Tag: DCC

Reflections: Doom of the Savage Kings

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop RoleplayingLeave a comment

Whew! For a fifteen-page adventure, who knew that I would somehow manage to compile over sixty thousand words over seventeen posts? I’m thrilled to have finished my first DCC module, and hoo nelly do I have thoughts to share! Today is the same “look back, look forward” sort of post as after my Portal Under the Stars experience, a chance to towel off from the story, ponder what worked and didn’t, and consider where I go from here. Spoiler alert: new journeys await.

Reflections on Level 1 Play in Dungeon Crawls Classics

Throughout the past couple of months and largely because of the fun I’m having on this project, I’ve become bolder about describing Dungeon Crawl Classics as my current favorite game, surpassing Pathfinder 2nd edition. It has the right balance between crunchy rules and narrative focus for me, and the countless random tables add to the story in delightfully unpredictable ways. It’s the best game that I’ve found that conjures the wonder and excitement of me as a kid while simultaneously incorporating modern game innovations.

You can’t spell “funnel” without “fun,” and I understand why the Level 0 murderfest funnels are so popular. Level 1, however, is when the entire core rulebook and supplements of DCC opened wide. To me, funnels are simply an added step of character creation, and an epic and important one for the game experience Joseph Goodman and the Goodman Games crew envisioned. Without bonkers spell tables, monster crits, Halfling Luck bouncing around the party, the threat of deity disfavor, intelligent magic items, and Mighty Deeds, however, the game hasn’t really started. I can’t emphasize enough how sold I am on Dungeon Crawl Classics gameplay.

Based on every account I’ve read from Judges and players, I also know that I was incredibly lucky through Doom of the Savage Kings. No PC died (though I had multiple close calls). My Cleric Erin was not disfavored by her god Shul. Hilda the Wizard experienced neither corruption nor spell backfires. No PC was put in a position of needing to burn his or her Luck down to single digits to survive. If some, or all, of these mishaps had occurred, would I still be so positive? I think so. Indeed, as I’ve gotten older and played more games, I find myself relishing the failures as much or more than the successes. They’re a chance for character development and story. If it wasn’t obvious while reading the game logs, I was quite disheartened that the Hound of Hirot didn’t put up much of a fight in any of its three battles, because I wanted challenge and peril. Which is all to say that yes, I’m aware that my plucky party experienced unusual success relative to many DCC tales, but I was both prepared for and understood the implications if the dice had rolled a different way. I expect Dungeon Crawl Classics to be a random, swingy game, and that risk is a big part of the fun.

Something else I love about the game is the lack of longform campaign storytelling. Though I’m not a big consumer of Matthew Colville’s videos (and thus don’t know more generally how aligned he and I are on other topics), I love his video on adventure length. To me, the idea of hundreds of possible “next adventures” for a party, based on what’s happened to this point, is exactly how I want to run my games. I’m a big fan of Paizo’s Adventure Paths, and have GMed a group of players through all six books of Age of Ashes over three years. It was a hoot. More and more, though, I find that I’m happy to be a player in an AP, but I don’t think that I want to run one again. I’d like the story arcs to be more emergent, for the epic quest at the end of a campaign to be the result of the dozen decisions the party has made to that point. The fact that so few longform stories exist for DCC is, for me, an exciting feature of its overall approach, and hugely satisfying.

Quick sidenote: Since beginning this project, I’ve run a group of players through a funnel (we played Hole in the Sky, which embraces the weirdness possible in DCC). What I realized from that experience is that the “hey, we’re just going to build the world as we go” can throw players off, especially ones coming from D&D or Pathfinder, where the setting is so deeply detailed. If I Judge a longer campaign (which is, ultimately, my goal), I will start with a Session 0 aimed at fleshing out basic details of the world (I’ve been playing Ironsworn with my friend Rob, and there are great tools there I’d steal for this sort of foundation), and creating our gaggle of peasants. Session 1 and 2 would be the funnel experience and leveling up their surviving PCs, and then we’d start the campaign in earnest with Session 3. Grounding the players from the beginning in a few basics plus giving them time to think a bit about their peasants before the Funnel experience would, I expect, provide a great campaign launchpad. The group I Judged is eager to play a Level 1 adventure, though, so I may have added a few DCC converts to the community.

That said, it’s not a perfect game. I have two primary complaints about Dungeon Crawl Classics now that I’ve played it for dozens and dozens of hours up to Level 2, and these complaints are related. First, I don’t know what the Goodman Games folk had against fantasy religions when designing the game, but Clerics got short shrift in the original core rulebook. Wizards and Warriors are the splashy classes in DCC, and what I hear people promote when convincing others to try out the game. Clerics, for whatever reason, feel like they received a tenth of the attention and writing. Worshipping one deity over another has no mechanical difference for a PC, whereas different Patrons dramatically change gameplay. The different gods and goddesses are described in a single page, with no flavor at all. Moreover, the more I create my own campaign world in DCC, describing the difference between deities and the otherworldly entities who are patrons is nearly impossible. In a nutshell: The entire system underlying Clerics and divine power feels underbaked in the game, and decidedly un-DCC-like.

Thankfully, some of my frustration is addressed in the one (and only, as far as I can tell) DCC Annual. Here, a handful of major deities receive write-ups detailing their background and beliefs. Each has special traits provided to Clerics, an individual Disapproval table, and thoughts about Divine Favors specific to that deity. The Annual introduces the ideal of “Canticles,” spells specific to a particular god. Clerics of the Known Realm is a free (!) supplement that took these features and applied them to the remaining deities listed in the core rulebook, which is awesome. And, as you know from Erin’s level-up post, I also found terrific inspiration from the Knights in the North (also free!). Add these three sources together, and I have the tools I need to make Clerics as satisfying and interesting as Wizards. The requirement to do so, however, leads to my second complaint…

The DCC community is amazing and pretty much everyone agrees it’s one of the best things about playing Dungeon Crawls Classics. Enthusiastic evangelists of the game create adventures, new patrons and deities, spells, magic items, classes, optional rules, settings, and on and on. Zines containing all the above are ubiquitous, as are third-party websites and blogs like Knights in the North. Goodman Games promotes or sells these supplements on their website and promotes them in its weekly newsletter. It’s clear that Joseph Goodman has made a conscious decision to allow a thousand wildflowers to bloom, with no attempt whatsoever to cultivate the DCC garden. You can, as a Judge, find anything you need to enhance your game, answer your questions, or fill in the gaps of your campaign.

