Adventures in a Doomed World: Session 9

I'm playing a mashup of Scarlet Heroes and 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

Stilda has taken new recruits Ames and Bryne on a monster hunting expedition to the Temple of Zon, the site of an ancient massacre near their village. We're trying out the Scarlet Heroes version of dungeon generation this time, rather than Basic Fantasy. In future I might try a combination of the two.

The Adventure

After looting the small guard post between the courtyard cemetary and the acolyte's cells, the heroes try the opposite door in the courtyard. It leads to another guard post, which they search but find nothing. There's a door in there leading to a store room. This too is completely bare, probably ransacked by adventurers during the Golden Age.

They try the second door in the west wall of the courtyard. This seems to have been used as a kind of sick room. There are still beds lined up against the walls. Picking through the debris here are three bandits! Since there are only three, let's flesh them out a bit. We'll use these tables to determine their basic characteristics:

1-3: Human

4: Halfling

5: Dwarf

6: Elf

1-3: Male

3-6: Female

A male elf, a female elf and a female human. Just for fun, let's see what they look like using the Maze Rats character generation tables. The human woman is square-jawed, the female elf is wiry and the other is "statuesque" - probably appropriate for an elf. I made a light to medium weapons table to roll on for encounters like this:

1: Dagger

2: Shortsword

3: Light Mace

4: Shortbow

5: Longsword

6: Mace

7: Quarterstaff

8: Club

The square-jawed bandit has a shortsword, the wiry one has a mace and the other one has a shortbow. As usual in Scarlet Heroes, the heroes have initiative. Stilda sends the two recruits in first. Bryne goes in and casts Magic Missile at the bow-wielding elf. It hits him square in the chest for 1 damage, blasting him back and killing him. Ames goes in next, shooting at the wiry elf but missing. Stilda charges at the wiry elf but can't quite make it to her yet (I'm being stricter about movement rates in encounters).

According to Scarlet Heroes rules I should make a morale check for all enemies as soon as the first one dies, then when half have been killed but it seems a bit excessive to me. I'm going to do a morale check only when half are dead. The wiry elf woman attacks Stilda with her mace but she parries the blow. The square-jawed bandit rushes up to meet them.

Stilda fights back but the attack is parried by the bandit. Fray die time! Lightning fast, she disengages from the parry and slashes the bandit across her chest. She falls down dead. Ames shoots at the remaining one hitting this time. The arrow hits the woman in the chest and she dies. A fun fight! Each hero gains 25 XP. Ames loots 1D6 arrows from the archer (2), and they take their weapons. It's a 50% chance that any of the bandits' leather armour is salvageable... Two out of three, so they take those. They loot 7GP from the corpses.

There's also hidden treasure in this room. I realise now I haven't been paying attention to the Scarlet Heroes treasure rules. Each dungeon has a trove of a randomised value. The Temple of Zon has "Minor Ruin's Wealth":

1d6+4 x 100 gp

1d6+4 Cheap Jewelry

1d4 Costly Jewelry

25% for 1 Precious Jewelry, 1d3 Lesser

25% for 1 Greater Magic Item

This is supposed to be shared out among the rooms and denizens, discovered as we go. It sounds quite a lot, but the rules also say it can be added to or reduced depending on the nature of the dungeon:

"The long-lost villa of an ancient exile that has never known the touch of a looter’s hands will have far better pickings than the crumbling buildings of a pillaged town."

You're also supposed to convert a chunk of the value in GP into expensive objects detailed in tables, so I'll do that too. On how to place the treasure throughout the dungeon it says:

"One good mode of division is to parcel it out in quarters. One quarter goes with the strongest creature or group in the area. Another quarter is shared between the two next-most-powerful

collectors. The third quarter is split up among all the other creatures in the area, and the fourth quarter is placed in unguarded caches or simply left lying around as uncollected plunder or valuable furnishings."

That sounds like you're supposed to generate the whole dungeon before exploring it. I generated the rooms but I guess I can go through it now and roll for all the denizens and features too, and keep it a secret from YOU, dear reader, to make this blog more exciting.

First though, let's halve the whole trove because this temple is so close to civilisation and as we discovered, it's been picked over by bandits for generations. I'll take into account the gold they've already looted.

