Categories
Actual Play

Castle Xyntillan – Session #25 – Arrangement of Skin

The Company:

  • Niemir (F1)
  • Francesco (F3)
  • Amaranth (C4)
  • Jürg (F5)
  • Heintz (F3)
  • Hendrik (MU5)
  • Jacinto & Leon (porters)

Loot: The Reliquary of Bygone Kings.

Casualties: None.

Report:

Hendrik’s wife Ronja appears with a will she has had drawn up that ensures the magic-user’s property and share of the company’s capital will be transferred to her in the case of his demise. She asks him to please sign it, because she is very worried about his safety and what will happen to her and her family if Hendrik is no longer there to take care of them, heaven forbid. Hendrik responds by ignoring her.

They sell a barrel of Malévol wine to a merchant who is passing through town. They also pull apart the Libram of Heinous Damnation and begin selling off the precious gemstones and metals it yields.

Hendrik buys The Guidebook to Historical Curiosities, Vol. 1 from Ben Mordechai.

Shortly before their departure, they are surprised by the return of heavy footman Bern. He is the only one of the retainers that fled during the previous expedition who has made it back safely. Bern comes to the company with news of a great discovery. While he was making his way out of the castle he came across the statue of a sightless crocodile-ape monstrosity. It came to life and told him a riddle:

“Beyond frolick and dance,
Lies the seeing gem’s rest,
Break its curse asunder,
And in baptism let it be blest.”

Bern has no idea what it means, but he’s sure it’s of interest to his former employers.

***

The company nominates Jürg as the expedition leader. They decide to revisit the menagerie where they once encountered the huntsman Hubert. Seeing as how they eliminated him a while ago, perhaps the coast is now clear for a leisurely look-see.

They enter the courtyard through the gatehouse and make their way to the parapets shielding the rose garden. They lasso a rope over the wall and one by one climb up and over. Amaranth is one of the last to go and clumsily drops from almost up the top. After dusting herself off she tries again and joins her companions without too much further trouble.

They pick their way through the rose garden, careful not to be tripped by the arms sticking out of the flowerbeds. The heady smell of the roses makes them drowsy, but they manage to enter the castle before succumbing to the vapors.

In the room beyond the entrance they are reminded of the presence of the pair of phantom horses in the hallway beyond. When they open a door to the north they confirm the presence of the things. Jürg decides he will try to use his portable hole to trap them. He waits for the creatures to pass, steps into the hallway and spreads out the hole. But in stead of it opening, the hole begins to strobe a bright white light while a low hum increases in volume. Jürg manages to grab the hole again and step out of the hallway just in time not to be trampled by the horses.

Losing their patience, Hendrik zaps the dark storm cloud horse with a magic missile. Jürg steps into the hallway to face the bright sunlight horse and is nearly run underfoot, but his bacon is saved by another magic missile from Hendrik’s finger tips.

Pleased with the idea that they’ll never be bothered by those nightmare horses again, the company advances northwards through a hallway leading to the menagerie. At its edge they observe an empty marble throne, four eyeless ape stairs holding up pillars, and a motley collection of stuffed animals staring blankly at the various entrances to the room.

Francesco approaches a stuffed centaur and makes to prod it with his halberd. The centaur animates, takes a few steps back, and takes aim with his bow at the fighter. The remaining animals also come to life and angrily approach the company.

A massive battle ensues in which Francesco and Heintz in the vanguard are quickly overwhelmed by the combined forces of a lion, boar, centaur, a giant owl, and several rabid baby deer. Jürg once again deploys his toy soldiers and the things manage to hold off the monsters in time for Heintz to retreat. Francesco however, is not so lucky and falls to tooth, claw and hoof. In the hopes of turning the tide of battle, Hendrik risks lobbing a fireball into the melee, narrowly avoiding Francesco’s body, and incinerates several of the opposition. Jürg then raises the hammer and sickle they acquired several expeditions back, and turns away the diseased bambis. This is enough for the company to press on and stuffed animal after animal falls in a cloud of sawdust and wadding. The lion is the last to be defeated, Jürg’s toy soldiers hopping on its back and gleefully stabbing it repeatedly with their tiny spears.

Oh please god no not taxidermy fawn

Francesco is revived just in time, and the company begins to explore the room. They discover the four apes can speak: “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, smell no evil.” When four of the companions each stands in front of a statue and take the appropriate pose, they are rewarded with strange disposable spells.