So what’s the complaint? Well, after more than a dozen years, there are a lot of wildflowers. As someone new to the game, it’s overwhelming. I dipped my toe into a third-party class for Briene and had to decide for myself between three different Ranger classes. I’ve found several websites listing all the materials available for DCC, but none of them are comprehensive or up to date, so even finding my options takes significant work. I would LOVE for Goodman Games to provide compilations of some of these resources to help me. I would throw money at them for a compiled, edited book of Patrons, or Classes, or Spells. For example, take the material from Angels, Daemons and Beings Between Volumes I & II, add in all Patron write-ups from individual adventures and Gongfarmer’s Almanacs—Provide the most definitive book of Patrons you can provide over the past decade, please! Give me more Tomes that I can flip through to find inspiration rather than dozens of small booklets, some of which overwrite or build on each other in ways that aren’t obvious to me.

Unfortunately, I’m shouting into the void on this one, because I believe the dizzying pile of options is exactly what DCC enthusiasts want, and they celebrate the haphazard, “small press” approach to providing them. I want a map. The fact that this help is never coming is disheartening, and honestly diminishes my enthusiasm to keep delving deeper and deeper into the third-party mountain of options, discovering for myself where the gems are hidden.

In summary: I love Dungeon Crawl Classics. Playing it is incredibly fun. The Cleric class from the core rulebook needs some love to make it as satisfying as other classes, and I find it tedious to discover the many, many supplements to enhance my game. All of that said, I am looking forward to more DCC in my future.

Reflections on the module Doom of the Savage Kings

Doom of the Savage Kings is a beloved module from DCC’s early days, and it deserves adoration. Harley Stroh, one of the game’s more prolific and accomplished creators, clearly decided to transform Beowulf into a sword and sorcery adventure, and perhaps those mythical, narrative roots are part of what make it so satisfying. Gone are some of the bonkers, gonzo features of many DCC adventures that take you into different timelines and alien worlds, battling divine entities with uncontrollable items of power. Instead, Doom is a grounded story about helping a village full of color and depth with its monster problem. It’s great, and an adventure that I would happily run again for a group of players.

As with all DCC adventures, Doom contains several unexplained lore bits that can either be woven with parts of your campaign or lead to future adventures. What happened to Ulfheonar long ago and who were the Savage Kings? What’s with the “wolf versus snake” themes? How did the Hound come to be? What were those skulls on stakes in the Sunken Fens? What’s up with Ymae’s transformation? Etc. etc. Connecting these bits to Portal Under the Stars was fun and surprisingly easy to do. Both Graymoor and Hirot have standing stones and monuments to ancient warlords, so there is some internal consistency to say that these elements are related in the world’s history. I decided that the area surrounding the party was once a place of powerful and warring feudal Savage Kings, each with an animal motif and each playing with powers beyond their understanding in an ever-escalating attempt to defeat their rivals. I haven’t puzzled out how Ymae fits into the narrative, but if the party is ever exposed to Faerie (or Elf Land, or the First World, or whatever), I’m confident that there will be an opportunity to hook into something meaningful. Which is all to say that I’m enjoying the emergent worldbuilding inherent in DCC and appreciate how Doom helped flesh out some of the early seeds from Portal in my mind.

The part of the adventure mechanically that I find myself returning to again and again is the collapsing room hazard within Ulfheonar’s tomb. I haven’t before or since seen a trap work by ticking actions off specific initiative values, pushing players lower in initiative (and thus more dire threats) if they fail rolls. It’s cinematic and tense, with high stakes, and something I will definitely be looking to recreate in future games. In many ways, it’s the first time I’ve seen a hazard capture the “environment as actor” mechanic from Sentinel Comics RPG that I love so much. Bravo, Haley Stroh!

My biggest complaint around the module is how ultimately nonthreatening the Hound of Hirot was for the party. The PCs rolled well in the first encounter and had prepared well for the last encounter, but all three times I never felt the threat of a “final boss.” I like that the Hound’s stats are weaker at the beginning and beefier in its lair for the climactic battle, but either I missed a key part of the creature entry or the swinginess of DCC combat worked in my favor multiple times. Whatever the reason, the Hound felt like a chump. Meanwhile, the random encounter of the swamp jackals almost wiped out my fully rested and capable party. Heck, the tomb ghouls had me more on the edge of my seat than the Hound, and the biggest threat in the module was Iraco and his ambush. I’m beginning to form a theory that, in a game without balanced math and more randomness, a high number of enemies is far deadlier than a single enemy. Whether I’m correct or not, if I run Doom of the Savage Kings again, I will change the Hound’s stats, adding something (damage resistance, a howl that frightens all enemies who fail a save, etc.) that creates a bigger “holy shit we’re in trouble” feeling.

For solo play, the most challenging part of running Doom was the investigative chapter of Hirot. It’s a part of the adventure that I can vividly envision playing with a group, seeing how the players bounce off the various factions and interdependencies. For solo play, however, I experienced a moment of realization that I could write dozens and dozens of pages over multiple chapters without ever rolling a die, and I had trouble puzzling through how an investigation should work when I’m the only one at the table. I muddled through that bit in ways that hopefully worked, but in the future I’ll probably steer away from adventures with too many political, social, or investigative themes (which is a shame, since I love playing and running these sorts of adventures in groups).

