cursed Skinwalker
Theras, Heretic Priest

I ran Rotblack Sludge again with a different set of players. This time, the Seer’s “truths” were:

·      Gasses leak from holes and cracks, driving anyone who breathes them insane!

·      I fear none have ever willingly escaped the Accursed Den!

This time the party’s descent started with Theras peeking into the Dining Hall, while the rest of the characters investigated the Library/Bedroom. While trying to read one of the books, Alberta felt an overwhelming urge to scream “you dead, arise!”, summoning a crystal demon, who hit the surrounding characters with a mental shockwave. This alerted the three crooked guards in the Guard Room, who reacted aggressively and demanded the party to surrender, which they actually did, giving up their weapons (at least those that were immediately visible on their persons [the guards did not search them thoroughly]). The guards took them down to the Chain Room, they knocked on the locked door, summoning their boss, Fletcher.

Alberta von Dup

Fletcher questioned them, and upon learning that they were there to retrieve Aldon, the Shadow King’s heir he proposed a deal: he would give them Aldon in return for them helping him get rid of Lesdy, that damned woman living within the Den. Theras was uneager to take up this mission, tried questioning Fletcher (Is she your associate that you want to get rid of? Is this some sort of trick? Are you just doing that to get us killed?) until he finally pushed him too far (How do you spell your name?), causing Fletcher to lose his patience and raise his flail agains Theras. Combat ensued, and Larv fell within the first round (however, thanks to her Dodging Death specialty, she would return later with an unlikely explanation).

The party tried to calm Fletcher down, saying that they get it, he’s serious, he proved that (by apparently killing Larv), but they did not manage to convince him. Urvarg started her horrifying transformation into a life-and-death lizard. Alberta’s dog rolled a fumble, which in this case meant grabbing Fletcher’s arms with its teeth, but ending thrown off westwards into the Gem Room and falling into the sludge. Again the game surprised me in how formidable even the seemingly fragile first level characters can be. Despite being without their main weapons, and getting targeted by multiple of Fletcher’s spells, they managed to finally defeat him and his henchmen.The cursed skinwalker proved to be a real powerhouse, especially with the regeneration ability and the armor–reducing spit, Urvarg’s player also rolled A LOT of 20s during the fight. During the combat, Theras got hit by the chocking spell (reducing him to 0hp and causing him to collapse with internal bleeding), and Alberta von Dup got fried by the lightning attack (fatal).

Midway through the fight, Larv awoke thanks to her Dodging Death ability (50% chance to come avoid death, with an unlikely explanation [“I sorta winked at him sexily, distracting him, so the hit was not as deadly as it seemed”]). She crawled back and ran upstairs to retrieve a flail and get back into combat. After the fight, Larv  revived Theras using her medicine chest (as the players described in one of the funniest moments of the session – healing his internal hemorrhage due to a crushed throat by giving him a suppository). Theras then quickly restored the rest of his strength after reading his Blasphemous Nechrubel Bible. They also looted the corpses.

They lingered around in the room for a long time, so I rolled an encounter, resulting in all the sounds in the room being inexplicably muted. They investigated the effect for a bit. Then, feeling safer than they probably should in a dungeon (because they just killed the “boss”), they split up, peeking into the Gem Room, Statue Room, and into the Corridor. They went into the Cells, trying to talk with the mad prisoners, but seeing that they only keep screaming for help and tring to grab anyone coming close and are unwilling to calm down and talk, they ignored them. In the last cell they found an imprisoned woman and a diminutive man in a jester’s garb who were more communicative, so they decided to free them. The jester also pulled a seemingly dead man from the corpse pile -who turned out to be just unconscious and incredibly scrawny.

(It was the next day in the real world, and Alberta’s player wanted to rejoin the game. Additionally, a new player wanted to join in)

Player characters (day two):
Adalberta von Dup, Wretched Royalty, with an annoying jester, Mr. Giggles
Eusebius the Defecator, Forlorn Philosopher (he started with 1 max HP, no surprise they figured he was dead)
Larv, Gutterborn Scum
Urvarg, Cursed Skinwalker

Theras, Heretic Priest

 

Adalberta von Dup and Mr. Giggles

They figured Adalberta looked a lot like the recently burned Alberta, and soon learned that they were actually twins (what a coincidence).