Quite pleased with themselves for solving that riddle, they next check the door leading north-east. It opens onto a display room lit by an eerie brazier fire, and containing a glass-domed pedestal holding a silver reliquary on a red velvet pillow.

When they enter, Hendrik barely manages to avoid being hypnotized by the fire and sticking his hands into the flames. Jürg tries to smack the dome with a weapon, but it does not break. He tries to pull it off, but it won’t budge. Finally, he ties a rope around it, and stands back while Hendrik casts a knock spell from a safe distance.

Jürg easily pulls away the dome, but a poisonous gas immediately fills the room, burning both the fighter’s and magic-user’s lungs. Furthermore, the ghost of a Carolingian retainer appears, who immediately makes to touch the companions standing in the doorway. They manage to avoid it, and retreat from the room.

Amaranth steps forward preaching and brandishing her holy weapon. She turns away the wraith, and backs it into a corner of the display room. Jürg and Heintz run after her into the room, grab the dome, pillow and reliquary, and make their way back out. Meanwhile Niemir takes pot shots at the phantom with his longbow but it appears to be impervious to his arrows.

Everyone begins to move to the far end of the menagerie, and Amaranth slowly backs out of the display room. Francesco shuts the door before the wraith can follow, and Hendrik casts a wizard lock onto it. Then, the whole company turns and runs like bats out of hell.

They make it out of the castle without further issue, and two days later return to Tours-en-Savoy. Here, they have the reliquary inspected and learn several remarkable things about it. Jürg and Amaranth also go carousing. Jürg returns with a tattoo (again). It is Chinese script which Jürg insists is some bad-ass proverb. The Chinese know better…

Referee Commentary:

Our penultimate session of this season saw almost all of the active player-characters join the expedition. As a result, this referee was sweating a little to keep the whole affair from not going entirely off the rails. But the copious practice I’ve been getting is serving me well.

The big fight with the stuffed animals was challenging to run because all the monsters had different abilities and I had to try and get the most out of each while keeping the fight moving in the mean time. It went well enough, but it did once again make me reevaluate how I handle movement and positioning in our pseudo-theatre of the mind setup. I think next time I am going to try and go a little bit looser again, and possibly bring in Fate-style zones.

The hammer and sickle is a magic item the players recovered several sessions back, and have been aching to make use of. Here we had the corner case of stuffed animals: do those count as animated objects? I ended up rolling for it, and the players lucked out. However, Jürg’s player rolled kind of badly on his turn check, and so only the bambis were turned.

Finally, we had the stand-off with the reliquary wraith, which made for a suitably tense final scene. (Players literally told me so when we ended the session. I felt so proud I managed that.) Running turned undead is always challenging. I mainly use the guidelines described by Philotomy for it. But still, it really takes a lot of judgement to decide if an undead can escape from being cornered, for example. I erred in the players’ favor, and I don’t regret doing so.

One more session to go before we end the season and possibly the campaign. Although several players have expressed they are keen to keep exploring the castle. I myself am not tired of running the module either. It would be awesome if at some point the players will crack the castle’s central puzzle. Maybe in season 3? But first, this season’s finale. And then, a short break.

Categories
Actual Play

Castle Xyntillan – Session #24 – “I… Am… Darkslayer!”

The Company:

  • Jürg (C4)
  • Amaranth (C4)
  • Julian & Frida (porters)
  • Conz, Nathan, Milia & Bern (heavy footsoldiers)

Loot:

  • Libram of Heinous Damnation
  • Book of infernal names
  • Astrological and alchemical papers

Casualties:

None.

Report:

Jürg goes shopping at Mordechai’s Curious & Antiques and chances upon a box of animated toy soldiers. He also buys a potion of speed.

The company purchase a rowboat and load it up on their wagon.

On the way to the castle, Jürg dips his toy soldiers in a jar of poisonous salve they once retrieved from the castle.

Upon arrival, they carry the rowboat to the lakeside west of the castle, and set out.

Seeing as how only two principals could join the expedition they have hired a sizable number of retainers.

They make their way across the lake, keeping the castle on their right hand, and see a lakefront garden, with what appears to be a chapel jutting out into the lake.

They land, tie up the boat, and carefully sneak along the chapel’s west wall, while keeping an eye on the windswept garden overgrown with weeds.

Shortly before reach the chapel’s south end, three goatrices jump from the scrubs and charge.

Jürg pulls out his box of soldiers and empties it out on the garden floor. Nine 8-inch high lead spearmen glistening with poisonous grease charge forward. The men-at-arms line up in front of their employers, and brace themselves for what is to come.

