Thursday, May 29, 2014

Sepulcher of the Mountain God, Part 1

This guy is a real party animal.
Last Sunday we played our second DCC RPG session and I walked away from the table with a few realizations. First, we need cheat sheets. We spent way to much time cracking the rulebook. "People them with Monsters" has some great resources that I plan on using in the future. Second, I need to print a stack of randomly generated 0-Levels. The party hired some retainers in town so we had to roll up new characters mid-session. We did it quickly, but the players would have been just as happy to save time and pull from a pile of pregens. Lastly, although first level characters might have some pretty cool abilities and better odds of survival than their previous 0-Level selves, they're still squishy as hell. The first combat ended up roughing the party up pretty badly due to some bad rolling.

Criticisms aside, the first chunk of the module went pretty well. We didn't get too far into the adventure on account of all the dicking around, but we established a beachhead. Picking up from where we left off, the characters had just shipwrecked into a pile of rocks after careening down a waterfall. They gathered themselves up from the banks of the river and followed it downstream hoping to find a village. Along the way they found the remains of some adventurers and helped themselves to the free gear and a map indicating some sort of nearby treasure. They stashed the map and continued downriver until they eventually found the Silverton Mining Settlement. They spent the rest of the day doing off duty adventurer things; buying and selling supplies, tracking down leads, drinking, whoring, etc. After recruiting a few redshirts at the local tavern they spent the night at the Broken Carriage. The following morning they pulled out the map, grabbed their sacrificial hirelings, and set out nice and early.

The first combat was a rude wake up call. The characters entered a cavern at the base of a mountain and quickly found themselves in a sea of pissed off skeletons. By the end of the combat there were a few deaths, some butthurt, and a better understanding of the rules. During the course of this the cleric somehow managed to frustrate his god so badly that his healing powers were revoked. Great. While looting whatever they could find they discovered some religious scrolls on an alter carved into the back of the cave. The scrolls described the area as an ancient holy site dedicated to a mountain god named Ira. At least they knew what they were in for. Over in the next room the thief set off a trap that I found way funnier than I should have. A large set of bronze doubledoors with huge rings to pull them open... pulling on the rings causes the doors to fall forward and crush anyone under them. Reflex to avoid. Simple, effective, and lawlz. Our thief now acts more thieflike and searches for traps more often after almost being crushed.

Behind the falling doors was a set of iron doors leading to a large hall supported by pillars carved like giants At this point the characters were pretty beat up, few in number (one player couldn't make it), and the cleric had lost access to his healing ability. They really weren't in any shape to press into the actual dungeon, so I convinced them to fall back, regroup, resupply, and take another crack at it next session. I'm anxious to run the next session. Everyone is more sure of their abilities now, myself included, so the session should roll faster, smoother, and further.

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