I left off the last session by climbing up a spiral staircase, following a trail of giant spider blood. I looked through the dungeon geomorphs I am using for this adventure and there was only one map section with a spiral staircase. I had two options. The first is to roll for a random geomorph and then copy and paste the spiral staircase into any suitable spot. the second option is to find a feature on a different geomorph that is ‘close enough’ and use that.
This time I have gone with opinion 2. The next time I use a staircase I will use option 1. The nice thing about option 1 is that it will give me a unique geomorph of my own. The more tweaks and changes that you make to your map sections the more unique the game you get.
So this is my map section.
I have placed myself in the octagonal room in the bottom left. I am not going to ask some set up questions.
The first has to be “Is the spider here?” I think this is very likely, if those doors are shut then spiders are probably not that good and opening and closing doors. I get a Yes, because… this is its real lair (what I previously thought was its lair was actually just a larder). Do I need to ask more questions? Not really at this point. I can imagine what a spider lair looks like, wall to wall and floor to ceiling webs and drained husks of bodies.
The important thing is do I spot the spider? The degree of success will give me an indication of if, when, and how I get the first shot off with my Arquebus. Perception(seeing) Failed! I think spider had buried itself deep into its web.
As I climb the staircase, more and more tendrils of web start to hang from the walls and steps, eventually, the stairs open into a chamber clogged with webbing. Looking around, I cannot see any sign of the spider. I look for signs of its blood trail to work out where it went.
Perception(tracking) Success, Stunt Die is 4, quite a good success. What about the Spider? Does it attack? I amke this a 50/50, it is wounded, but I am in its lair. 11, yes, because… It is lair has been invaded. Does it get surprise? Likely, yes! I am surprised so I don’t get to act this round, the spider gets +1 to its attack because it is above me.
I am not going to show the dice rolls for every round, I will just run the combat and then describe the end result.
The spider’s first attack is nearly enough to kill me! I luckily avoid its next strike, and retaliate with a lethal strike that slays the spider!
This victory is enough to level me up to 2nd level. I also take a breather gaining some HP back. Levelling up gives me +1 Dex, inceasing my defence, and speed. I get a new focus, so take guns seeing as I have my Pistol and Arquebus. I also get the Pierce stunt for 1SP instead of 2SP. Pierce halves a target’s armor, which is a big advantage. I struggled against the Spider the first time because its armor was soaking up 4 damage every time I hit it.
I roll for treasure now, just to see what is here. I will need to do a search to actually find it. I come up with 70sp, and an Arcane Tent, which is a crystal that is a bit like Leomund’s Tiny Hut, if you are familiar with the D&D spell. I will roll the Perception(searching) now so I know what the result will be. Failed! How sad is that…
The spider collapsed as my short sword ripped open its thorax.
I look around its lair and all I see is a tangle of webs, desiccated husks of dead creatures and people and behind them two doors. Hacking my way forward I examine the first of the two doors.
I want to know something about these doors. I will make the rolls 50/50 because I have no foreknowledge of what this place is or was. Are the doors locked? No. OK, so that was easy, if I had got an and or because, I would have checked to see if they were trapped, but in this case they are simply closed doors.
I have normally tried to follow the left wall, and that means Kellan is examining the north door.
I try and push the door and it opens before me. I am looking out on a corridor that curves away to the left, to the right is what appears to be a crossroads of corridors. I am going to stick to the left. Closing the door behind me, pause for a moment to reload the arquebus, and then head down the left-hand route.
My arcane light shows up another door ahead of me.
Is the door closed? No, because… Two ideas have come to me, the first is that the door is open because something is ciming through it, or the door is open because it is a trap and I am supposed to walk through it without checking. I will 1-3/4-6, 4. It is a trap. 1-2 a poison dart, 3-4 swinging blade, 5, pit, 6, magical. 3, swinging blade.
I get closer to the open door and my light spills out into a corridor beyond. I get up to the door and look left and right. To the left, the corridor extends off beyond the limit of my light, to the right a bit chamber or room opens up.
Leaning around the door would be enough to trigger the trap. I am picturing a guilotine style blade that will cut down. I will give myself a Perception(seeing) test to see if I notice the channel that the blade will run down. Failed! Most of the example traps in the core book do 2d6 damage. If I had made the seeing test I would have allowed myself to take half damage. The blade cuts down and does 7 HP damage to me.
As I leaned around the door frame a blade cut down, thankfully my heavy leather armor took the worst of the damage.
I assume I would have made some kind of outburst when that blade came down. I am going to ask the question “Did I attract any unwanted attention?”, Yes, because… of the noise I made, or because the trap was attached to an alarm. I roll to see what I have attracted. I rolled Serpent Folk. I will roll for how many. 1-3=1, 4-5=2, 6=3. I rolled a 4, two serpent folk guards. It makes sense for them to come from that big room area.
Two scaley figures, armed with spears, rush at me from the room on the right.
They get the initiative. The serpent folk are quite tough, tougher than I expected! This could be a bad fight.
I avoid both their initial spear thrusts and return with my loaded arquebus, severely wounded one of the two creatures. Soon their superior numbers begin to tell and I am taking small wound after small wound. I try and back off (using the skirmish stunt when I can) to the stairs, hoping to restrict them to fight me one on one. A spear hits me hard, and I fall, everything goes black….
This is the end of Kellan’s adventure.
I went into that last fight with 24HP, each Serpent fold had 30HP and their spears did 1d6+6 damage, they also had a chance of doing a secondary attack with their bite. I nearly made it to the staircase, but a final blow took me to zero hits.
I could decide that the serpent folk wanted to question me, and have them perform first aid. Maybe they have been trapped in this complex since it was sealed and they want to know more about the outside world? There are always options in solo. I think dodging death should always come at a cost, such as being an unarmed prisoner.
In this case, I have been reading Modern AGE over Christmas and would like to play the modern day version of this game. So, Kellan lies dying on the floor of a forgotten dungeon.