They went into the Debris Room, where Urvarg (in lizard mode) got attacked by a single dusk gnoum, whom she promptly devoured. In the Debris Room they found Adalberta’s and Eusebius’ missing equipment. Urvarg climbed the stepladder in the Forge into the Pump Room, encountering the giant spider, which she fought alone while blocking the stepladder itself, while the rest of the party waited idly downstairs (after getting a feel how strong her character is, she became a bit of a showoff). Theras also plied a bunch of gems in the gem room (not provoking the gutworm, which sunk into the sludge dead but dreaming due to Fletcher’s death).

Pump Room with the hound-sized spider

While they were looking into the statue, the floor tilting trap activated, throwing all the characters except for Larv fell into the Rotblack Sludge. They all actually managed to survive it, some climbed the wall, some climbed a rope fastened to the statue by Larv while they were splashing around in the sludge.

When they all got out, Eusebius put an eye from one of the corpses into the statues bloodstained eye cavity, opening the secret door into the Son’s room. They discussed who is supposed to go in first into the new room for so long, that a fat kid dressed in finery finally peeked out of the room himself. He scoffed at them and went back inside.

(The funny thing is that by now, Theras’ player completely forgot they were meant to rescue someone, and figured they were just screwing around, experimenting with the dungeon after killing who they were supposed to kill)

Used to sending Urvarg in lizard mode upfront as the most resilient character, they got her into the Son’s room. This terrified him, so he grabbed a crossbow from the shelf and started shakingly loading it. However, they managed to convince him that they were not going to hurt him, and that if he stays, he is going to starve to death, since his caretakers are all dead. After that, he agreed to follow them. They also took the bullwhip with cryptic runes, and Eusebius took Alberta’s armor, after scraping her charred remains off of it.

They emerged from the Den into the outskirts of the Shadow King’s Palace (“so basically like the kid got mad to his dad and ran away from home and into the basement?”), where they met the Masked Seer and his guards. The escort promptly stuck Aldon into a windowless litter. The Seer pointed at Eusebius and Mr. Giggles and said “They didn’t go down there with you,  kill them” (he ignored Adalberta, whom he mistook for Alberta) – however, they managed to convince the Seer to spare their new comrades.

The Seer then handed the Shadow King’s Iron Letter to Theras, who was the first to emerge, so the assumed leader. He also gave sacred scrolls of Bestial Speech to Theras and Larv, an unclean scroll of Nine Violet Signs Unknot the Storm to Adalberta and 9 silver pieces to Urvarg (lol) – rolled from the Getting Better table. Eusebius got nothing, because he wasn’t among the people who were given the job.

The adventure description promised “wealth” but we started the game in the middle of the night and forgot to read that part, so that is all they were given.

Some conclusions:

I probably should have had all of the Fletcher’s henchmen (D4 Guards with sharpened teeth, mongrels) from the listed encounters rush to them to help him in the big fight. On the other hand, perhaps they saw him getting wrecked as an opportunity to escape his cannibalistic necromantic reign.

After the session I figured that since the Skinwalker’s class is supposed to be a curse, but mechanically is actually a huge blessing, to later add some additional rules to have the character get slowly overpowered by their bestial half – Preliminary idea: if they shapeshift over the power limit, they have to do a Presence test, if failed, they permanently lose 1 Presence, cannot increase their Presence when Getting Better anymore, and look more and more like their animal form even when human (rough skin, hairy, change of eyes, fangs, forked tongue, later getting actual fur/scales all over), after four stages (which are increasingly difficult to avoid, due to decreasing Presence) they stay in their animal form forever and lose their human mind, either running away into the wild or attacking the rest of the party.

Entries into the Book of the Dead:

†Alberta von Dup, fried by Fletcher’s lightning in the Accursed Den

 

 

Play Report: MÖRK BORG Party A: session 1 (Rotblack Sludge)

Player characters:
Rachela, Heretic Priestess, with a small but vicious dog, Leon
Aldona, Wretched Royalty
Margar, Forlorn Philosoper, with a Hegelian Owl
Shnee, Gutterborn Scum

The party, facing execution for heretical theft, accepted the offer of a masked Seer to instead risk their lives in an attempt to retrieve the Shadow King’s lost heir, Aldon from an infamous accursed locale known as the Accursed Den.

