Tuesday, December 27, 2016

The Thief Dies At Eleven In A Christmas Slaughter - Christmas "Villains of the Undercity" Actual Play

So just before the Christmas holiday I was able to get in some gaming with my buddy Steve & his brothers. I took my third level thief Endraca 'The Nibble Fingered'.  It was a nice get together to see everyone, there were about six people playing.
Jason was playing Ho'ward 4th level barbarian/fighter

Joella Jason's wife had her Wizard Thu's 'The Wise' 5th level 
Robert's 3'rd level Fighter Bi 'The Bloody Handed One'
Steve's brother Mike was playing his 5th level Fighter  "Skippy"
Steven's other brother Robert was playing our other 4th level thief Jordon 'The Jerky Ross' Hazanini 
And the stakes were stacked against us in Mark Taormino's  Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #3: Villains of the Undercity" module. Yup that's right we were getting sucked down into the depths of the module that I helped to promote way back when. Yes this is going to get worse from here folks.


We got through the tavern encounters alright, made it through several of the minor encounters with various NPC's as if it was a bit shady & then got into some of the under works of one minor dungeon. Apparently Steve has been reading this blog because several of the encounters were changed around & modified by his twisted DM's brain. Here's the thing about Villains of the Undercity, its a mix of urban, dungeon crawl, NPC driven plot, and lots of
Taormino's & crew's weirdness. So my PC is picking a lock after I checked for traps & no problem. As a player I should have known that this was too easy.
 

The door slowly opens & I see a darkened room thick with dust, dust covers, & furniture covered over along with boxes and what not. Check for traps again after throwing a few copper coins into the room. Nothing, take my trusty ten foot pole &  probe the floor & nothing once again. So far so good, then the second thief comes up behind my PC. I signal to him to stop by the door as I enter deeper into the room. Once again there's nothing but the smell of must not fungus or anything rotten just must. I started on one side of the room again checking for traps, and probing a bit with the end of my pole waiting for anything moving hand on my throwing dagger. The adrenaline is surging through my PC's temples & the rest of the party is hanging back as the second thief enters a wee bit behind me. I check box number one some sundries and supplies (catalog those for later.Checked for traps first), box number two has gun powder & shot (put that to the side), & box number three is a long coffin like affair covered over in a black cloth. I begin checking for traps & fail my roll (I don't know this). The coffin box bursts apart & I come face to face with two of the meanest pair of eyes I've ever seen! The smell of ozone fills the room & that's when I get the full picture! A Rawborg from Carcosa!   I still had the drop on the thing so I decided to take one for the team here & attacked!  They scattered and ran! I bought them enough time to escape! My PC died & died very badly.

So what's happening here? Well way back in 2012 I was running a series of Lamentations of the Flame Princess/OD&D games using Crypts & Things 1st edition. It was highly successful but I had killed Steve's character and in fact TPK'ed the entire party with these things.

I chuckled & made the players promise to get my ashes back to the spider temple for resurrection. I later on spoke with Steve about this & the rest of his players after the game wrapped up. His plan was to get the ball rolling with adventure & then around New Years to take us through the Secret Machines of the Star Spawn. In the meantime he's watching the Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #4: Vault of the Dwarven King  Which he thinks we might be ready as PC's by the time this adventure hits the stands. He's only got four days to go.


The rest of the players finished the module & I've yet to find out how it turned out. That being said I've been given a lot to think about for my own home game at the hobby shop coming up. Steve might be a bastard dungeon master but he's one of my oldest friends and you've only got four days to get in on the Kickstarter action.


I'm not at all upset about my PC dying, its given me a lot to think about. The fact is that perhaps Steve's right & need to return to my roots of this blog & resurrect parts of my old campaigns. Taking into account some of the stuff we talk about over the weekend there's a lot to digest.
You can support Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #4: Vault of the Dwarven King HERE!

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