Speaking of solo play…

Reflections on Solo-Play/Fiction

Adding my Portal and Doom blog entries together, I’ve written about 85,000 words for this project. A generally accepted minimum length for a novel is 90k words, to put that number in perspective. What’s particularly startling is that I began this project on May 26, 2024, almost exactly five months ago. Assuming I could keep up this pace, that means I’m roughly writing two novels a year worth of content. That’s amazing, and possibly the most prolific I’ve been on any single project (when I wrote my novel Birthright many moons ago, the first draft took me seven months). My undeniable conclusion is that this project has been a writing success.

The combo of solo-play and fiction also works for me. My strong sense is that if I focused on solo play without the blog, it would feel like a lonely and self-indulgent pursuit. It’s a funny distinction, since I only have two people consistently liking these posts (huge, fist-pumping shouts of gratitude for Rocket Cat and Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha (i.e. Kent Wayne)! They’re both awesomesauce, and you should check out their blogs and Kent’s novels). Apparently, though, having even a small audience is enough to help me fight through fatigue or malaise each week. I have never, on any writing project, regretted the hours spent tapping my keyboard, but I have often found excuses to not sit in front of my laptop in the first place. Publishing my solo play as public fiction is a terrific catalyst for continuing to write.

If I have a criticism of my process so far, it’s that, for whatever reason, my characters in this project are flat. I can’t tell why, exactly, but some theories I’ve kicked around are: a) perhaps the “disposable PCs” nature of the funnel and overall deadliness of DCC has kept me from investing too much in each character, b) six PCs is too many to juggle–especially for a system that expects them to stay bunched as a group–and for me the ideal number is probably somewhere in the 3-4 range, c) the emergent worldbuilding is distracting me from focusing on character depth, or d) my characters have always been flat, and I’m just noticing it now. Since I’m finding the gameplay of DCC so rich, the flat characters are particularly perplexing, and it’s something I am committed to addressing in the future. Whatever the case, it’s something I’m grateful to have realized on my own (my wife Sarah is usually my first reader, but given my pace on this blog I’ve been flying solo).  

What’s Next?

After Portal, I focused on two writing streams simultaneously: Continuing the tale of my four surviving PCs and compiling my various blog posts into a coherent piece of fiction without the game-log portions. This time, I’m doing neither.

Whaaa-aa-aat?

While I would love to see what a fiction-only, polished version of Doom of the Savage Kings would be like, it’s simply too many pages and too complex a narrative to edit without major effort. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze for me; a Doom rewrite feels like an energy drain rather than something that brings me energy. Since this blog is a hobby, there’s no reason to spend time on something that feels overwhelming. I want to keep experimenting and building on this new formula without getting too bogged down in polishing. I do think that editing and rewriting is an important and often overlooked part of being a published author, but being a published author isn’t really my aim here. Heh… Those last four sentences basically all said the same thing.

Now that I’m more confident in solo play, there are a ton of other games staring at me from the bookshelf. At the same time, I’ve been interested in poking at my own adventures and setting, circling back to a few ideas that have plagued my thoughts over the past many years instead of relying on published supplements. Combining these two instincts, I’m going to change this solo-play-plus-fiction-blog experiment into a laboratory for other games and other ideas. I still want to continue down my Dungeon Crawls Classics rabbit hole, but with a group of players rather than solo.

There are two possible scenarios in my mind: In one scenario, I have a vibrant, longform campaign of DCC running, either online or in person. Because DCC is relatively easy to prep, I also have the creative energy to continue with my blog, where I’m testing out new games and adventure ideas, enriching both my TTRPG life and honing my writing skills. In this scenario, maybe I even find a new favorite game and start the flywheel all over again, launching another campaign with friends and exploring new games on my own.

In the second scenario, I return to this moment. Maybe I fail to get a group campaign off the ground, or I find that DCC is uniquely suited to my solo play blog, or maybe I just miss this story and these characters. In this scenario, I revive Umur, Erin, Haffoot, Hilda, Joane, and Briene, picking up where I left off and launching them straight into a Level 2 adventure. Heck, I could even see starting over with a new Funnel and a new cast of peasants, focusing my writing on characters who are (hopefully) deep and vibrant.

In either scenario: 1) I’m committed to continuing with Dungeon Crawl Classics, either with a group or back here, and 2) my creative energy is pulling me into different places right now. I’m slightly ambivalent about this choice, because I’ve been having a ton of fun and writing at a feverish pace. There’s a worry that I’ll somehow mess up my mojo, resulting in neither ongoing gaming nor writing.

But even as I type that worry, I smile and shake my head. Nah. I can always come back and would be happy to do so. As I wade into my fifties, it’s becoming easier to make decisions out of a place of joy and contentment than out of fear. Let’s try something new and see what happens!

If you have thoughts on anything I’ve written here, either DCC, this specific story, or where I go next, I’m all ears. For now, get hyped about pivoting into a new direction, starting next week and going until… well, until my fickle muse pulls me down a different path.

Here’s to more playing and writing!

-jms

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 15

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying2 Comments

“Well, this is awkward, isn’t it?” Haffoot sighed and scuffed the toe of her boot into the patchy dirt. The sun had climbed above the tree line, within a dome of clear blue sky. It was a glorious late summer day, full of warmth and birdsong, that banished any sense of the coming chill of autumn.

Yet the gates of Hirot remained closed.

“Oy! Nothan!” Joane called up angrily. “What’s the hold up, then? The Hound’s dead and gone for good! Let us in! We’ve been standing here forever with our thumbs up our asses! Hello?”