After rescuing him, they were to discreetly bring him to an abandoned inn, known as „the Ratcatcher”, which lies halfway on the Road to the Shadow Kings palace.

The Seer guided them there together with an armed escort, and offered to scry them two truths, which were as follows:

·      The lamps burn red, the lamp-oil touched with human blood!

·      Something hungers in the depths, an enormous creature, like a vast intestine!

Stepping down into the first cavernous room, with a small stream of water flowing through, black-violet butteflies flying around, and two doors in the wall before them, they carefully ventured forth, at first throwing  stones before them, anxious of potential traps.

Listening at first at each of the doors, they all moved into the Dining Hall, in which they encountered an ancient man. Margar, the Forlorn Philosopher however stayed behind, scared of the contents of the dungeon. After their attempts at communication with the ancient man were unsuccesful, they launched a slingshot stone at him, hitting him straight in the foreahead. He bleeded a bit, but did not react. Shnee searched him, upon which she noticed him breathing, got scared and left him alone.

The Ancient Man

Then they moved into the guard room, where they encountered a single Crooked Guard. Figuring his reaction might be uncertain, I rolled for it, and it came out as helpful, which would mean that he figured that his boss, Fletcher, might want to strike a deal with the Party for his own designs (getting rid of Lesdy and her cultists from the Greenhouse), perhaps even allowing them to take the heir for their aid. The guard guided them into a dark corridor, meaning to lead them through a hatch in the Pump Room down into the Fletcher’s Forge/Slaughterhouse. He remained unaware however, of Margar, the Forlorn Philosoper, who stayed back in the entrance cavern, and who decided to run up to him and attack him from behind. A fight ensued, in which they managed to kill the guard, mainly thanks to Margar’s Hegelian Owl, which scored a critical hit against the guard, tearing him to shreds.

They searched his body, and Rachela smashed his face to retrieve the guard’s teeth for her necklace, as per her custom (rolled in the Bad Habits table). Worried about the hatch that they had seen in the pump room, Shnee decided to drag the body there, to weigh down the hatch. Then she noticed a black sarcophagus (rolled from the random encounter table) that she was sure that she had not seen before from the corridor. Perplexed, she abandoned her idea.

Meanwhile Aldona started tinkering with one of the paintings in the corridor, activating a pit trap, leading to the fall of herself, Rachela, and Rachela's dog. Margar used his long chain to help them out. The trap started to slowly close itself up.

Then they dawdled for so long discussing their next steps, that I figured I’d roll on the random encounter table.

(The way this dungeon is written, it seems that encounters are to be rolled only upon entering a particular set of rooms, which left the players without sufficient urgency, in my opinion, that’s why I decided that a possibility to encounter some denizens of the dungeon was called for)

The roll resulted with two guards with sharpened teeth, who approached with indifferent intent. However, when Aldona loudly exclaimed „You will not take us alive!”, they were eager to comply. In the ensuing fight, the party tried to escape jumping to the far side of the pit, Rachela and Shnee succeeded, while Aldona and Margar fell into the pit.

Fittingly, one guard managed to jump over the pit, and one fell in. Aldona and Margar managed to decapitate the guard that fell into the tunnel, again with much help from Margar’s Owl, which scored another critical hit.

Rachela and Shnee fared much worse, barely making it in the fight, and losing Rachela’s dog, which fell down the pit, shortly before it closed (the dog fumbled the attack, I figured it's like losing a weapon). Finally they managed to reduce the guard to half his HP, after the morale roll he surrendered and begrudginly agreed to join them.

Margar and then Aldona took off their armor and squeezed through the tunnel westwards, entered the stuffy greenhouse, densely covered with plants. Margar tried to stealthily approach a campfire he saw, but his habitual whistling lead him to be quickly discovered by Lesdy and her three „hosts”. He and Aldona agreed to join them in their meal. Rachela’s dog stayed behind and gnawed on the guard’s corpse/pissed on his decapitated head.

After the meal and a short conversation, the „hosts” rised and attacked the Player Characters, who felt slowed down, and sweaty after the food and drink they were given. The attackers brought Margar down to 0 HP (making him fall unconscious for 4 turns). After a short struggle Aldona surrendered, and allowed herself to get tied down. The Blade of her Ancestors laughed at her incompetence.

