Dungeon23 in Four Against Darkness: Week 1

Session zero of this campaign is here. To see all the Dungeon23 posts click on the label in the sidebar.

Day 1, Room 01.01

The heroes arrive at the entrance to Zozu's Domain, an unassuming cave mouth in a mountainous region. Grobern the warrior and Rorri the dwarf are in front with Malia the rogue and the wizard Brima behind them. They are immediately faced with two tunnels leading north into the gloom; one on the left and one on the right.

Day 2, Room 01.02

The heroes choose the left hand tunnel, which leads to a door. Opening it the tunnel continues north. A black robed woman stands there, a hood obscuring her features. "I am Thonia of the Medusae, guardian of the domain of Zozu the Unmentionable." she says. "Somewhere on this floor is my rival, Lord Abag. Slay him. Bring me his head and thou shalt be greatly rewarded."

A pair of snakes writhe out from under her hood; she is indeed a medusa. Grobern the warrior replies "Aye mi'lady, we will return with his head." He whispers to the others that whether or not they do slay this Lord Abag, they'd be wise to stay on her good side.

Day 3, Room 01.03

The heroes bid a cautious farewell to the medusa and open the door at the northern end of the tunnel. Here it turns east sharply, so they follow it round the corner. Looking ahead they see that the tunnel goes off into the darkness to the east, with a door in the north wall.

Next to the door is an altar. Although it's carved from the same stone as the walls, it seems very out of place. There's a tin bowl on top with a dried dark reddish brown stain in it. As they walk past the altar Malia the rogue begins to feel very uneasy. "I don't like that thing, I don't feel good", she says, staring at it.

Malia is now cursed! She'll suffer -1 to her defence rolls until a Blessing spell is cast on her, she enters a blessed temple or slays a boss by herself.

Day 4, Room 01.04

Grobern opens the door next to the altar which leads north into another rough-hewn corridor, this one in a Y shape with the two branches ending in rough wooden doors to the north. "Blast it!" Rorri the dwarf shouts, "Is this dungeon nothing but empty tunnels? There's got to be a way into a secret treasure room or something here."

He starts feeling around the walls, tapping at the stone. He seems determined to search the entire tunnel, so the others follow his lead. While they're distracted, twelve shambling creatures come through the doorway behind them. When they sense the heroes in front of them the whole group emits a weird high pitched whining noise and spring at the heroes.

These are fungi folk and they get a surprise attack on the party, attacking from behind!

Malia nimbly dodges the mushroomy claw of the first monster, but Brima the wizard is scratched by the second. The tunnel is tight so the two parties are standing in lines of two, but it leaves the two weaker heroes vulnerable for the whole fight since they can't change their marching order now.

Malia jabs at her one with her shortsword but its fungal claw bats the blade away. Brima casts Sleep, which puts down just three of the fungi folk.

One of the "folk" slashes at Malia, cutting her. Another attacks Brima but she easily dodges it (This was the first exploding 6 of the campaign: she rolled a 6 on her defence roll, so she was able to roll again and add the results together. The second roll was a 6 as well, which gave her another roll, which was a 4. If this was an attack roll she'd have killed 5 of them in one go!).

Malia misses her enemy again, then Brima casts Fireball. The novice wizard mispronounces one of the magic words resulting in a small fireball which fries one monster but leaves the others unharmed.

Malia's opponent cuts her again with its spiny claw, bringing her down to 2 life. The other one attacks Brima, cutting her badly and bringing her down to 1 life. Each time a fungi folk hits, the hero has to save vs level 3 poison (roll that number on a D6) or take another wound. Yet again Brima rolled two exploding sixes, completely useless on a saving throw!

"Follow me!" Grobern shouts from behind. The heroes walk slowly backward with their weapons up and he opens the door behind him. The two creatures at the front try to attack Malia and Brima again but they have their weapons up in front of them and parry the blows. The party slips through the open door and slams it shut behind them, leaving the eight surviving fungal folk behind.

Day 5, Room 01.05

The four of them look around. They're at a crossroads in the tunnel now, but the east way leads just a few feet to a dead end. Brima suddenly remembers she has one spell left: Blessing. Casting it on Malia, the strange altar's curse is lifted.

The heroes take a moment to catch their breath. Malia and Brima are both badly wounded so they bandage their wounds (they can only use one bandage between rests). This brings Malia up to 3 HP and Brima to 2.

"Look," Rorri says, "Those mushroom men are going to stay there blocking our only way out of this place. I say we go back in for another crack at 'em! Grobern and myself can go first ladies, don't you worry."

The others agree and besides, Brima still has her sling and plenty of stones. They open the door and charge at the fungi folk.

Grobern swings his two handed sword and cuts down the front two fungi folk, then follows up with another swing, chopping through two more (exploding 6!). Rorri roars in delight at the sight of this, knocking down the two behind with his huge blunt maul. Finally Brima lets loose with her sling, hitting another in the eye and killing it.

There's only one left now. It wavers a bit but passes its morale roll, taking a swipe at Rorri who parries it. Finally Grobern swings his sword again and cuts the creature clean in two at the waist (exploding 6!). They take turns stabbing and bashing the three who were put to sleep by Brima's magic until all of them lie dead.