1d6+4 x 50 gp

1d3+2 Cheap Jewelry

1d2 Costly Jewelry

12% for 1 Precious Jewelry, 1d2 Lesser

12% for 1 Greater Magic Item

Ok, let's see if anyone finds the hidden treasure using an average check and their wisdom modifiers. No. The treasure will stay hidden.

They go back to the courtyard and through the big double doors to the north, finding themselves in a large hall with an altar at the back, on a stage. There is a fabulous silver and onyx belly chain atop the altar, perhaps once worn in rituals by the cult leader. They walk over to it. Unknown to them the altar is trapped. Let's see if anyone notices it (simple check plus wisdom modifier. Ames will get to add his 2 points of Disable Trap trait).

Bryne the wizard calls out - she's noticed the chain is resting on a pressure plate. Ames volunteers to examine it and see if he can disarm the trap. I'll keep all these checks as simple rather than average as we're in a smallish dungeon near civilisation.

Failure! He can't make head nor tail of what the trap even is, let alone how to disarm it. At least he didn't roll a critical miss though. They decide it's best to leave the chain where it lies , forfeiting a 400GP payday!

They look inside a small room that seems to be the vestry, a room where a priest would dress in ceremonial robes before a ceremony. There they find a fine pair of sandals made from leaf fibre chiffon worth 113GP.

Next they go east from the main hall and find what looks like a kind of ritual chamber. There is a dried up pool in the centre of the room and empty incense burners hanging from the ceiling. On the other side of the room is a silver armlet worth 100GP, protected by a lethal trap. Let's see if anyone notices it (simple check).

Success! Stilda points to a pressure plate on the floor. Ames examines it.

Success! He realises it triggers a portcullis that would drop from a slot in the ceiling, impaling anyone beneath it. He pulls up the flagstone and unhooks the mechanism underneath, grabbing the silver armlet. Let's give him 1D12 XP for that (3).

Going back into the hall, they go west to a short corridor with two meditation rooms connecting to it. In the first one they discover a scrap of paper. It appears to be an order from Mothric, dungeon master of the nearby tunnels, ordering the three bandits to come here and search for valuables. They must have been friends of the bandits found there by Stilda, Celomir and Geoffrey, Stilda reasons.

The open the door to the final room, the second meditation room, and are confronted with some kind of creatures! Remember when we discovered the temple it was "riddled with burrows"? I think we should make an encounter table of creatures that could have made these burrows.

It's giant ants, and there's eight of them! Giant ants have 4 hit dice, +4 attack bonus and roll 2D6 for damage. We could be in for a wild ride here.

Thinking on her feet, Stilda steps back from the open door and tells Ames to hide in the corner behind it and get ready to backstab the first ant that comes through. 

Check: Hide (Simple)

Success!

Bryne has used her one spell, so she readies the donkey's jawbone she uses as a weapon and focuses her magical energies. She's the only one who can use her fray die in this fight, since wizards use theirs even against higher level/HD enemies.

The first ant approaches the door but the second overtakes it and comes through, not noticing Ames but going for Stilda. It lurches at her but she bats it away with her longsword. The other ants all scurry towards the door.

Right after Stilda parries the first ant, Ames lunges at its back. He stabs it deeply, killing it instantly. Stilda steps up to the doorway to fight the next one, swings and misses. Bryne stands next to Stilda, swinging the jawbone and hitting an ant on the head. She then points at it and a small blast of green energy flies out of her finger and burns its foreleg.

The ant screeches (Can ants make noise? These ones can.), attacking Ames. Critical miss! It falls over and rolls on the ground for the next round. The other ants swarm around the doorway. One attacks Stilda but she parries its blow easily. Another one goes for her and amazingly (critical miss!) gets stuck in the doorframe, squirming around.

Ames stabs at the one on the ground, skewering and killing it. Stilda brings her sword down on the one stuck in the doorway, but it lifts its leg at the last moment, knocking the blade away. Bryne can't reach any of the ants, so she yells to the others to make way for them to come through, which they do.