The goatrices fail to break through the line of toy soldiers. One even stumbles and falls. Only one toy soldier is smashed by goat hooves and horns.

The toy soldiers begin to stick in their deadly spears and several goatrices succumb to the poison. The heavy foot soldiers make a countercharge and inflict more damage on the monsters, in part aided by Amaranth’s divine blessings. Without suffering any significant injury, let alone petrification, the goatrices are slain.

Not the scale figurines Jürg used, but the line of figurines that started this whole crazy endeavor (Elastolin)

The company continues to the chapel, when Jürg attempts to enter, he is prevented from doing so as if by an invisible force. Amaranth’s section of the expeditionary force begin to explore the chapel’s ground floor.

At the entrance, a font is fed by water from a lamb’s head statue with gemstone eyes. Shields painted green and blue hang from the walls. Frescoes depict a procession of maidens. At the far wall, a simple altar is covered by a bright white cloth with faint bloodstains. Stairs leads to the next floor.

Deciding to hold off on disturbing anything, Amaranth goes up the stairs. She inspects a room to the south and discovers its floor is covered by a mass of rats. She slams the door shut and goes up to the north door. This opens onto a study largely stripped of its furnishings. Papers litter a desk, a bookcase is filled with volumes, and a large black tome rests on a lectern.

Detect magic causes one book in the bookcase to light up. The black tome also strongly radiates magic. The cleric hastily grabs the volume from the bookcase, and large grubs crawl from it onto her hand and immediately begin to chew their way into her skin. Her retainers try to slap the worms from her hand but fail to remove them.

Panicking, Amaranth runs back down the stairs. Acting quickly, Jürg lights a torch and sticks it into the cleric’s hand, instantly killing the grubs. The cleric barely manages to retain her consciousness from the pain.

After a brief moment of respite, Amaranth returns to the study, and takes both the papers and the black tome. Meanwhile Jürg, still stuck outside the chapel, convinces his porter to take a dagger and pry the gemstones from the eyes of the lamb. His hireling does so reluctantly. When the second gemstone plops from its socket, the porter’s forehead erupts in steam and sizzling flesh. The poor fellow cries out in pain while clasping his face. In a flash, Jürg can see the man has been branded by some invisible force. The porter’s morale breaks, and he flees across the garden and into the castle.

Amaranth returns from upstairs to see what the ruckus is about. When she sees the dagger and gemstones lie on the floor next to the font, she decides to head to the altar to grab the cloth so that they can make their getaway. But before she reaches the far side of the chapel she hears a man clear his throat behind her. At the foot of the stairs stand the ghost of a judge wearing a golden pegasus brooch, taking in the scene with a frown on his face.

The judge, whose name turns out to be Roberto Malévol, is very suspicious of the company’s intentions. The fact that Jürg cannot enter the chapel is a dead giveaway in particular. Although he recognizes Amarnth as a cleric of law, the fact that she has no tongue disturbs him.

Deciding to not take their chances, the company carefully backs out of the chapel. The ghostly judge follows them all the way to the doorstep, and remains in the doorway, eyeing them intently.

The company decide to try and ignore the judge, and start combing the garden in search of the magic sword that is rumored to be buried there, named “Darkslayer”. While making their search they also spot the statue of a woman overlooking the lake from a balcony. Not far from the statue, a set of stairs lead down to the lakeside.

After quite some time of searching, Frida alerts them to the presence of a patch of blackened, barren earth. Not wasting any time, Jürg drops to his knees and begins to scrape at the earth with his axe. Some time later, he uncovers a large, vicious-looking zweihander. Jürg tries to scoop it up with a sack, careful not to touch it, but the sword compels him to pick it up anyway. Jürg gets up, raising the weapon, and the thing growls in a low voice “I… Am… Darkslayer!” The fighter, still under the influence of the sword, surveys his surroundings, and notices Amaranth standing not too far away. Darkslayer says “a cleric of law!” Kill her!” and although Jürg tries to resist, he once again fails, and can’t help but slash at Amaranth, wounding her badly.

The company panics. Amaranth runs for the chapel, her retainers in tow. Jürg’s remaining men-at-arms decide they’ve had enough and flee. Jürg raises up his sword again and with a mighty swing throws it at Amaranth’s back. Amazingly, the sword hits, and the cleric drops to the ground, bleeding heavily.

Jürg approaches the lifeless body of Amaranth, and the judge, who has been patiently observing the whole thing from the chapel doorway says “stop criminal, of to jail with you!” and tries to teleport Jürg somewhere, but fails. Jürg is just in time to revive Amaranth with a potion. The two run from the scene together, leaving behind a ghost and a sword, cursing them each for their own particular reasons.