There was a long, silent pause. A bird called out particularly loudly from nearby, answered by another. Otherwise, everything was quiet and still. Umur swore softly in his native tongue. Briene whispered to Erin, who stood with her arms crossed over her white-mailed chest, frowning. Hilda, as always, leaned on her staff, back from the others, her face shrouded beneath her hood.

Finally, a youthful voice answered from the palisades wall. “Opening the gate now, Joane!”

“That’s not Nothan,” Joane murmured to her companions. “That was Caspar. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I believe we’re about to find out,” Umur rumbled. A series of thunks and clacks echoed as multiple people unbarred the gates from inside. Slowly, very slowly, the heavy, wooden gates swung open.

The Jarl was there, wearing his wolf pelt. Chainmail glinted from beneath the cloak, and he bore an enormous, bearded axe in his meaty hands. Despite his age, with a bald pate and stringy, gray strands of hair hanging to his shoulders, the Jarl was an enormous man, tall and barrel-chested. His scarred face glowered like a thundercloud as he took in the companions outside the village walls.

He was far from alone. Nothan the Younger, the sharp-faced leader of the Night Watch, stood on one side, nervous and unhappy, his lips pressed together tightly and his eyes roaming anywhere but Joane and her companions. On the Jarl’s other side stooped the robed, oily weasel, Sylle Ru. Unlike Nothan, the thin seer’s eyes glittered with a malicious glee, a gaze that hungrily roamed over the party and lingered on Briene.

Behind the trio of men were all seven of the Jarl’s thegns, brutish women and men, each armored and bearing weapons of various sizes and shapes. Their names were well known to Joane and Briene: Ofenloch, Kreig, Clohn the Bald, Ori One-Eye, Utheryl, Haedrick, and Haelf Halfson. Each was a warrior of renown in Hirot, and the Jarl’s martial might. Only now did it occur to Joane that none had ever been selected for sacrifice to the Hound, nor had any of their wives, husbands, or children. The young woman scowled at the realization that perhaps the lottery had been a sham, or at least influenced in some way to protect the Jarl’s inner circle. Knowing she had almost lost her life at the standing stones made her cheeks burn with rage.

Stretching to either side of the thegns were the few remaining members of the town watch, each dressed in yellow and green livery, and each clutching a spear. Their eyes were wide and terrified, their faces glistening with sweat. Many had been pressed into service when watch members had been sacrificed to the Hound or died trying to fight it. They were too young, too old, or too infirmed for real battle, and yet they stood with the Jarl and his thegns, seemingly ready to charge.

Finally, congregated some distance behind the Jarl’s gang of ruffians, the majority of Hirot’s remaining residents formed a large mob. The several dozen villagers gasped, pointed, and murmured when they saw Joane, Briene, and their companions. Many wept and held young ones close, shielding them from what was to come yet keeping their own eyes fixed on the proceedings.

“I told you to leave,” the Jarl raised his voice for all to hear. “Why have you returned?”

Umur glanced at the others and stepped forward, still outside the open gates. “We’ve come to inform you that the Hound is dead and gone for good. We’ve seen to it.”

A murmur ran throughout the crowd of villagers. Several thegns bent heads together to whisper.

“We ask nothing in return,” the dwarf continued. “We simply wish to resupply and repair our arms and armor before heading on our way.”

The Jarl’s face darkened. “You expect us to believe it’s dead? That you killed it?”

“Blasphemy!” Father Beacom called out from the crowd far behind. “Only Justicia’s judgment will save us!”

Umur shrugged. “Believe what you will, but the Hound will bother you and your people no more.”

The thin, rat-faced seer, Sylle Ru, tugged at the Jarl’s arm. The large man bent and listened, nodding once before straightening.

“And the death of Broegan Cayhurst? What say you there?” the Jarl’s lip curled in a sneer.

“What!?” Joane’s cheeks flushed an even deeper red. “We weren’t even here when my father died, you twit!”

Erin placed a hand on the woman’s arm, holding her from stepping forward. “What are you suggesting, sir?” Her strong voice carried over the distance.

“He dropped dead,” the Jarl made sure the villagers behind could hear. “Witnesses said he fell over mid-sentence, untouched. I’ve got no other explanation but magic, and you have a magic user in your group.”

The crowd of villagers murmured, some agreeing loudly and others scoffing. The Jarl’s face was as flat as stone, but Sylle Ru grinned maliciously and rubbed his hands together.

“You can’t be serious,” Umur groaned.

“Hand over your mage for questioning, and we’ll lock the rest of you away while we handle the Hound ourselves. Your meddling has confused too many people, and too many have died since you’ve arrived. Or do you deny that you took several of our people into the woods nearly a week ago, and none returned?”

“These people bloody saved you all!” Joane cried, and Erin tightened her grip to keep her back. “You probably poisoned my pa just to blame it on us, you monster! It was Iraco that attacked us in the woods, and you know it! Monster and fool!” Tears blurred her eyes and began spilling down her cheeks.

“Watch your tongue, girl,” the Jarl growled, his face darkening. “Or you’ll lose it.”

“Jarl,” Umur stepped forward. Joane turned to sob into Erin’s embrace. “We’ve killed the Hound and done Hirot a service. I see you’re ready for violence, and I assure you people will die if you keep pressin’ your points here. As the lass says, most who’ve died with us were to your huntsmen. Iraco and his men have paid for that, buried near the Snake King’s tomb.” At mention of Ulfheonar, more villagers murmured and cried out, and thegns whispered. A few of them looked at the spear in Joane’s hand thoughtfully.

“Stop the bloodshed, Jarl,” Umur continued. “You know we’ve done nothing wrong. We’ll leave and you can rebuild in peace. We ask for nothing from you. This is madness, man.”

Warrior to warrior, can Umur’s speech avoid violence? Or is the Jarl’s pride too great to accept that these outsiders helped him? Let’s do a Personality roll for Umur. He has a 14 Personality, for a +1 modifier. I’m going to make this a DC 10 for him to at least get the Jarl to pause and consider a non-violent solution. If he hits 15+ something very good will happen. If he gets a 5 or less, something very bad will happen.

