Adventures in a Doomed World: Session 5

The Maze of Mothric, with characters' starting locations.

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 the second TPK last time I looked into using Scarlet Heroes. It sounds like it boosts the player characters in strength quite a bit and makes them much more deadly against enemies in order to be playable with a smaller party of 1-3 heroes. This means it's not ideal for a level zero character tumbler adventure (since PCs are much less squishy), so I decided to use BFRPG for the tumbler and then level up the survivors into level 1 Scarlet Heroes afterward. Let's get on with it.

The mysterious dungeon master Mothric has kidnapped twelve villagers from Keyham and imprisoned them in cells in the dreaded Maze of Mothric! (Next door to the Tunnels of Mothric).

For his vile amusement he will open the cell doors and watch from above as they try to find their way out to the central staircase and escape. I created the maze by drawing the cells in random positions on graph paper with the stairs out in the middle, and then connecting them to the centre with corridors that crossed over each other.

They are:

Ames, male human beggar

Annelle, female human apothecary

Anthond, male human innkeeper

Bryne, female human hermit

Celomir, male elf hunter and his dog Dill

Elegoth, male elf mayor of Keyham

Enneth, female human night watchwoman

Geoffrey, male human wizard's apprentice

Narder, male human pilgrim

Stilda, female human barber

Symath, male human cook

Terry, male human trapper

The Adventure

Each villager is in a separate cell which all open onto a simple maze of corridors with the staircase in the middle. There is a random trap roughly every 100 feet (10 grid spaces). The villagers have been placed randomly. They will move cautiously, 6 grid spaces per turn.

Elegoth the mayor sees his cell door open and nervously steps out and walks down the corridor.

Elsewhere, Enneth the night watchwoman does too, shortsword in hand.

Annelle's door opens and she has a choice: a door to her left or follow the corridor straight on.

Ask the oracle (50/50)

I roll a D4 for this. 3.

She chooses the left door.

Unbeknownst to her she is heading towards Terry the trapper. A few steps down the corridor is a trap. All the traps are taken from D&D 5E, at the trap generator page at Donjon. This one has a DC of 15 to find it - the villagers will be rolling a D20 with no bonus, except for the elves who'll get +2 for being elves (there are no skills in BFRPG). If it's triggered Annelle will have to roll a saving throw of the type closest to the effects of the trap. Sadly she rolls a 2.

As Annelle steps on a floor tile she hears a click, and a nozzle in the wall sprays a wide cone of fire across the corridor, enveloping and completely incinerating her.

ANNELLE - DEAD

Narder the pilgrim watches his door open and is also faced with a choice: Go straight ahead or through a door on his right.

Ask the oracle (50/50)

He goes straight ahead, reaching a second door to his right near where the corridor takes a left turn.

Terry the trapper has just seen Annelle being incinerated from the safety of his cell, so he leaves by its other door, heading south.

Anthond, Keyham's innkeeper leaves his cell and heads towards a trapped corridor junction.

Stilda the barber has two doors to her cell: west and south.

Ask the oracle (50/50)

She goes south. A few steps out of her cell is a door to her left. She walks up to it and is momentarily blinded by a flash of light. When she regains her sight she realises she is no longer in the same spot - she's in the middle of a long corridor with a smoking burned corpse near one end.

Symath, a cook, has two cell doors to choose from.

Ask the oracle (50/50)

He picks the east door and heads down a corridor towards another one.

Geoffrey the apprentice to the local wizard has one cell door. He checks his spellbook to see which first level spell it contains. Light. The dungeon is lit by wall sconces anyway. He opens the door and walks off down a corridor.

Celomir the elven hunter has his hunting dog Dill with him, who gives him a +1 bonus to detect traps, adding to his +2 elven bonus. They leave together, reaching a right hand side door which they open, revealing Bryne the hermit standing in a cell at the end of another corridor.

Bryne recognises Celomir and Dill and runs to greet them.

Ames, a beggar is holed up in a cell in the southeast corner of the maze. With only one way out he heads west towards a hidden trap.

Mayor Elegoth turns the corner outside his cell and a few steps later a huge blade swings out from a slot in the wall. His elven senses failing him, he is sliced clean in two and lands in a heap on the floor.

ELEGOTH - DEAD

Nightwatchwoman Enneth continues away from her cell towards a trapdoor disguised as a floor tile. At the last moment she notices it's different to the others and decides to hop over it. First she takes out the only piece of equipment she has, a pair of shackles, and throws them down onto the tile. It falls open revealing a large deep pit. A ghoul is sitting at the bottom, and it gets up and reaches up at her in a futile gesture.

Enneth attempts the jump. According to BFRPG rules this is DC 17, and she can add her dexterity bonus which, sadly, is zero.

She jumps as far as she can but it isn't far enough. She falls into the pit, landing heavily, taking 4 HP damage. She gets the initiative though, springing at the ghoul with her sword but missing.

The ghoul swipes with its claws (critical hit!) - rolling on 47 Critical Hit Tables to Spice Up Your Game - it grabs Enneth's arm and tears it off. She falls down in shock and the hideous creature begins to eat her.