Referee Commentary:

We nearly had to cancel this session due to low attendance. Luckily two players were foolhardy enough to try their luck in the castle anyway. Running for such a small party is always a lot of fun because there is more room for players to inject some color in their narration. I also don’t have to worry as much about ensuring everyone gets a decent amount of spotlight.

I don’t have much to say about what went down. The toy soldiers were a random item in stock at the magic item shop. Jürg’s player, true to form, then went on to ask me if he could dip them in the poison they’d once found. Of course he could, and so we had nine retainers with a save-or-die effect and one hit point each running around. This is the kind of shenanigans that classic D&D is all about for me, and so I did not begrudge them the lopsided victory over the goatrices.

Since our previous encounter involving a magic sword I had tweaked and streamlined the control rules. I’d also been in touch with Melan about how to interpret the EGO scores listed in the module. But still I found resolving control too fiddly. I think I am going to sit down and see if I can boil it down even more. If I do I will share the results at some point.

Despite all this, the scene was priceless. Before the session, when the players were exchanging ideas about goals for the expedition in our group chat, Jürg suggested going after Darkslayer. In response I posted the following:

A lawful cleric and a chaotic fighter team up to find a chaotic intelligent magic sword. Should be fine.

And “fine” it was, indeed!

Categories
Actual Play

Castle Xyntillan – Session #23 – Pigeons from Hell

The Company:

  • Claus (T4)
  • Jürg (F3)
  • Francesco (F3)
  • Hendrik (MU5)
  • Amaranth (C3)
  • Niemir (crossbowman)
  • Kea (handgunner)
  • “Fat” Jonas (porter)
  • Gido (light foot)

Loot:

  • 6.000 gold pieces
  • Plate +1
  • Chain +2
  • Corpse of a giant pigeon

Casualties:

Fat Jonas & Gido — cut down by a mob of undead lords, ladies and headless manservants; Claus & Kea — captured and consumed by the restless dead.

Report:

Jürg buys several cargo nets, and has a contraption fashioned that lets him anchor himself to a doorpost so that he’s safe from future portable hole mishaps.

Hendrik hires a band of musicians to play the sheet music they found during the previous expedition. It turns out to be throughly unpleasant.

Othmar, captain of the guard has escalated matters further. The company’s landlords are put under pressure to evict them. In response, Jürg goes to talk to the captain to see what can be done to make amends. Othmar demands a public apology and reparations of some kind. After much hemming and hawing, Jürg ends up paying the captain a significant sum of gold, and all things are forgotten.

Hendrik studies the records they took during the previous expedition and finds a pair of potentially useful hints related to specific hazardous areas of the castle. One involves a large animated boulder. The other a statue made of salt and a trio of statues that appear to be goats but are actually goatrices.

Shortly before their departure, Jürg goes into a secluded barn to load up his purchased cargo nets into his portable hole. Worried that it might open onto the void of space once more, he secures himself to a doorpost with his new contraption. When the hole opens, an enormous monster with the head of an elephant, crab-like claws and a tentacled belly begins to crawl out. Jürg manages to close the hole again just in time. When he tries to reopen it again, all is well. Jürg wipes his brow and shoves in the nets.

***

The expedition is led by Claus, who doubles as scout, and is also made invisible by Hendrik. They decide to have another go at the donjon, and find out what might be hidden up on top where the huge pigeons roost.

They enter through the gatehouse. Jürg searches the garden for the chaotic blade known as Darkslayer but finds nothing. Meanwhile Claus scouts ahead to ensure the way is safe.

Upon entering the outer courtyard they decide to give the statues a closer look. When they make fun of the hunchback it comes to life and tells them off for being such jerks. Somewhat shaken, they decide to leave the statues of the king holding a globe and the sightless ape-crocodile monstrosity well enough alone.

They head into the castle and emerge into the donjon’s torture chamber, on the ground floor. Up the stairs they go, and at the end they exit onto the balcony. From here, they climb along the rungs attached to the donjon wall and make it all the way up to the balcony on the next floor. From here, they enter the temple.

Remembering where the secret door was, they open it, and Claus sneaks up the ladder in the shaft up to the aerie. At the end he opens a trap door, and sees man-sized pigeons care for young. He also spies a large bell in the center of the aerie. The floor is littered with corpses. One is even hanging from the bell’s clapper.