Umur rolls a [12+1] 13! The Jarl will pause and consider the implications of a battle here.

His advisor, on the other hand, wants these troublemakers out of the way. Sylle Ru is insecure and motivated by power. He is threatened by the adventurers and will try to encourage violence. I’ll set the DC as Umur’s roll: 13.

I’ll say Sylle has no modifier (he’s smart but slimy), so this is just a straight d20 roll: 3.

Well, this will be fun…

Silence filled the next several heartbeats. Joane pulled away from Erin’s comforting arms with a nod of thanks. Briene reached out to lay a hand on Joane’s shoulder, as the red-haired young woman wiped her nose with the back of her hand while staring at the Jarl with hate-filled eyes. The other companions held their breath, waiting for the Jarl’s response. His thegns shifted their feet, seeming to do the same. Fingers on both sides idly touched weapons. Even the crowd of villagers had quieted, sensing the importance of the moment.

The Jarl exhaled, grimacing. He took one of his giant hands off the wicked axe and rubbed his face. “Gods. There has been enough bloodshed, right enough.”

Sylle Ru tugged frantically at the Jarl’s cloak, whispering and making dramatic hand gestures. The Jarl grunted something and shook his head, brushing the seer’s hand away. The robed man persisted, now urgently and angrily.

The Jarl cut him off. “Silence,” he snapped, then straightened and glowered at the companions at the gate. “Go. Take your people and leave, dwarf.”

“Good enough,” Umur nodded, and turned to the others. “Let’s first check…”

“NO!” a thin, reedy voice cut through the space between the Jarl and the companions. It was Sylle Ru, spittle foaming at his mouth. The robed man took several steps forward. He thrust a thin, knobby finger at Umur. “They are villains! Liars and thieves! Thegns, kill them now!”

Everyone could see the dark red and black energy beginning to swirl around the seer’s outstretched finger as he began chanting in an otherworldly baritone voice.

Sylle Ru, in his fury at being ignored by the Jarl, is going to try and instigate a fight anyway. I’ll roll initiative to see if the seer gets to act before the party. Everyone is ready for violence, so no surprise rounds for either side.

He rolls right in the middle of the companions. It’s Joane who wins by a mile, and she too is wound up and itching for battle. Seeing the seer be aggressive, she will daringly and dramatically try to throw the wolf-spear.

Joane’s Agility gives her +1 on ranged attacks, but the wolf-spear is not meant to be a ranged weapon. As a result, I’ll cancel this bonus. Instead, Joane rolls a 2 on her Deed die, giving her a total of +3 to attack since the spear is already a +1. She rolls a [15+2+1] 18, and hits Sylle’s AC of 10 easily. Her damage is [3+2+1] 6, which is the seer’s hit point total. Sylle Ru dies before casting his spell.

How will the Jarl react to this sudden violence? I’ll roll a morale check, with a higher roll better for the party. Another 15 on the d20. What could have been an all-out, fierce battle ends before it begins. I was ready for this scene to play out in a number of different ways, but whew!

In that moment, with the Jarl, thegns, city watch, villagers, and companions stunned, only Joane moved. She took several loping steps, snarling as she moved. From between the palisades’ open gates she launched Ulfheonar’s wolf-spear through the air, her red-haired braid flailing. The legendary weapon soared through the open space.

Sylle Ru’s eyes widened and the magics crackling at his fingertip sparked and faltered. At the last second, he threw up his hands defensively. The broad head of wolf-spear struck the man’s chest with a meaty thunk! and he fell backwards. Thin hands weakly, spastically grasped for the spear’s hilt, then stilled. Sylle Ru was dead, his eyes open and frozen in fear, his mouth agape.

Joane stood panting, her face bunched in anger. Villagers cried out in horror. The thegns’ wide eyes looked from the Jarl to Joane and back again. At least half of them gripped weapons tightly, while others took a step involuntarily back.

All the while, the Jarl’s expression did not move. His thunderhead frown remained fixed as he strode forward to his seer’s corpse, tucking his great bearded axe into his belt. He looked down, sighed, then pulled the spear free. The Jarl examined the wolf-spear in his enormous hands, his eyes roaming over the ancient script and snaking patterns carved into its shaft.

The companions neither moved nor spoke. Everyone, it seemed waited to see what the leader of Hirot would do next.

His heavy gaze fell on Joane, still panting, cheeks flushed.

“It truly is Ulfheonar’s weapon? You found the Snake King’s crypt?” he said in a low, thoughtful voice only he and she could hear.

Joane swallowed hard, then nodded.

“And the Hound? It’s truly gone, then?” the Jarl raised his voice, and it was clear the Jarl addressed Umur now.

“Aye,” the dwarf said. “It’s all true.”

The man sighed and glanced down again at his seer. His words were heavy and tired. “Alright then. You have until sundown to resupply. Then leave Hirot behind.”

He dropped the wolf-spear in the dirt. Like a lumbering bear, the Jarl turned his back on the companions and faced his thegns. Joane and her companions did not hear what he said in low, commanding tones. The assemblage of warriors glanced back at the group, some with hatred on their face, some with respect, and at least one with a grin, and then, as a group, they strode through the town square, towards the crowd of villagers, the town watch members trailing behind. The mob parted before them, shouting questions, as the Jarl stopped to address his few remaining people. Though he did not realize it, the Jarl took a place next to the strongbox atop a wooden post, where he had stood every three days for weeks on end.

Sylle Ru’s thin, crumpled form lay in the dirt, untouched and untended, like a discarded doll.

