Original Empire of The Petal Throne - Actual Play Event - Encounter With H'y Turis's 'Eater of Trespassers & the Helpless'

Original box set courtesy of tekumel.com

So last night I got together with friends for a game of the original  Empire of The Petal Throne box set; we generated characters & began to explore the underworld of  the city of Jakalla. We were fresh off the boat barbarians. Things went from weird to stranger as we were hired by a small group of xenophobic Tsolyani patron priests.They were hiring us for the recovery of artifacts from the underworld for some reason our party of outlaws & adventurers weren't trusting these priests to much. You can get a digital copy of EPT here.

I wasn't dungeon mastering last night's game instead I was playing with six other friends of mine.

Back of Empire of the Petal Throne box set courtesy of  tekumelcollecting.com

A great blog for EPT collectors 

So dodging guards we made our way into the underworld, past priests, guards, & strange altars we made our way down, down, into the underworld. We found ourselves in a passage with many rooms branching off into all kinds of tunnels and side rooms. We found ourselves at a door and we listened at the door and heard voices within. So we tried another door. A simple hasp locked the door and with a bit of luck we found ourselves in a room with a battered leather chest.

Tudro and Georgian furniture at the Red Lodge Museum in Bristol
Photo by Climatophile

Then right outside the room we heard those muted voices approaching and came face to face with another group of adventurers! Damn it! These idiots blundered into the same room and they were loaded with several minor artifacts. Melee broke out among the two groups and that took up a good portion of the evening but that's when the cage came down from the ceiling!

Aztec warriors from 'the Foundry' were a good stand in for the rival adventurers in last night's game!

And that's when H'y Turis's 'Eater of Trespassers & the Helpless' made its appearance! The thing quickly devoured two of our party before we could even blink wrong. It was a thing wrought from insanity & the warped imagination of the dungeon master. We had to think fast but it was getting close to two A.M.



We were in the clutches of a demon of the underworld! We had to think fast but the it was getting late but we all had work in the morning. So we'll wrap this up until next time, the thing was it was nice to get out from behind the screen.

Ten things I noticed about last night's Empire of the Petal Throne game:

1. Combat is deadly in the original box set, I mean nasty and very dangerous. 
2. The EPT game isn't as complex as its made out to be its really the fluff that can be off putting. 
3. Rival adventurers are nasty business in any old school game & I've got to use more of em. 
4. The underworld in EPT is one part adventure movie and one part dungeon on steroids. 
5. NPC Guards and other NPC's had the party moving very quietly and carefully. \
6. Mood seems even more important in EPT then even in original Dungeons & Dragons. 
7. I can honestly see how campaigns might last years in the game. 
8. Experienced players don't want to touch or look at anything, these guys were more cautious then Call of Cthulhu players. 
9. Original Empire of the Petal Throne PC's don't take long to generate 
10. Keep things very simple when starting a game of original Empire of the Petal play.