Meanwhile Rachela and Shnee interrogated the guard about the Den, Fletcher, and the lost heir. They learned the guard knew about the heir, but did not know where he is held. He was afraid of Fletcher, and unwilling to aid them in fighting him. He also told them Fletcher would be willing to make a deal, just to get rid on "the woman". The upstairs half of the party decided to reactivate the closed pit trap, and use the table from the Dining Hall to safely move to the tunnel below. They told the guard to go first, so he eagerly obliged, slided down into the tunnel and promptly ran away to Fletcher (I forgot that the only door this way is supposed to be unopenable from this side, oops). Rachela told her dog to guide them toward their friends, the dog went into the tight tunnel, so they decided to disrobe and also squeeze through the tunnel, after which they heard a loud roar from somewhere behind them (it was Fletcher upon getting a report from the escaped guard).

Just about time they finished donning their armor back, making a huge noise (especially Rachela with her plate), Margar regained consciousness and escaped as quickly possible in his state in their direction, surprising his enemies. The "hosts" rised and went to investigate, upon encountering all three remaining party members, they were willing to parlay, and brought her to Lesdy. She, assured that they were no friends of Fletcher, told them that she has been consuming the sludge and trying to commune with the Gutworm dwelling within, and had them promise that they would get rid of Fletcher (while offering no aid from herself or her friends, basically using the PCs with no risk of her own). After that she rised, and left together with her men, after which the campfire went out (I though it might be cool), after that they were nowhere to be found (also thought that it would be cool, seeing how they all barely made sense to me as written anyway, I found it appropriate to give them a mysterious flair).

The party decided to rest in the Greenhouse and sleep the night, restoring their HP and Omens (another occasion where I felt the dungeoun lacked Random Encounters, but didn’t roll for any, Lesdy and her friends were apparently able to stay there undisturbed there, after all). When they were asleep, Margar dreamed of going down the hatch into a hellish realm of fire and flesh, meeting a monstrous entity and then stabbing Lesdy in the ribs (the dreams of what he should have done sent by his Hegelian Owl - if they followed the guard and made a deal with Fletcher, it would all have been over by now).

Upon resting, the players squeezed through the passage one by one. The body of the killed guard was missing, but the table blocking the pit trap was still there.

They scouted the Gem Room, but retreated back (they were tempted by the gems, but decided against disturbing them after what happened with the paintings) and instead climbed up on the table. They investigated the Pump Room, Aldona tried drinking the muddy liquid, but did not feel any more understanding of the Worm afterwards. Rachela opened the sarcophagus, which led to her and Aldona (the only PCs who were in the room) being sucked inside andbeing teleported into the Greenhouse.

Surprised but unfazed, they met up again in the corridor, and went back to the Dining Hall and experimented a bit with the ancient man. Knocked him over, then figured he might be hungry or thirsty, since he was sitting at a set table, with mugs and plates and all, so they tried to give him food or drink, but to no avail.

Then they sent Leon, Rachela’s dog to scout the guard room to the East. They heard the barking of a much larger dog. Soon, both dogs, together with two guards (one of them was the one they captured before, with a black eye – a sign of Fletcher’s frustration).

(They were awaiting around the Chain Room to ambush the party – figured it would make sense after their previous fights with the guards, and with the escaped guard notifying Fletcher)

After a short scuffle, Fletcher himself appeared, a huge bald bear of a man, wielding a huge red-hot flail. In the fight, both the guards and the dog soon perished, with only Fletcher remaining. Rachela however, became infected from the dog's bite, leaving her future bleak and uncertain. Shnee managed to score a critical hit on him, tearing apart his hardened skin (reducing his armor), but died soon after from a hit of his flail. Another casualty was Rachela’s dog, fried by Fletcher’s bolt of lightning.

Shnee, Gutterborn Scum. Donned in fur armor and armed with a femur.
Fough valiantly but died.

Thanks to their sacrifice, the remaining characters managed to defeat Fletcher, despite Aldona’s ancestral sword working against her. They brought him down to 0 HP, Aldona dealt the final blow, severing his arm, then Rachela stabbed his heart for good measure. The surviving party members quickly robbed Shnee of her belongings. Thus the session ended.

Entries into the Book of the Dead:

†Shnee, killed by Fletcher in the Accursed Den