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The Ruined Keep, A Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel: Part 4

  The Adventure Continues The peasants continue to explore the aboveground ruins of the keep in their search for the Oracle. Turn 11 Olnod turns the old key in the lock on the trapdoor and heaves it open. They look down into a shaft with a metal ladder on one wall. They can just about make out a stone floor about ten feet down when they light Kali's lantern. They climb down one by one and find themselves facing a stairway going down about twenty feet south. That leads to a flat landing, then turns west and goes down another twenty feet. They move slowly and carefully, checking for traps or any unsafe stairs. Turn 12 They enter a thirty by thirty foot room with an arched doorway in each wall. Do they go north, south or west? (1D3) South. They go to the south door, checking the room carefully. Olnod seems to have taken on the role of leader, so he pulls on the door but it's stuck fast. Anebrius, a rather muscular scribe pushes him aside and shoves the door hard. Strength check (D...

How to Play Scarlet Heroes: Part 3

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I shot another video in my How to Play Scarlet Heroes series. This time I ran a combat encounter four times: once for each character class.

The Ruined Keep, A Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel: Part 3

  The Adventure Continues Continuing the funnel adventure. Our group of peasants keep exploring the exterior of the ruins. Turn 8 The peasants go back to the upper courtyard and choose... D3: 1. The first door of the east wall. This is a ruined old kitchen with a large fireplace. The room is filled with rusty pots and pans, rotten tables and chairs and other furniture. While exploring the characters uncover a poisonous adder. Who finds it? D14: 10. Bara the soldier. Bara cries out "Snake!" as the adder crawls out from under a smashed up wooden cabinet, but Tanti the dock worker rushes over, new shortsword in hand and chops it in half instantly. The others all slap him on the back and congratulate him, then they return to the courtyard. Turn 9 They go through the other doorway in the east wall which leads to an old room covered in cobwebs. Searching, they find a scrap of paper with a fragment of text on it: "...lies beneath the north tower in the Crystal Grotto." ...

How to Play Scarlet Heroes: Part 2

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The second part of my tutorial series is now up. This covers the campaign setting, the basic rules and character classes.

How to Play Scarlet Heroes: Part 1

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I really enjoy playing Scarlet Heroes solo and have done a lot of playing on this blog, but there aren't many resources on Youtube to help new players with the game. Most of the SH-related videos are brief overviews and flick-throughs of the rulebook without going into much detail. So I decided to start my own series teaching the rules of the game. This first video covers character creation and introduces the unique selling point of the game - that it can be used with any other OSR game to play solo. Later videos will cover the rules, combat and will include short actual plays of the three solo adventure types.

The Ruined Keep, A Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel: Part 2

The Adventure Continues Continuing the funnel adventure. The peasants have reached the grounds of the ruined keep where they hope to find the Oracle of the Crystal Grotto, or something.   Turn 4 The peasants can see what looks like the remains of an old catapult off to the side of the keep, a few minutes' walk away. Do they vote to investigate it? D20: 7 out of 15. No, they presson to the keep itself. Approaching the southeast corner of the building they see two towers, both ruined. Between them is an archway leading to the inner courtyard. Do they investigate the south tower, courtyard or north tower? D3: 3. They head over to the north tower. Only the walls remain, the second floor missing along with the roof. Turn 5 DC8 Intelligence check to search the tower. Success. They hunt around and find a trapdoor hidden in the dirt. It's locked. Lera the barber takes out her thieves' tools and tries to get it open but it's DC15 and she can only roll a D10 as she's not a th...

The Ruined Keep, A Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel: Part 1

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Introduction Over on my Youtube channel the Dungeon Crawl Classics solo campaign is going well, but since I can't shoot the videos as often as I'd like I keep forgetting the rules and having to look them up during the sessions, leading to more editing time before I can get the videos online. I decided to start a DCC solo game in my free time, to play offline. This should help me get used to the rules and learn them a bit faster, plus I've been itching to play a traditional hexcrawl campaign lately too. This is a funnel adventure called The Ruined Keep. It's by Daniel J. Bishop and is available for free as part of Sanctum Secorum Episode 3 . I don't even know what that is, to be honest. I just googled free DCC funnels. I've already finished it but I'll transcribe it from my notebook here. The Adventure Twenty peasants of the small town of Grimbrook seek the Oracle of the Crystal Grotto, rumoured to be at the bottom of the nameless ruined keep near the town...