A Dungeon Game play report
This post is part of my archiving of my old Cohost. The post itself is responding to one of Nick Spence's play reports. Since that post was also on Cohost and Nick hasn't backed them up anywhere at the time of this writing I'm also reproducing Nick's original play report, too.
Nick's Play Report
Hearing a local wizard speak of caverns in which sorcerous crystals could be gathered, our party gathered to delve its depths. They knew another adventuring party had gone ahead of them some time ago but had not returned, and that a long ago a cult had dwelt in the caves, but had been dead nearly as long. Our party consisted of:
- Staunton the ex-Hangman who was both a capable swords man and knew a magic word of Hammering Blows and a sigil of Alter Gravity, though an old chest wound left their ribcage slightly concave and thus without many HP.
- Nevice the Burglar, who knew the extremely burglar-y sigil of Lingering Darkness, and whose philosophy mostly seems to be “Walk softly and carry a large crossbow”, and
- Mickle the Taxidermist, who carried a rather unsubtle two-handed warhammer and knew the word of Revealing Hatred and the sigil of Violating Abomination
Heading into the caves, the first chamber they entered was filled with poorly painted signs swearing at them in various languages around a double door marked with an occult sign, and a foul-smelling passage-way lead to the south. Looking at the sorry state of the signage and the choice of colourful vocabulary, they deduced (correctly) that this was Goblin-work. After testing the door for traps, they determined with their combined magical abilities that the door was not magical itself. A careful prod with a spear failing to open the door was pieced together with seeing the sharp ends of nails poking out of it towards them to figure that the door had been boarded shut from the other side. Hearing movement from beyond the door, Mickle resolved to cast their ritual to determine their intentions or possible hatred, but an exceptionally unlucky series of rolls caused the spell to miscast badly, and render Mickle unable to ever cast rituals again. Deciding that maybe this door was cursed after all, the group headed south.
Entering a cave down a passageway, the group found a lone goblin shovelling shit down a sloped section of cave, and caught them rather by surprise. This being a random encounter, I rolled a reaction and scored undecided, but a lone goblin being approached by three kitted out adventurers would presumably be quite intimidating for the poor lad, so had the goblin throw their hands up in surrender. The group tried to interrogate it, but learned that the only shared vocabulary between them were a couple of dwarven swear-words. With an offered piece of beef jerky, Staunton encouraged the Goblin to help draw a map, first of what they knew so far, and then prompting the goblin to fill in more. The goblin drew a “teardrop shape with four legs” off a passage down to the south-east and did a big thumbs down, and then indicated a cave down the opposite passage to the west, followed by a series of scribbled squares full of hastily doodled goblins, alongside a big smile and thumbs up. For the goblin’s troubles, the party gave them another bit of jerky, and parted ways, the group heading south-west towards the tear-drops, and the goblin returning to their shit-shovelling.
The next cavern stretched off to the northeast into darkness, but the group saw another passageway heading south just across from them. Hearing animal noises from out in the shadows, Staunton tossed out another piece of jerky to tempt it out, and an alligator-sized lizard came trotting into the light to snap it up.
Deciding that maybe they wouldn’t mess with the large lizards, Mickle threw a coin passed the lizard to distract it and the group made a break for the passageway. A second lizard came out of the dark to investigate as well but the group got away with it, though one of the lizards did spit a hissing glob at them as they left.
Continuing south, they entered another cavern, filled with the detritus of a battle, clearly involving surface-dwellers. A pit in the south of the cave was partially filled with water and wooden spikes. They decided against messing with whatever was moving in the dark water and moved on down a passage to the west.
Emerging in a large cavern, they found a set of rough-hewn stairs heading down, another passage heading further west, and a worked stone wall, bearing a pair of brass doors, flanked by statues wielding very real swords. Figuring these had to be a trap, they pushed the door open from a distance with the butt of a spear, which made a horrendous shriek as they did so (but not attracting any random encounters, despite me rolling three times, once for each exit from that chamber). Happy that they were safe, Staunton took a step inside, and trod on a pressure plate in the door-way, causing the statues to spin around towards him, ready to slice into him. A lucky agility save saw Staunton avoid harm, as the statues finished their swing, and began slowly rotating back to reset. Entering the doors, they found themselves in a large hall, lined with columns that lead towards another double door. Fearing another trap of some kind, Mickle investigated the walls, and discovered a pair of well hidden bricked up doorways in the east and west walls. After a brief discussion about whether the builders of this place would brick in something bad behind the walls, or brick people out of something valuable, Mickle resolved to hammer down the walls and find out, while Nevice kept watch at the door. The noise of hammering down the false walls attracted a random encounter, and again rolling the shit-shoveller goblins, I decided that their previous friend showed up again from the western passage to see what was going on.
Nevice allowed the goblin to enter, quick-wittedly lifting the unsuspecting goblin over the trapped flagstones that would have caused the statues to decapitate them.
Breaking into the two hidden chambers, in the west they found a skeleton in an open sarcophagus, wearing a gold pendant and sapphire ring. Mickle caved the skull in out of caution and took the treasure, but also spotted a hole in the stone-work in the far wall, giving a glimpse of a chamber beyond. The eastern hidden chamber similarly held a skeleton in a sarcophagus, though this one holding a masterwork sword, that Staunton claimed. The skull was also staved in for this one too. Finally done with the chamber, but suspicious of the next set of doors, they directed their goblin friend to open them, after feeding them the last of their jerky. Throwing the doors open, the goblin entered. They found a pair of stone sarcophagi, with ornate lids each depicting a slumbering woman, fashioned such that they seemed to be holding each others hands.