The thief returns to his companions, and they come up with a plan to eliminate the pigeons as quickly as possible. Claus climbs back up, and tosses a week’s worth of rations onto the aerie.

Next, Hendrik climbs up, and when he sees several pigeons pecking away at the rations, he blasts them with a fireball, instantly killing several. Pandemonium breaks out. Pigeons attack the magic-user, trying to peck his eyes out through the trap door. Hendrik hurries back down the ladder.

Next, a complicated game of cat and mouse develops: Hendrik and Francesco climb up together. Francesco uses his halberd to push open the hatch. They hope to blast pigeons with a wand of cold when they stick their heads down the shaft. But the pigeons don’t show themselves. Hendrik climbs all the way up in stead, and sees that the animals have returned to care for their young. He takes aim at one small group and obliterates them with his wand of cold. He then drops down the ladder some distance, points the wand up at several of the pigeons who have now come to attack him, and manages to kill a few more. More pigeons rush the hatch, one grabs Francesco’s halberd and pulls it up. The fighter lets go of his weapon, and the hatch closes behind it.

Next, Claus, still invisible, goes back up to lead what they expect to be the final mop-up. He intend to backstab one of the monstrous birds, and then the rest of the company is supposed to rush out of the hatch to finish off the remainder.

Jürg, however, loses his patience, and attacks before Claus can do his thing. The two remaining adult pigeons rush the fighter. One is back-stabbed by Claus, and vaporized by a magic missile fired off by Hendrik. The other pigeon grabs Jürg, and flies off.

Pigeons fly, so be careful (Charles Robinson)

Jürg, rapidly gaining altitude, stabs his abductor. Others shoot at it from the aerie. The bird ascends a little further and then, with a murderous squawk, lets go of the fighter, dropping him to the castle rooftop over 50 feet below.

The pigeon banks and swoops down for another attack at the remaining companions on the aerie but is shot to pieces by another salvo of magic missiles.

Jürg plummets to his death on top of the banquet hall roof. Miraculously, he just barely escapes instant death.

The adult pigeons defeated, the companions begin to search the aerie for treasure. Meanwhile Hendrik levitates down the tower to come to Jürg’s aid.

They find a significant hoard of gold pieces. They also find a large gemstone, and strip several items that they suspect might be magical from the corpses strewn about.

Jürg is patched up with the help of two healing potions. Hendrik levitates back up to the aerie, and Jürg climbs up using a rope.

The gold is way too much to carry. They risk opening the unstable portable hole again. It opens without issue, and so they stuff it with gold as well as a pigeon corpse that they hope to sell to an alchemist.

They head back down the shaft but find a pair of awful corpse birds hanging around the temple. And so they return to the aerie, and all of the company climb down the side of the donjon, to the bridge connecting it with the south-eastern upper quarters.

Rather than end the expedition there, they decide to press their luck, and go down into the wine cellar to find another high-value barrel.

When they arrive there, they find a rotund monk sampling the wine. The man is not too happy to see them, and prefers for them to leave. Their half-hearted attempts at ensuring him of their good intentions have little effect. The fact that their only lawful party member, the cleric Amaranth, is a woman who literally has no tongue, does not help their cause much.

As things begin to escalate, the monk threatens to sound the alarm. Claus loses his patience, and him and his posse fire their weapons at the monk. He miraculously manages to survive, shouts at the top of his lungs for help, and downs a bottle of champagne. The company cut him down before he can do anything more. Thinking that’s that, they take a moment to loot the body, stripping him of his very fine-looking chain mail.

However, before they can turn their attention to the wine barrels, a veritable horde of undead lords, as well as a handfull each of headless manservants and undead ladies set upon the company from all directions. They are trapped.

Assuming the cause is hopeless, Claus and his posse make a mad dash for the exit straight through the ranks of their enemies. They disappear into the darkness. Hendrik uses his wand of cold to kill a huge number of the undead lords, all of a sudden turning things into a more or less even fight. Fat porter Jonas is killed. Newly hired man-at-arms Gido dies as well. Hendrik is almost throttled by a manservant but manages to blast it to smithereens with magic missiles. Amaranth manages to heal the magic-user just in time. The fighters hack away at their opponents, and they manage to turn the tide of the battle in their favor. The opponent’s morale breaks, and they prevail.

Without missing a beat, they run for the exit, without taking a barrel.

***

Off-screen, Claus and Kea are lost in the castle. The restless dead find them, and they end up being some awful fiend’s dinner. Niemir, somehow, makes it out alive.