Late that afternoon, Umur stood outside of the mad widow Ymae’s hut. His horned helmet was tucked under one arm, battered shield strapped to his back, and longsword at his belt. Yet he’d washed his hair and face, and he wore fresh cotton beneath his black, scaled armor. The dwarf ran his free hand through his beard, scowling furiously as he faced the door.

He grumbled, “Bloody madness. I’m leaving at sundown, never to return. What does an empty marriage do? Nothing is what it does. It’s madness.” Then he cursed in dwarven and turned to leave.

The hut’s door opened.

“Ah, you’re Hilda’s dwarf, then? Well, come here and let’s have a look at you.”

Umur turned.

In the doorway was a young human woman, pleasantly plump. Her blonde hair was tied back in an elaborate braid, wildflowers woven throughout, which hung over one shoulder. Her violet-colored dress was simple, with a belt woven with flowers, and she was barefoot. The woman’s face was cocked to one side, appraising him and grinning with deep dimples.

“I– I’m sorry, ma’am,” Umur stammered. “I was looking for Ymae. Is she home?”

The woman chuckled. “I am she and she is me. Why have you come to my hut wearing the ancient armor of a Savage King’s lieutenant, Master Dwarf?”

“I, uh…” he coughed, flustered. “I was told by Hilda that she made you a promise. For the net.”

“She did indeed. And here you are to fulfill it, eh?” The woman put a fist on one hip, which she thrust out. Umur had never found humans particularly attractive, but even without whiskers this woman was lovely.

He realized that she was waiting for him to answer with an arched eyebrow. He coughed again. “I suppose so. The… the net was most helpful against the Hound.”

“What are you here to do, Master Dwarf?” Ymae leaned forward ever-so-slightly, eagerly, on tiptoes. “Say the words.”

“Well, I… I’d heard that if the Hound was dead that you wanted a… a husband. So I’m here to marry you, I suppose.” He nodded, planting his feet firmly. “As promised.”

Ymae threw back her head and cackled with glee. She spun on the ball of one bare foot as she laughed, her dress swirling. Then the young woman was clapping her hands together, eyes glittering with delight and her white smile bright.

“Oh, well done! Well done!” she cried and leapt at Umur. The dwarf dropped his helmet into the dirt to catch her awkwardly, but Ymae managed to meld into his armored embrace with grace. She kissed him, still smiling, long and hard.

“That’s enough,” a voice hissed from the doorway. Umur blinked, confused, as Ymae pulled herself away from him and turned. He craned his neck to see past her.

Just inside the hut stood a figure of shadow and flame, its form shimmering and dancing like candlelight in a breeze. Umur’s eyes watered to look at it, this thing of darkness that was clearly not of this world.

“He’s done it!” Ymae clapped. “He needed a kiss of thanks, didn’t he? Oh, don’t be jealous, love.” She thrust out her hip again, planting a fist on it.

“What’s this now?” Umur stammered. “I don’ understand.”

Ymae sighed as she stepped back towards the doorway. Flickering hands of black flame reached out to caress her as she drew close.

“Hilda’s oath is fulfilled, Umur Pearlhammer,” the woman said, her voice full of light and joy despite intoning each word like a proclamation. As she spoke, she disappeared into shadow, both moving further into the hut and the strange figure’s embrace. “Go and find your home, though I weep for what you’ll discover. And here is your reward, though your current armor suits you. Perhaps the young Wolf Slayer can use it.”

Umur jumped as the hut door slammed shut. Just outside, folded neatly at the doorstep, was a pile of golden chainmail that glittered and gleamed in the late-afternoon sunlight like fire.

Reflections: Doom of the Savage Kings

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 14

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying3 Comments

Something dribbled into Umur’s right eye from the bushy brow above. It could have been sweat, or blood, or even water from an overhanging branch. Whatever it was, he couldn’t spare the effort or time to wipe it away. The dwarf blinked furiously, shaking his head even as he swung his ancestral longsword at the furred body darting past him. He missed, and the creature was gone from sight.

“Blast these beasts!” he bellowed. “To the Nine Hells with you all!”

But behind his fury was a cold dread. There were still too many of the desperate, cunning jackals. His companions limped and bled from numerous bites and tears in their flesh. Still the creatures pressed their tactics, yipping and snarling and darting in whenever one of them turned. Blood thundered in his ears, his breath shallow. They were losing this battle, he realized with grim certainty, and there was no hope of escape.  

All around, numerous rune-marked skulls stared unseeing at them from tall stakes. Their empty sockets appeared and disappeared with the shifting fog. The macabre totems, it seemed, waited in mute witness for them to die.

Round 4 is upon us! I predicted last time that this would be the deciding round in this fight. As a reminder, Briene is still unharmed at 9 hit points. Erin is at 3 of 10 hp. Haffoot 4 of 6 hp. Hilda 7 of 14 hp. Joane 6 of 10 hp. And, clinging to life, Umur is at 1 of 10 hp. Seven of the fifteen original swamp jackals remain, and none of them are currently injured. The jackals just passed a second consecutive morale check, so they are going for the kill, sensing an impending meal.

The first jackal bites Haffoot and rolls a 14 (recall that they have a +2 to hit, but -2 from Hilda’s Invoke Patron spell) versus her AC of 13. Thankfully, the attack only does 1 point of damage, leaving her at 3 hp. The second jackal rolls a 15, surpassing Erin’s AC of 14. That attack also does 1 point of damage, leaving the cleric at 2 hp. YIKES.

Thankfully, the tide turns after that. Joane hits with her wolf-spear, rolling a 17, and does [6+2+1] 9 damage, killing one of the creatures. A jackal misses Haffoot with a 7. Haffoot returns the attack against one of the three (!) jackals near her, missing with her first sword but hitting with the second on a [15+1] 16, dealing a max 6 damage and killing it.

