Thursday, May 14, 2009

Playing the Dungeon of Voorand - threats from above and below

Tonight the game went well! Everyone was having fun and we had one character get below zero hit points! They had encountered a room before with water and some kind of hungry monster, that had killed a PC before. This time they were intrigued enough by the three doors on the opposite side of the water filled room to decide to "do" this room tonight.

The room was filled with water, and had poles sticking up with some wobbly planks of wood on them. Since T&T is what it is, they of course have a fairy PC, so she flew into the room to investigate, and everyone else had actions ready to fry anything that moved. It moved. A swirling mass of slithering flying eels attacked and tried to knock the intruder into the water. A minute later it was clear that when prepared, the PC will succeed at what they try to do if they get information and are prepared to act upon it. Fried eel.

Now it became interesting. How do they try to make the crossing safer? It was by no means an easy task just because nobody was trying to push you into the water. Having tied ropes, and also having the flying member of the party steadying along the way did a lot to alleviate the danger. Now it went from interesting to downright scary. Crossing a wobbly plank was a third level SR on DEX or LK. With a rope I reduced it to second level. With someone to hold your and, to one. Our poor human warrior rolls a 1 and a 2. I'm thinking they have really done their homework preparing, so I rule he is still holding on to the rope, but have to make a STR check to pull himself to safety. He rolls a 1 and a 2. Piranhas feeding frenzy ensures and they finally manage to extract the whole party from the room, bleeding. I love fumbles!

Now they get to explore what's beyond that mysterious room. They map a few corridors, open a few doors and find (amongst other things) garden gnomes that makes you dance and a really nice magical axe with a Gristlegrim rune on it in a big chest. They also find another trap.

This time I was almost smiling when they methodically observed the corridor trap, searched for triggers and on the spot invented half a dozen ingenious way to make a trap like this. Then one player decided to just walk down the corridor with his axe at the ready. Gristlegrim will protect his own.

Now, I'm not saying Gristlegrim doesn't protect his own, but sitting at the table hearing the players figure everything out and how to safely disable the trap, I was amazed when one of them decided to just go in there! I love seeing things like that.

In the end they got him up from the spiked pit and decided it was time to head back home. Guess what happens when they go back to the piranha room? I am lost for words when I see a 1 and a 2 hit the table. Same player, same character. They get out, finally, by the skin of their teeth. One character decides to stay in the dungeon and wait for the hyenakin (oh, yes Paul. There are hyenakin in my dungeon!) tribe. He defeated the chief in combat and his second in command runs the tribe while he is delving.

One of the funny things that was said tonight was when the player who rolled fumbles repeatedly tonight levelled up and got a new Talent. He said roughly "I'm taking Carpentry! If I take that I will have to be inventive and find a way to bring it into play!" Good thinking. He got some Adventure Points just for his attitude.

Next week we'll see if they decide to go down one of the mysterious stairs they've found. Will they almost die on level five next week? Level three? We'll see.

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