Back in town, they identify a number of items, and haul the gold and dead pigeon out of the hole. Quite a few significant items of treasure were lost along with Claus, however…

Several companions go out carousing. Amaranth is fined for bad behavior.

Referee Commentary:

A session almost entirely consisting of two fights! We haven’t had anything like that in a while, maybe ever.

The moment Jürg was carried off by the pigeon was probably one of he first times we used the grappling rules. How it works is that the attacker makes a to-hit roll against the target’s un-armoured AC. Then on subsequent rounds to do something they must make a contested STR check. It’s a great way for monsters to get at heavily-armored player characters, like poor old Jürg. And he was none too happy about it.

The fall to the castle roof could have easily killed Jürg. In our rules you take 1d6 damage for every 10 feet, but you also need to save or die at 50+ feet. This applied to Jürg’s situation. He succeeded at his save, though. So he was in the clear and Hendrik’s player could take his time to come to his aid.

I make heavy use of reaction rolls for all encounters. The monk (Ambrosius) had a poor initial reaction to the party. He is a living, lawful Malévol family member, but the company has gradually taken a turn for the more sinister, and so I did not find it too surprising that the monk would not consider them allies. Furthermore my players appear to have little patience for negotiating with NPCs, particularly as we get close to the end of a session. Perhaps things could be abstracted further by negotiating some stakes on a more meta level. I might try that next time we find ourselves in one of these situations.

The fight with the lords, ladies and manservants was probably the biggest one I ran yet. When we started we had 30 monsters on the board. How I handle this stuff these days is that on my side of the screen I have a battle mat and dry erase tokens to help me visualize things. But I convey everything through description. On the player side things are entirely theatre of the mind. It’s kind of a best of both worlds situation, I’ve found. I have the benefit of keeping track of things more easily, but we don’t get bogged down into exact movement and positioning. Now that our magic-user is throwing out more than a few big-ticket area-of-effect spells, I plan to also make a few simple overlays for those.

Another first this session was that Claus’s player decided to take his chances with the table of terror. The poor fellow rolled a natural 1 and so that was that. Had Hendrik’s player not pulled out that wand of cold and destroyed all but 4 of the 20 lords that were coming at them, we may have had a TPK on our hands. So the choice to try the table made sense at the time.

Only three more sessions to go before we end this season. The players may go and try to find that chaotic sword next. I would love to have a fighter with an intelligent magic sword in my campaign, so I hope they succeed.

Categories
Actual Play

Castle Xyntillan – Session #22 – Your Own Personal Reaper

The Company:

  • Hendrik (MU5)
  • Jürg (F3)
  • Francesco (F3)
  • “Loyal” Lukas (heavy foot)
  • “Fat” Jonas (porter)

Loot:

  • A bottle of wine
  • A box with six medals
  • Big rolls of crumbling paper
  • A naughty pamphlet
  • Pickle jar with moving eyes
  • Unlabeled booklet
  • Handful of paper records of adventurer exploits

Casualties: Lukas, the fanatically loyal heavy footsoldier, beheaded by the grim reaper’s scythe.

Report:

In the week preceding the next expedition, Othmar, the captain of the guard who was insulted by Jürg some time ago during a carousing spree, talks trash about the company to the men for hire who hang out in the town’s bars. They double their fees in response.

Jürg talks to some shady types in The Tap who are looking for a magic sword known as “Darkslayer”. They recognize him as a fellow member of the faction of Chaos. They tell him the sword will give people like them untold power. Someone, probably one of the members of the pious arm of the family, has buried it in one of the castle’s gardens. Its dark powers should make the sword’s presence obvious once you get close to it.

The company also toys with the idea of using Blérot, who is still hiding out with them, to get rid of Othmar, but they don’t follow through on the plan (yet).

***

A smaller company than usual makes their way to the castle. Hendrik is put in charge of the expedition. The magic-user decides to take a second stab at seeking out one of the castle’s laboratories.

During their approach they check on “Heinz’s bean”, planted alongside the castle’s south wall. They are pleased to see it has grown to a height of 20 cm and is happily dancing on the spot, the soil it springs from vibrating to an unheard beat.

The company enters through the grand entrance, ignore the ghost of James the butler, and immediately tack west to a large empty room. Here they take a thus far unexplored stairway leading up. At its end, they find a door. Opening it, they see a door to the east, a hallway opening onto a large room to the west, and straight ahead an alcove with the bust of a stern bearded crusader who is observing them intently.