Briene aims her shortbow at one of the remaining jackals harassing Haffoot and rolls a natural 20! The first, I believe, critical hit of this combat for the PCs. She rolls a chest wound (+3d4 damage), and does a whopping 16 total damage. Then Hilda, who had been swinging wildly with her staff against the one jackal attacking her, finally hits with a 16. She halves the jackal’s hit points, dealing 2 damage.

A swamp jackal lunges at Umur. He has a 15 AC, though, so the law of averages suggests they’ll stop hitting him at some point, right? Nope. The jackal rolls a 15, and the damage is irrelevant since Umur had 1 hp. He goes down.

Erin sees her friend fall, and rushes to Lay on Hands. If this fails, there is a serious chance of Umur dying. She rolls a [16+1-1] 16! Because they are the same alignment, this result means that Umur will heal 3d10 damage, and I roll well. Umur is back to full health, though prone and has dropped his longsword.

The last jackal ends our round with a bang, rolling a natural 20 against Hilda. The crit says it breaks a rib, dealing an extra d6 damage. That means Hilda takes [4+4] 8 damage and also goes down.

Umur, last to go in the round, spends his turn regaining his sword and standing.

At the end of the round, it’s time for another morale check. Because only 4 swamp jackals remain, I’m going to give them a -4 to their check. They roll a [15-4] 11 and, miraculously, are still going to fight to the death.

The companions fought furiously and with desperation. Joane impaled a jackal, which unnervingly screamed in a high-pitched wail like a small girl when it died. Haffoot used her thin blade to stab another through the eye. And an arrow loosed by Briene cut through the mists and left a third dead, its body curled at the foot of one of the leaning, skull-topped stakes.

Yet among these wins, too many bites tore through pant legs and found flesh. Umur, blinking furiously, turned almost blindly as one of the swamp jackals launched itself through the air to land on his shoulder. It bit down onto his neck and the dwarf cried out, falling.

“Umur!” Erin called out. Without thinking she ran and knelt by her friend, reaching out with her free hand. Soft, white light spilled from her open palm and over Umur. His eyes fluttered open, even as the jackal that felled him snarled and lunged again with its blood-flecked teeth.

Hilda, away from the others, had been swinging her staff left and right, keeping a persistent jackal at bay. The creatures had shown a malevolent intelligence, however, and the jackal made a calculate charge immediately following one of those swings. Hilda yelped as its leap carried it through her defenses, directly onto the wizard’s chest. It snarled and bit, and Hilda shrieked as she fell.

Round 5. The first of the remaining jackals has a choice between Erin, Joane, and Umur. Since Erin is kneeling and focused on Umur, it attempts to bite her and misses with a 3.

Joane rolls a 3 with her Deed die, and stabs at the one who’d just attacked Erin. She misses with a [6+3+1] 10, but Haffoot lends her a +2 with a point of Luck, making the strike a hit. She kills the jackal and uses her Mighty Deed to force another morale roll from the remaining three jackals. Amazingly, they roll a nat-20. Dang. That was a cool use of a Mighty Deed, I thought.

The lone jackal near Haffoot misses with an 8 and she’s able to return the attack. She hits with the first blade, doing 5 damage and killing it.

It’s Briene’s turn. It doesn’t make sense that she can do medicinal, herbal healing in combat like Erin’s Lay on Hands. So instead of healing Hilda, she will call out to Erin and loose an arrow at Hilda’s opponent. She rolls a [9+1] 10, and Haffoot again supplies a +2 Luck bonus (her Luck is now 8 of 12), which means the attack hits. Six damage is more than enough to kill the jackal.

The last swamp jackal nips at Umur but misses, which allows Erin to scramble to Hilda’s side and try another Lay on Hands. As with Umur, if she fails this check it will mean a “death roll” from our wizard, and perhaps her death. Once again, Shul, God of the Moon, comes in clutch. Erin rolls a 19! Unfortunately for Hilda, because she is Neutral alignment and a wizard, she only gets 2d4 hit points back, and Erin rolls a total of 3. Still, 3 is better than 0. Hilda lives.

Umur is up, armed, and furious. He only rolls a 1 on his Deed die, but hits the last swamp jackal with a [13+1+1] 15, dealing 9 damage.

The combat is over, officially the closest we’ve gotten to multiple character deaths. Exhale.

“Erin! Help Hilda!” Briene cried out, loosing an arrow at close range into the jackal that had leapt atop the robed wizard. “She’s not moving, Erin!”

Joane roared a furious roar and stabbed another creature through the neck as Erin stumbled over to Hilda’s fallen form. Her gray eyes scanned the torn, bloody robes and murmured a prayer. Nothing happened, and she squeezed her eyes shut, praying more fervently. Whether it was Hilda’s dark magics, the new moon that Erin knew was on its way this night, or the cleric’s own fatigue, something stood in the way of Shul’s divine energy towards Hilda, a barrier that had not existed moments before for Umur. After several heartbeats, though, the now-familiar soft glow cascaded over Hilda, less than before but present. The wizard coughed weakly and rolled to her side in the wet grass.

Nearby, Umur had retrieved his longsword and stood. With a bellow he lopped a jackal’s head clean from its emaciated body and turned to face the next oncoming attacker.

Yet the battle was over. As quickly as they’d come, the swamp jackals disappeared. Any remaining members of the pack yipped and chittered away into the mists.

The group panted and wheezed as the sounds of predators faded into the fog. All around them loomed skulls on stakes, bloody furred bodies, dark trees, and swirling fog. Erin, eyes still pressed tight, said an earnest, thankful blessing to her god, tears staining her cheeks.

“We must leave this place,” Umur gasped, stomping over. “Briene, lass, lead us away.”

“The skulls,” Hilda croaked, attempting and failing to stand. “I wish to see the center of the circles. There is–”

Erin’s eyes snapped open. “No. You’ll do no such thing. We leave. Now. Joane, help me with her.”

“I can help to heal…” Briene began, even as Joane stooped to pull Hilda up.

