Adventures in a Doomed World: Session 3

 

Hily the elderly human carter with her wheelbarrow. Image by Midjourney.

I'm playing Basic Fantasy RPG with a few supplements to turn it into a solo fantasy hexcrawl in the world of Eilobar, a doomed land entering its end times. I'm using the Level 0 Character Tumbler, Hexcrawl Aventures and also 47 Critical Hit Tables to Spice Up Your Game. Starting with level 0 characters I'm attempting to keep them alive long enough to level up from -100 to 1 XP and become actual heroes.

Introduction

After we discovered twenty-six stirges in one lair last time (using the standard rules for BFRPG) I decided to change all monsters' hit dice to D4s instead of D8s. I really enjoy combat in old school RPGs but I'd rather not spend the entire evening rolling dice against the same enemy over and over again. I also decided to ignore the stirge's special ability of latching onto a victim on a successful hit and sucking their blood until someone lands a hit on them, because screw that.

The Adventure

Stosla, Urim and Gerry attempted to recruit some new villagers from Keyham (1D4 each + their charisma bonus).

Gerry recruited no one.

Urim recruited:

Gifu, female human hermit

Astod, male human woodcutter

Dinas, male halfling ragpicker (?!)

Stosla recruited:

Nerwenye, female elf hairdresser

Hily, female human carter (pictured above)

Narder, male human minstrel

Since everyone else who went last time was killed, they had to pay 1GP to each new recruit, who gave the money to their own families.

They set off again for the Tunnels of Mothric. Hily the carter brought her wheelbarrow to collect loot in, so it would take them a day longer than before due to her slow speed.

On the first day of travel across the wasteland outside the village they met the same travelling merchant, though they didn't buy anything.

Outside the entrance to the Tunnels they found a lion. As leader, Urim approached it to see if it would attack them.

Monster reaction: Unfavourable.

It seemed angry, and to avoid riling it up they waited a while until it left.

Then they got into position around the doorway, and opened it just enough to let out the first stirge.

After killing the first one, the second tore out Astod the woodcutter's throat. They fought bravely, killing many of the birds, but Nerwenye went down, then Stosla, then Narder the annoying minstrel.

When the villagers had slain half the stirges, four of them forced their way out and flew off into the sky, leaving eight. Later, Gifu was killed in the intense fighting at the doorway. Finally they killed the last stirge, with only Urim, Gerry, Hily and Dinas left standing.

Everyone levelled up. Urim (a monastic initiate) became a cleric, Hily a thief, Dinas and Gerry both fighters.

They rested up for two days before entering the dungeon, where they collected all their friends' belongings and put them in Hily's wheelbarrow.

They entered the lair of the stirges which was an armoury. There they found a trident, which Gerry decided to take and use in honour of Anet the farmer who had killed so many monsters before falling in battle a few days prior.

After searching the armoury this first area of the dungeon was fully explored, so they each received 200XP (25 per room).

My Thoughts

We finally have our level one party of heroes! The fight against the stirges was a bit of a slog. I think I need to think outside the box and roleplay more, rather than treating the game like a turn-based roguelike on PC. I realise they could have done something like bought some nets from a fisherman and caught all the stirges in them after opening the door to the tunnels. Or opened the door while the grumpy lion was still there to see if the stirges would attack it and get killed that way.

I've been thinking about all the long winded combat, and although using the Roll20 website makes it a lot quicker than rolling dice, it's still not ideal. I'm looking into alternative RPG rulesets to try out for the next session. The good thing is I'll still be able to use the dungeon generation and monsters from BFRPG, and just update their stats to whatever rules I choose.

Might be a bit longer than usual until the next session, but when I come back to these guys I'll kick off by fleshing out their characters a bit more and roll up their personalities, and that'll influence how they act in future adventures.

Also, the name "The Tunnels of Mothric" was randomly generated, but will they meet Mothric him/her/itself at the bottom of the dungeon? Who knows!