Having not brought any clerics with them, they ignore the crusader, and head west into a feasting hall. Here they see a large table scattered with bones. There is also a tapestry depicting a knight fighting a swamp creature, and many shields with local family crests. The bones appear to be a mix of goat, sheep, and — as feared — human.

With a shudder, the company continues west into another hallway. Here, they are greeted by animated vines which appear to be minding their own business. The company however do not trust the things, and Hendrik taps one with his woodland staff, instantly destroying it. The remaining vine attacks. Francesco makes to chop away with his halberd but in a rare moment of ineptitude the thing slips from his fingers. However, Hendrik and Jurg make short work of the thing.

The company emerges from the hallway into a large two-story library. Hendrik immediately begins to browse the holdings with great expectations. Francesco, somewhat out of his depth, tries to help by looking at the pictures. When he finds a particularly salacious pamphlet he decides to stick it in his tunic for safe keeping. With the aid of a detect magic spell, Hendrik locates a unmarked booklet stuck behind a row of sheet music.

They explore a hallway leading north from the far corner of the library. The first door they try opens onto a storage space filled with rolls of yellowing crumbling paper. Jürg decides he wants to take them, because you can never be too sure, and spreads out his portable hole on the floor. However, rather than a portal to the 10-feet-deep pocket dimension, the hole opens onto a vista of stars and planets in cold, dead space. Air begins to suck from the room, tugging at its occupants. Before disaster can strike, however, Jürg manages to snatch up the hole again, saving them from oblivion. With balls of steel, Jürg once again puts down the hole, and begins to shove rolls of paper down into the pocket dimension beyond.

The company returns to the library. They try a door next to a hearth in the north wall and discover a large room with a number of lamentable hunchbacks chained to desks, diligently copying passages from books onto sheafs of paper. Upon inspection the passages appear to be invariable of a scandalous nature. Picking through papers scattered throughout the room they discover accounts of hapless adventurers meeting their doom in the castle in a variety of grim but amusing ways. At some point, a trap door opens in the ceiling, and papers are dumped down it by persons unseen.

Leaving the room again, they try yet another door in the library, and find a spiral stairs leading up and down. They head up to the second level and enter the upper floor of the library. They search the shelves for more notable items, and come across the statue of a reaper holding a book. Francesco goes off to check the connecting room to the east. Hendrik continues to search for books to the west. Jürg stays behind and — true to form — bashes the statue in the head. It animates and gestures an invitation to peruse the book. Despite knowing better, Jürg begins to read, and finds his own name. That moment, a reaper appears next to him, which immediately makes a swipe for his head with its scythe.

Time’s up! (Pieter Brueghel the Elder)

Jürg backs away while frantically pulling a potion of heroism from his pack. Francesco runs to come to his aid, as does Hendrik — in the mean time casting a protective spell on himself. Jürg downs his potion, and Hendrik casts another protective spell on the fighting-man. At that point, a second reaper appears who goes for the magic-user. Loyal heavy foot soldier Lukas comes to his master’s aid, and is rewarded by a reaper of his very own. Francesco stops in his tracks and decides not to make things even worse by intervening as well. He can only look on helplessly as his companions do battle with their own personal reapers. Lukas is hit by death’s scythe, is paralyzed, and beheaded. His reaper emits a booming laugh and disappears along with the poor retainer’s corpse. Jürg and Hendrik continue to fight for their lives. The magic-user defeats death with a relentless barrage of magic missiles. Jürg, meanwhile, simply smashes the reaper with repeated bashings of his mace +1. A close call indeed.

As they collect their wits, the reaper statue appears from between bookcases and shows them how he strikes out two names from his book before returning to his original location. The company look at each other, shrug, and continue their expedition.

The next room to the east is a spacious lounge. Decapitated heads growl at them from couches. A glowing orb hangs over a card table. A large tapestry shows a chronicle of the Malévol family. On another wall hangs a wood carving of a procession of kings playing instruments. Hendrik approaches the card table and is invited by a pair of animated gloves to join in on a game. Despite his sharp wits the magic-user loses the game due to shameless cheating by the ghostly dealer. When they investigate the wood carving the kings begin to sing ballads, one of which is about a gallant knight named Roland “who lost his fiery heart.”

They consider continuing to the next room east, from where they see faint glimmers of candlelight and hear the sound of music. But in stead, they check a door to the north and find a hallway with two more doors. These they ignore, head back to the circular stairs, and down to the first floor of the library.