They search the corpses and find 2 gold pieces, which Rorri snatches up and pockets without telling the others.

Day 6, Room 01.06

The party goes north back to the crossroads and then heads west to a closed door. Opening it they come face to face with a huge towering figure standing in the centre of a square room, clad head to toe in black platemail, wielding a battleaxe.

"SO!" Roars Chaos Lord Abag, for that is who he is, "THESE ARE THE PITIFUL WHELPS THONIA SENDS TO SLAY ME?" The heroes look around the room but it appears he's addressing no one in particular."I HAD HOPED FOR WORTHIER OPPONENTS!"

He hefts his battleaxe and swings it where he stands. A huge wave of red hellfire spreads quickly out from the blade, hitting the party full in the face. Grobern and Malia instinctively drop down and avoid it but it blasts Rorri for 2 HP of damage and incinerates Brima, killing her instantly!

Grobern is filled with rage. He slashes his two handed sword over his head and down onto Lord Abag, where it chops between his pauldron and helmet, sinking deep into his shoulder for 2 damage, halving his life points (2 exploding 6s!). He staggers backwards from the impact as Rorri charges in, slamming his huge maul into Abag's chestplate. It makes a huge dent and the heroes hear a sickening crunching sound as his ribs break and he falls down dead (another 2 exploding 6s!).

They almost cheer but then turn to the smoking corpse of Brima in the doorway and their celebration is cut short. They bow their heads for a moment, then Grobern pulls the helmet off the chaos lord to reveal a horrible scarred and burnt grimacing face like a boiled ham. He quickly brings his sword down and severs it, ready to present to Thonia the medusa.

As Abag was a boss we get a chance for one character to level up. I'll choose randomly and then go through the party one by one from next time. The dice have decided it's Rorri, so he reaches level 2 and gains 1 permanent HP, bringing his maximum to 7.

They find Abag's belongings in a wooden cabinet next to his bed. Rifling through his stuff they uncover a green garnet worth 50GP and an onyx worth 40, along with a scroll filled with strange chaos runes of some kind. This is a CLUE - once they find three of them they'll uncover some kind of secret about the dungeon.

Day 7, Room 01.07

Still in shock from the death of Brima, the heroes discuss their next move.

"We should get out of here now, there's only three of us!" Malia says.

"Aye, and that medusa is on the way back anyway, we can hand this head over to her." says Grobern.

"Argh, can't we just see what's on the other side of yon' door on the west wall first?" Rorri says. "That Abag bastard could have more treasure."

They reluctantly agree with him, and open the door in the west wall. They see a roundish cave with a tunnel leading off to the west in the back wall, but there are 11 fungi folk shambling around the room! If they try to retreat each monster will get a free attack against them (albeit against a +1 defence bonus), and when hit by fungal folk heroes have to save against level 3 poison (roll a 3 on a D6) or receive another wound. They decide to stand and fight.

Note: we rolled a 1 for twisted minions, which resulted in the following twist: these minions have double their treasure amount.

The battle rages, with Rorri and Grobern cutting down fungal folk all around them. Rorri is slashed and wounded but not badly. They manage to kill six of the eleven, then the remaining five shamble away down the tunnel to the west (morale failure). The heroes cheer, and searching the bodies they find two gems: a carnelian worth 30GP and an onyx worth 40GP. The two men take once each, telling Malia she should contribute to the next battle if she wants a share of the loot. They are all driven by greed, after all.

They agree to head back to Thonia the medusa to claim their reward, then leave the dungeon to rest up for a time, and try to find a new adventurer at the inn who'll be willing to join them. However backtracking through the dungeon means rolling for random encounters each time they visit a room/corridor. There are four areas to travel through... luckily they roll no ones.

"Excellent, man-things!" Exclaims Thonia as Grobern approaches her holding out Abag's head. "That's one less rival and one step closer to moving one floor closer to my master. I shalt be at his right hand by year's end."

"Alright hag," Rorri spits, "What about our reward?"

"Hmm, I see the wizard-woman no longer lives. A pity, she would have made good use of this boon." She holds out an extremely old and fragile book. "Behold, the Book of Skalitos! Skalitos was a master wizard who transcribed each of the six known spells in his grimoire. He spends his days as a statue in a faraway land now. Take it."

They take the book, agreeing to give it to the next wizard they can find to join them. And with that, they follow the tunnel out into the daylight.

The first week is up and it was an eventful one! A boss killed, a quest complete and a hero lost.

RIP Brima the wizard: 

Killed by Lord Abag on level 1 of the dungeon.

Kills: 5

Most powerful enemy vanquished: Fungi folk

Here are the overall stats for the game so far.

Week 1 Log

Progress towards level up roll (minion encounters won): 2/10

Vermin killed: 0

Minions killed: 18 fungal folk

Bosses killed: Chaos Lord Abag

Weird monsters killed: 0

Most powerful enemy vanquished: Chaos Lord Abag

Total treasure value (gold found + treasure sold): 2GP

Hero deaths: 1

Quests complete: 1

Quests in progress: 0