ENNETH - DEAD

The ghoul in the pit. Image by Midjourney.

Narder the pilgrim has the choice of another door to his right or rounding a corner which will take him to the stairs out of the maze.

Ask the oracle (50/50)

He chooses to walk round the corner! He sees a door ahead of him. While walking towards it a volley of arrows are shot from holes in the wall behind him. Several hit his torso and thigh, the massive trauma destroying several organs and killing him instantly. He dies clutching his holy symbol.

NARDER - DEAD

Terry the Trapper continues down his corridor, away from where Stilda was deposited by the teleport spell she unwittingly triggered. At the corner where the corridor turns right he notices a large floor tile that looks different to the others. Not wanting to fall victim to a trap, he attempts to jump over it (DC17 + 0 Dex bonus).

He lands on the middle of the tile which opens under him, dropping him down. He lands hard, breaking bones and bashing his head. He passes out and dies soon after.

TERRY - DEAD

Anthond the innkeeper is faced with a junction. He steps into the middle and a net releases dozens of thunderstones from the ceiling. They land on him and all over the floor, shattering with massive sonic booms and shockwaves that pulverise every bone in his body, sending him bouncing off a wall and landing in a jellied heap.

ANTHOND - DEAD

Upon recognising the charred remains of Annelle as a human corpse, Stilda immediately heads towards Terry's cell, in the other direction.

Symath, human cook hears the loud explosion from the thunderstones nearby and continues in the other direction until he reaches a door. Opening it he steps through and feels a weird sensation: the hairs on the back of his neck are standing on end as if charged with static. Suddenly he realises he's in a trap and dives -

Ask the Oracle (50/50)

- to his left!

A huge burst of lightning goes off where he was standing, fizzling out almost immediately. He gets up and starts towards the door, which will take him to the stairs out.

Geoffrey can see a door on his right. Does he open it?

Ask the Oracle (50/50)

Yes.

It opens into a similar corridor but the apprentice wizard smells the acrid scent of recently discharged magical energy, and a scorch mark on the floor and walls. This is where Stilda was teleported away from. He can't sense any lingering magic, so he picks up a stone and tosses it onto the scorchmark. Nothing happens. He ponders this a while.

Celomir and Bryne are pleased to see each other, and they have only one way to go: east. Dill the dog scouts ahead, sniffing the ground. Soon he starts barking at a particular spot on the floor. Celomir tells Bryne to help him search the area, and straight away Celomir finds a long slot in the wall at waist height, and a pressure plate.

Celomir determines this is some kind of trap but is unable to figure out how to disarm it. While he thinks about it, Bryne dislodges a broken floor tile and wedges it under the pressure plate, keeping it up as they walk over it safely.

The beggar Ames is approaching their position from the southeast. As he walks down the corridor he notices a tripwire across it. At one end is a miniature hammer in a contraption next to fragile-looking glass bottle containing a green gas. He attempts to jump over it. Unfortunately his toe snags the wire, which triggers the mechanism making the hammer smash the bottle. A thick green gas rises up towards him but he manages to outrun it around the corner and it disperses soon after, becoming harmless.

To the northeast Stilda the teleported barber is passing through Terry's cell on her way towards the pit where he died.

Meanwhile Symath has opened the door in front of him and found the stairs out! He rushes up them as fast as he can, escaping into the light.

Geoffrey steps onto the scorchmark in front of him. Nothing happens. Looking to his right he sees an open pit at the end of the corridor, so he walks forward into Stilda's cell.

Celomir, Bryne and Dill continue along their corridor, reaching a door to their right and an open door at the end of the corridor after it turns left, where they can see the stairs!

Right when they notice the stairs, Ames the beggar opens the door next to them. They all share their experiences of the traps and agree that it must be Mothric's latest scheme to terrorise the village of Keyham. They head towards the stairs, checking as they go.

Stilda reaches the pit and sees the dead body of Terry the Trapper at the bottom. She decides to turn around and take her chances with whatever it was that burned the person in the corridor she was teleported to.

Geoffrey leaves Stilda's room and comes to a T-junction. He looks to his right and can see into Annelle's cell, which seems to be a dead end, so he turns left. Just in time he notices a floor tile that looks like a trap trigger, along with a wide slot in the wall. He can't figure out a way to disable it so he decides to stand back and throw his spellbook onto it.

Is the spellbook heavy enough to spring the trap?

Ask the Oracle (Unlikely: 76+ on a D100)

No.

The book lands there and nothing happens. He will have to jump over it. Unfortunately he can't jump far enough - he lands right on the pressure plate but, succeeding at his saving throw, manages to roll out of the way of the scythe that sweeps out from the wall.

My Thoughts

Wow! That was the most fun I've had with these tumbler adventures yet. I think this is a great way to run them, and surprisingly quick and easy to set up and get started. We only have a few villagers left now but it looks like some more of them might be able to escape. As Scarlet Heroes is meant for 1-3 PCs I'll probably keep some survivors in reserve back at the inn if more than three survive.