In the library they go into a hallway leading north and take a door into a largely empty room. A door to the south opens onto a thoroughly ruined bedroom of what must have been a military officer. Hendrik inspects a weapons cabinet filled with a wide range of armaments. Jürg tosses the matras and is surprised to find something invisible was lying on it which hops off and in a gruff man’s voice calls “attention!” All the weapons, including those held by the company, rise in response and point threateningly at the companions. Jürg calls “turn left!” and the weapons move around in confusion, buying enough time for Hendrik to flee the room. Then, slapping his forehead, Jürg remembers, and shouts “at ease!” and the weapons drop to the ground. Relieved, they make a quick search of the room and find a bottle of wine and a box of medals in a hidden compartment in the bottom of the weapon cabinet.

When Francesco and Jürg join Hendrik outside the room they are attacked from behind by a pair of hand swarms that emerge from the now-dark captain’s room. One is almost immediately obliterated by magic. The other begins to chortle a distressed Francesco. Jürg manages to bash the hands from his compatriot, and what remains is soon enough dispatched by combined physical and magical violence.

The company decides they have had enough, and make their way to the exit the way they came. At the top of the stairs down to the ground floor they hear awful sobbing come from below. They see a lamentable figure wrapped in bandages that weep black puss cross the empty room that they were heading towards. With held breaths they watch it disappear, and then pile out of the castle as fast as they can.

***

Upon return to town they sell off the medals for a modest return. The unlabeled booklet turns out to contain weird music, a spell called “irresistible rondeau”, and a handwritten note:

“Should the hunter hunted be, decipher this mystery: his heart is stone, but a heart he keeps — if you catch him when he’s at peace”

Referee Commentary:

This session was just a delight. A smaller party makes for even faster play than usual. There were more than a few pleasant surprises and fun little moments while running. When we came to the library and I read about the reaper I was like “really, Melan?” and laughing out loud. My players have gotten used to it. The scene with the weapons was also one where I did not expect the players to immediately catch on, but they did, and it was a lot of fun.

I should also give a tip of the hat to Jürg’s player who, when confronted by the reaper inviting him to read the book decided to flip a coin to see what Jürg would do. A lesser player would have decided their character would not do it for fear of the consequences. Or they would read it “because that’s what my character would do.” But in stead, they went to the dice, mirroring the way I’ve been trying to run the game as well, with a suitable degree of detachment from my monsters and NPCs. Delightful.

I don’t really have any referee regrets, and we did not come across any rules issues, so I think we can keep it at that. The players have uncovered more than a few new clues related to that mysterious heart they saw light up over the impenetrable secret door in the ghoul tomb. Let’s see if they’ll pursue these further…

Categories
Rules

Hackbut – Classes – Cleric

The cleric gets it (Stefan Poag)

Okay, here are some design notes on the cleric class in Hackbut. This is the first of the classic four classes that are in my game. I will cover them in alphabetical order.

As previously mentioned in “the basics”, the chassis for my classes is from Hungarian retroclone KéK.

Using the cleric as described there as a base, I added and changed the following things:

  • I explicitly disallow missile weapons. Some allow slings, for example, but I don’t like the visual image it conjures up. If a cleric wants to kill something from a distance, they will have to use flaming oil flasks or holy water.
  • I replaced the classic turn undead mechanic with a d20-based approach taken from Necropraxis. The only thing I changed was that players get to add their WIS mod in stead of CHA, because I interpret turning as an expression of true faith rather than leveraging your force of personality. The main reason I went looking for an alternative to the classic mechanic was that I wanted something that does not require use of a lookup table, because I am all about speed of play at the table. This alternate mechanic does skew the odds of successful turning and destroying significantly in favour of the players. But if handled as an encounter action, it does not upset game balance too much, in my experience. Also, in Castle Xyntillan, named undead can never be destroyed, only turned. (If you want something that is mathematically equivalent of the table-based OD&D mechanic, I recommend Delta’s take.)
  • With regards to divine spell casting, I have clerics not carry a spell book. They gain access to all spells of the levels they can cast automatically at level-up. They do need to memorize spells, just like magic-users do.
  • The spell descriptions in Hackbut are adapted from an unofficial OED-style list of cleric spells created by “baquies”. These are basically exactly the spells that clerics get in OD&D, but the descriptions themselves are streamlined and harmonized. They’ve been working great so far.

And that’s basically it. As I’ve mentioned in the previous post, clerics work great in a pseudo-historical early renaissance campaign setting if you lean into their faux catholic demon hunter characterization. They’ve gone from a class that I’d rather cut from D&D, to possibly my favorite class of the classic four.

Next up: the fighter.