Two ants run into the corridor between Stilda and Bryne on one side, and Ames on the other. Ames has no escape now. An ant bites Stilda's thigh, tearing through the flesh with its mandibles (that's cut her HP in half!). The one next to it attacks Bryne, badly bruising her stomach and winding her. Another one bites her through the open door.

Defy Death: 1D4. Bryne will either take 1 or 2 damage here. 2 would kill her.

Success! The wound isn't as bad as it could have been but she's gravely wounded and must flee on her turn.

Bryne swings at the ant nearest to her, misses then zaps it with magic, burning it a bit. She turns tail and runs down the corridor, back through the door to the great hall. Back in the corridor Ames slashes the same ant, cutting it, but can't get past the two ants to follow Bryne. Stilda swings at the ant but misses.

The wounded ant moves into the place Bryne was and another comes out of the room, blocking Ames in the corner. It was a really bad idea for him to hide there... An ant gouges a chunk out of Ames's arm with its mandibles, leaving him on 1HP. Another attacks him and hits!

Defy death: 1D4. Ames has to roll a 1 to take no damage or die.

Failure! The ant bites his face, crunching through his skull.

The wounded ant attacks Stilda but she parries its swinging leg.

Bryne, seeing Ames die, calls to Stilda by the door in the great hall. Stilda slashes at the wounded ant but misses, then runs for the door. She just makes it through, and Bryne uses her action for the turn to slam the door shut. Bryne starts running for the large double doors out to the courtyard cemetary.

The ants have a choice to make now the door is shut: do they follow the fleeing heroes or chow down on the body of Ames? Let's roll for each one, giving it 50/50.

All of them except the wounded one swarm the fallen Ames, gnashing their mandibles and pushing one another out of the way to get to him. The wounded one reaches the door and charges into it. Can it break through in one hit? Hmm, it's not in combat with the door so it'll have to succeed at a check. The rules say to assume monsters have no relevent traits to add to the roll, and let's call it average difficulty as it's trying to do this in one turn, before the others get away.

Failure! It slams into the wooden door, bouncing off it.

Bryne and Stilda keep running. Bryne escapes into the cemetary but Stilda can't quite reach the doors yet.

Let's say the feasting ants will keep eating for the next few turns before following the other one - a turn is supposed to be six seconds long so they wouldn't polish off Ames in less than a minute. The wounded one charges the door again.

Failure!

Stilda joins Bryne out in the cemetary and they close the double doors behind them. If the ant gets to these ones it'll be harder to break them down as they're much bigger and sturdier. They run across the courtyard, making it to the middle.

Back in the corridor the ant finally breaks through the door! It runs quickly across the main hall, probably looking like the creature from Alien in the large shadowy room.

Bryne and Stilda reach the exit and push the heavy double doors closed behind them, safely out in the forest now. I think we can say that encounter is over. They catch their breath and bandage their wounds, healing 2HP each.

After seeing their friend eaten alive, or just about alive, they need to roll and see if they're going to be traumatised by this. The giant ants have a whopping 4 HD, so that gets added to the difficulty of the saving throw, which starts at 9.

Stilda

Saving throw: 13 on 2D8 +0 Constitution bonus, +1 character level

Failure!

Bryne

Saving throw: 13 on 2D8 +0 Constitution bonus, +1 character level

Failure!

This means that the next time they encounter giant ants they'll both have to make a saving throw vs paralysis or freeze up for a whole round of combat. They do however gain 100XP each from this experience, and they can get over their new phobia if each of them spends gold in the village on drinking and having fun, equal to the XP in gold pieces. So that's 100GP each.

My Thoughts

What a shame about Ames, he was the only one who managed to kill a couple of ants so no one gained any XP from the combat. At least we didn't lose all of them though, and Symath the cook is back in Keyham hopefully recruiting some fresh blood to join them.

I realised I'd made another mistake with the hexcrawl rules - the characters can actually travel much further per day than one hex, so they might even be able to get to and from the Tunnels of Mothric in a single day in future, which would help a lot.

The dungeon generation in Scarlet Heroes is interesting. I like bits of it and I like bits of the system in the BFRPG Hexcrawl Adventures supplement, so I think next time I'll mash them together and see what comes out.