“Ahh, they were room-mates!” Nevice declared.
Also in the room, were a dozen pots, filled with gold coins. [As an aside, this next section was rather amusing to me, as they had (unknowingly) already found the secret, true tombs, and were now in the fake, decoy tomb. The gold was all iron-pyrites, though they couldn’t tell that in the gloom.] They were dead set that this was some kind of horrendous trap using the vast amount of gold as bait, so they lifted one of the doors off its hinges to stop it sealing them in, and opened the sarcophagi and smashed the skeletons within to stop them potentially reanimating, but noticed that the bones were all mismatched [a signpost by me that this wasn’t the true tomb]. Nevice the burglar then set about checking the pots for traps using their occupation’s expertise, and from this close examination realised the gold, wasn’t actually gold.
But, the group surmised, while the people back in town would realise it was fake pretty quickly, perhaps the goblins wouldn’t be as discerning… Foisting three pots on the now very happy goblin, they sent them back to the village with their “gifts”, again helping the oblivious goblin avoid certain death at the statue trap. They hid the rest of the fool’s gold in one of the sarcophagi and then followed the goblin into the western passage, deciding that the stairs down could wait for later.
Following the passage, they came to the chamber that could see into one of the hidden tombs they had just explored [again a bit of potential signposting from me that things weren’t all as they seemed in the tomb]. Continuing on, the passage west split, going north through a very narrow tunnel, and south which smelled slightly floral. Deciding that north probably would link back up to the shit-cave they had first met their goblin friend in, and wanting to leave the squeeze for later, they went south, running into another random encounter, a pack of four ghouls. The ghouls hadn’t seen the group yet, so they quickly doused their torch and assessed the situation.
They were in a large chamber, a deep pit in the south side had a number of yellow-flowered plants growing up from it, and one of the ghouls carried a torch. Throwing a coin passed the ghouls to distract them, a cunning check from Mickle attempting to sneak up on the ghouls just about failed, but using exertion they succeeded instead, at the cost of bringing their Agility down to a wince-inducing four. [Four ghouls here was no joke, at 2HD each they probably wouldn’t go down with one good hit, though the players didn’t know this. Rolling their HP I got two of them with 8HP (one of which held the ghouls’ torch), a scrawny one with 4HP, and the last huge and brawny with the maximum 12HP.] Taking a surprise round, Nevice and Staunton fired ranged weapons as Mickle brought his warhammer down on the brawny ghoul’s head. Nevice put a bolt clean through the scrawny ghouls head, killing it, and Staunton did 3 damage to the non-torch holding 8HP ghoul, while Mickle did a mighty 7 damage to the brawny ghoul, expecting a swift end to it, a look of horrified surprise coming over their head as the ghoul achingly rose to its haunches again.
Rolling initiative, Staunton was the only one to act after the monsters, so Mickle attacked the large ghoul again (going against the group’s plan to hit the monsters once each, they lure them into the statue trap in the tomb), the surprise turning to savage determination to kill the brawny fucker. As Nevice reloaded their heavy weapon, Mickle brought the hammer down again, just about clearing the Ghoul’s AC and caving its skull in, putting it down for good, then turning and running. The ghouls gave chase, though both their attacks were blocked by Mickle’s savvy purchase of medium armour. Staunton bravely unsheathed their fine weapon, and charged the closest Ghoul, scoring a mighty hit and dealing 8 damage to it [through a combination of a tasty roll of 5, plus one for their scar, another for their extra, and a last plus one for their masterwork blade]. Unfortunately this ghoul that had just been chopped in half was the one holding the torch. I rolled for the torch to see if it went out, and it did. The group had already doused their torch for the ambush, and everyone was plunged into darkness. In the chaos that followed, I had Mickle roll a Cunning save to prevent them from accidentally running into the pit just to the side of them, and a lucky roll of 1 saw them not only avoid the pit, but duck under a leap from the blind ghoul chasing them, who then tumbled into the darkness.
Separated by their retreat in the dark, Nevice eventually relit the group’s torch, and they reconvened. They stripped a string of jewelled beads off the neck of the brawny ghoul as a trophy, and in doing so Staunton found that their fingers went numb from touching the Ghoul’s skin. They decided that this was a good point to return to town to rest (and allow Mickle’s spent Agility score a chance to recover). They retraced their steps, tossing a dead ghoul to the cave lizards they previously passed to allow a swift retreat to town.
My Post
A very fun session. It was nice to play ADG for the first time rather than running it, and I was absolutely delighted when my first roll absolutely destroyed my character's ability to cast spells ever again.
We played with the revised light rules, checking every other Turn and doing away with automatic extinguishing on a 6. Nick chose to make these rolls rather than having us make them, but it definitely felt better than last week with the check happening every Turn. The lights still went out a couple of times but it felt much more impactful and consequential, rather than "oh look we need to light a new lantern again". Still a drain on resources as intended, but not constant and irritating.
One thing I realised is that I really want to write a proper equipment list. We were using gear bubbles ala The Vanilla Game, which I like, but I want people to be making meaningful decisions about what they carry into the dungeon and what might have to get left behind in aid of treasure, rather than being able to have the right tool at hand at all times as long as there are bubbles free. It's a different style of play and while I don't think one is any better than the other, the latter gets closer to how I want A Dungeon Game to feel.