The Ruined Keep, A Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel: Part 1

Introduction

Over on my Youtube channel the Dungeon Crawl Classics solo campaign is going well, but since I can't shoot the videos as often as I'd like I keep forgetting the rules and having to look them up during the sessions, leading to more editing time before I can get the videos online.

I decided to start a DCC solo game in my free time, to play offline. This should help me get used to the rules and learn them a bit faster, plus I've been itching to play a traditional hexcrawl campaign lately too.

This is a funnel adventure called The Ruined Keep. It's by Daniel J. Bishop and is available for free as part of Sanctum Secorum Episode 3. I don't even know what that is, to be honest. I just googled free DCC funnels. I've already finished it but I'll transcribe it from my notebook here.

The Adventure

Twenty peasants of the small town of Grimbrook seek the Oracle of the Crystal Grotto, rumoured to be at the bottom of the nameless ruined keep near the town's edge.

They want to lift a terrible curse placed upon Grimbrook: their families are ill, their crops have failed, their livestock dead in their pastures. They steel themselves for the journey ahead, and leave town.

Campaign Day 1 (Start of Winter)
Turn 1
The peasants arrive at the keep one winter's morning. A mossy bridge crosses a ten foot wide river on the border of the keep's land. As they approach the bridge a thin humanoid monster jumps out from under it, its eyes glowing green.

The lurk lunges at Ingol the elven falconer, grabbing his neck and pulling him down to the ground, strangling him.

LURK
Init: +6, Atk: Claws +3 melee (1D6 damage), AC: 15, HP: 19, MV: 30', Act: 1D20, SP: Stealthy, strangle, SV: Fort +6 Ref +4 Will +4, AL: C

The peasants pile onto the lurk, pummelling it like mad with their makeshift weapons. Tariad the halfling moneylender jabs his shortsword into its chest and it dies, letting go of Ingol.

Turn 2
Does anyone think to search under the bridge?

DC8 Int check. Grochna: Success.

Grochna the barber does. She digs through a pile of leaves and mud under the bridge and finds 12 brass buttons (2CP each), 3 silver buttons (1SP each), a silver garnet ring (75GP). She pockets all the loot herself. Looking downriver they see it feeds into a pool to the west, whislt the keep lies to the north.

Grochna proposes a vote: Investigate the pool or press on to the keep and find the oracle?

D20: The number of people who want to go to the pool.
12. They will go to the pool.

They walk alongside the stream and observe giant tadpoles swimming in its murkey water, the size of footballs.

Turn 3
The peasants arrive at the pool but lurking among the reeds are three giant frogs that will instinctively attack anyone they see.

GIANT FROG
Init: +4, Atk: Tongue strike or bite +2 melee (1D4+1 damage), AC: 13, HD: 2D8, MV: 30'/Jump 50', Act: 1D20, SP: Tongue strike, swallow whole, SV: Fort -2 Ref +4 Will +0, AL: N

Suddenly a long tongue shoots out of the reeds and wraps around Obas, pulling him into the pond. Two other frogs leap out at Eltag the miller and Roda the astrologer, fatally biting them.

The peasants fight back and kill two of the beasts while one swims away upstream, but not before Laun the fortune teller, Rasa the outlaw and Obas the dwarf have also fallen.

KIA:
Eltag the miller
Roda the astrologer
Rasa the outlaw
Obas the dwarf
Peasants remaining: 16

The others take some belongings from their fallen comrades and head off towards the ruined keep.

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