Adventures in a Doomed World: Session 25

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 Adventures and some homebrew rules. The characters started as level 0 peasants and have since levelled up to become heroes.

Introduction

Today the party will set off for Vathmang Temple with Aentheorn the priest. He has some experience in his job so he'll be a level 1 cleric but he's not a Scarlet Hero so he won't get a fray die. We'll roll him some stats:

Strength: 13 (+1)

Dexterity: 5 (-2)

Constitution: 14 (+1)

Intelligence: 15 (+1)

Wisdom: 12

Charisma: 8 (-1)

As a cleric he gets one first level spell that he can cast each day, we'll go with Cure Light Wounds. He can turn undead once every five minutes - wow! This gives him a 1D8 fray die that only affects undead creatures. 

The rulebook says "A cleric uses his full character level to determine what undead foes the fray dice can harm." I've got no idea what that means and it doesn't elaborate on it, but it could mean it only affects creatures with hit dice equal to the cleric's level, so we'll go with that.

The Adventure

The heroes buy Aentheorn a suit of chainmail armour and a light mace (80GP). Saddling up on Helia's pony Thamas, he joins them on the road. They travel west past the ruined forge, through the wasteland and arrive at Keyham at dusk. They eat at the inn and rent rooms there, stabling their horses nearby (2.40GP). In the morning they continue west into the hills surrounding Vathmang Temple. Around midday they see a large dog-sized black animal coming over a hill towards them. It's a giant cockroach and it's right in their path.

Stilda jumps down off her horse, draws her longsword and charges at it. She lunges at its face as she approaches and skewers it, killing it (37 XP).

After a couple more hours they reach the ruins of Vathmang Temple, half destroyed by a landslide supposedly sent by the earth god Grum as punishment for a death cult's involvement with necromancy. A tall black stone building, only half of it still stands, with the rest buried in the hillside. I'm going to randomly generate the number of areas within according to the Scarlet Heroes rules but then discard half of them.

For the dungeon threat level, we get: The danger is roughly as anticipated (equal to the party's level). That's threat level 9. For size I rolled a 1 (phew!), this gives 1D6 locations: 1! I can't halve that so there'll just be one room. It turns out the dungeon for the side quest we had to do to hire Aentheorn was way bigger than this "main" dungeon.

The party enters through the double doors of the main building and finds a corridor strewn with rubble. They can see caved-in rooms through doorways on either side of them, so they head down the corridor to the only room they can enter: a chamber with a small shrine made from ancient black stone carved into a strange shape. There appears to be nothing in here except more rubble. There is some treasure buried under it but none of the heroes pass a wisdom check and discover it.

That's it, the temple is cleared, which means every hex surrounding Keyham is now cleared. This gives them a bonus of 700 XP in total and the villagers will pay them 25 gold for clearing Vathmang Temple (not that they deserve it!). Unfortunately a quarter of this is hoovered up by Aentheorn though. It's now mid afternoon so they travel back across the hills towards Keyham until the sun is low, and then find a good spot to make camp. They'll have to escort Aentheorn back to Wastow in the morning, so they'll have a long journey upon waking up.

The night passes uneventfully and they make it safely to Keyham. They claim their 25 gold pieces from the town council and spend the rest of the day at the inn. Several sessions ago Stilda and Bryne witnessed their friend Ames killed and eaten by giant ants, which gave them a fear of giant ants. The BFRPG Hexcrawl rules say characters can get over this fear by drowning their sorrows to the tune of their character level x 100 in gold pieces. That's a lot of drinking but Bryne and Stilda will take that opportunity now and spend a total of 500 gold over the next few hours, talking over what happened (and also mourning the loss of Helia).

This leaves them with 603 gold pieces, nine silver and two copper. The next morning they set off for Wastow with Aentheorn, riding east across the wasteland and the plains. The day gets hotter and hotter, and with the sun beating down on them they're almost passing out by mid afternoon. They dismount outside the ruined forge a few miles from Wastow and stagger into the shade inside (terrain event). They're forced to make camp and rest, drinking water. This will take them four days unfortunately, so they take turns keeping watch outside the ruins while the others rest.

Luckily no wandering monsters disturb them and they have enough supplies. They set off again five days later and reach Wastow that morning. Aentheorn bids them farewell and they chuckle about the empty ruined temple they didn't need his help with. He tells them they're always welcome to call on him again should they need his help.

That done, it's time to go and visit Thiri in Seethorpe to ask about the strange symbol they found in Mothric's lair and on the goblin king's amulet. However Cyna points out they're one person short. She suggests visiting Phomund in Keyham, fellow survivor of the Maze of Mothric who now recruits potential adventurers to join them. They all agree, and head for Keyham again, leading Thamas the pony, now masterless since Helia died.

On the way past the ruined forge they spot a hobgoblin wandering past. Dismounting, they relish the chance for some training. They charge it and it rushes towards them across the plain. Bryne casts Magic Missile and blows a hole through the middle of its chest, dropping it. They start to approach it to see if it had any loot, but something odd happens. It gets back up from the ground, the hole in its chest now gone. Only a scar remains.

Does anyone recognise it as an urgoblin?

Bryne rolls a check (11: Average)

10 +2 Int modifier +3 Lore skill = 15. Success!

"It's an urgoblin!" Bryne shouts. "It heals extremely fast, we can only kill it with fire or acid. Since we don't have any, let's get out of here!"

They run back to their horses but the thing can run faster than Stilda and Cyna in their metal armour. They slow down a bit to allow Bryne to shoot at it with her sling, but she misses. It goes for Bryne and swings a misshapen mace at her, catching her shoulder and bruising her.

Stilda hacks at it with her longsword and it drops to the ground again. It's rolled a 12 for how many rounds it'll take to get back up, so they've got a chance.

"Use your lantern oil on it!" Bryne says to Stilda. She opens her lantern and pours the oil all over it. There's enough oil to burn for ten turns, roughly half of an oil flask. Since burning oil flasks do a 1D6 damage die when thrown at someone, we'll say there's enough for a 1D3 damage die here.

Stilda has eleven turns left to get the fire going with her flint and steel. We'll call it a simple check.

Turn 1:

Stilda rolls a check (9: Simple)

9 +0 Dex modifier = 9. Success!

The urgoblin catches fire and takes 1 damage from the flames. Since it hasn't regenerated any hit points yet that takes it to -1 and kills it! (100 XP). The party watches it burn away until it's a blackened corpse. Unfortunately any treasure it had has burned along with it. They saddle up and carry on west.

They ride through the plains for a few more hours and then hear a low humming sound coming towards them. It's four giant bees making a beeline for them (sorry). Since they can fly there's no hope of galloping away on the horses so the party dismounts and draws their weapons. Not wanting to let them get within stinging range, Stilda and Cyna ready their crossbows.

With the bees zooming towards them, Cyna and Stilda shoot. Both of them miss but since they're in range of Bryne's fray die she shoots a green bolt of magic at them, however it misses too.

The bees close in, two of them reaching Stilda and Bryne. Stilda dodges hers but the other pierces Bryne's robe with its sting and delivers a payload of poison. The difficulty is 9 + the bee's 1 hit dice.

Bryne rolls a check (10: Simple)

14 +0 Con modifier = 14. Success!

Although she receives a stab wound, Bryne isn't affected by the poison. The bee pulls away, its sting ripping off and tearing out some of its innards. It flutters down to the ground, dead. Stilda chops into the one nearest her, killing it. Cyna steps up to one of the others and jabs at it but misses. Bryne shoots a magic bolt at it and kills it.

The final bee holds its nerve and flies at Bryne. The dagger-sized sting comes at her but she's expecting it this time and dodges.

Stilda runs over and cuts into it, putting it down. They receive 39 XP for the three that they killed. Stilda uses a bandage to heal Bryne's wounds and then they set off again on the horses for Keyham.