“No, Briene,” Erin snapped, her voice like iron. “You do as Umur said: Lead us out of this Chaos-forsaken place. We must leave the Sunken Fens before we can rest. Our lives are in your hands.”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” the young woman blushed.

Without speaking another word, the group followed Briene through the mists. Erin, Haffoot, and Joane all bled and limped from numerous bites, so it was Umur who half-carried Hilda through the swamps. Fog distorted sounds in the darkened, wet moors. Half a dozen times, the companions stopped, hands straying to weapon hilts as some awful sound found its way to them. Yet each time, no new horror arrived, and they fled. The group moved slowly, stumbling, and pressed on until the mists receded behind them.

Eventually, the Sunken Fens gave way to vibrant, late-summer forest. Sunlight and fallen leaves dappled the ground. The warm red and browns of tree trunks and branches no longer seemed like nightmares waiting to grab them. Birds twittered and chirped above. Insects chittered. Even the smells of the forest had changed, from damp decay to pine and moss.

“I know this place,” Briene smiled brightly. She looked back on the companions, her face a sheen of sweat and delight. “We’re not far from the river, and then Hirot. We’re safe.”

Well goodness, that was scary. Can Briene administer healing to Hilda and the others once they’re away from the dozens of stakes skulls (whose purpose we may never know, or may play a part later… we’ll see!) and the Sunken Fens? Let’s do some checks.

For Hilda, Briene rolls a nat-20 and is able to heal her to full hit points. For Erin, she rolls a [13+1] 14, giving Erin 2d8 (4) much-needed hit points. For Haffoot and Joane, unfortunately, she fails her checks (but doesn’t roll a natural 1, which would poison them).

Which means it’s Erin’s turn. Her first Lay on Hands check for Haffoot fails, increasing her Disapproval chance to 1-2, but her next two checks succeed. She heals Haffoot and Joane to full, and then turns attention to herself. She fails again, increasing her Disapproval chance to 1-3 on a d20. Thankfully, she then rolls a 15, healing herself to full hit points. The party has officially survived the pack of swamp jackals without any lasting damage.

All this healing, however, is going to be time consuming. I’ll say that they spend an entire day in the forests surrounding Hirot, tending to their wounds and recovering. Over this time, Hilda will gain a point back each of Agility (now 10 of 11) and Stamina (now 10 of 18). Haffoot will recover 1 point of Luck (now 9 of 12).

Does anything untoward happen over the course of this day? I’ll roll a d20, and on a 1 or 2 there will be a random encounter. I roll an 18. Nope… it’s a rare day of peace and rest for our adventuring party.

The companions finally collapsed in a wooded glade. Briene immediately dropped her backpack to the leafy ground, rummaging through it for healing supplies. She spent the next several hours tending to first Hilda’s wounds, and then Erin’s. By the time the young woman looked up, blinking, darkness had gathered in the forest and Umur had begun assembling kindling for a campfire.

“We– we aren’t going back to Hirot tonight?” she asked, bone weary.

The dwarf looked at her and chuckled. “Lass, the gates closed at sundown. Besides, the work you were doin’ was too important to interrupt. You’ve become quite handy, navigatin’ us through the woods and healin’ everyone’s hurts.”

“Don’t forget her bow,” Haffoot grinned. She leaned forward to wink at Briene. “One of her shots picked a jackal clean off the ground and sent it flying through the air! I saw it!” The halfling hooted and slapped her knee.

Briene yawned. “Where’s Joane?”

“Gatherin’ firewood and washin’ up in the river,” Umur grunted. “You should wash up, too, before you fall over. Then get some food in ya and sleep. Haffoot here found a rabbit.”

“Come, Briene,” Erin stood with a groan. “We’ll go together. Hilda, hand me your waterskin so we can fill it.”

“Thank you, dear one,” Hilda said sleepily, patting the white, scaled armor upon Erin’s leg. Then the woman pulled her hood close, casting her entire face in shadow, and began lightly snoring.

“She cares for you,” Briene whispered, smiling, as they left the glade.

“Mm,” Erin said thoughtfully. “Something’s changed. She treats me almost like her own child. It’s… odd. And I like the effects of this magic upon her not at all. It’s poisoning her.”

“On that we can agree. But her affection for you is sweet. Perhaps it’s an anchor in the darkness.”

“Perhaps,” Erin sighed. “But I fear that Hilda and I will need to talk sooner than later, before that darkness becomes too great a weight.”

Later, after the six of them had licked their fingers clean of rabbit, a companionable silence fell over the campsite. Briene and Joane leaned against one another, eyes closed in appreciation for the other’s presence. Umur stared into the dwindling flames, poking idly with a stick, his mind clearly elsewhere. Haffoot lay near him, hands folded behind her head, staring up through the canopy at the night sky. Even Hilda had felt strong enough to join them, and sat cross-legged, firelight dancing on her sallow features beneath the hood.

Erin stood, and attention shifted to her. Her armor was battered and in need of repair in several places. She had passed a wet rag over parts, but the black mud of the Hound’s lair and dried blood from their encounters still spattered its surface. The cleric cleared her throat.

“Tonight,” she announced. “Is a new moon. I’ve felt my connection changing these past nights. Shul has closed his eye, resting. In such a time, I thought that I might sing a hymn.” She looked around the group, and almost as an afterthought added. “If that’s acceptable.”

Haffoot rolled up to sit. “Go on, then.”

Erin nodded, clearing her throat again. She began to sing, and once again the group was reminded that, before the portal beneath the Empty Star, Erin Wywood had been Graymoor’s minstrel. Her voice was haunting and beautiful as embers from the fire rose on smoke into the forest night.

“O Shul, Watcher upon high,

Though your eye hides, you’re still nearby.

Dancer of paths where shadows lie,

Guide us safe as stars drift by.

In darkness deep, we know your light,

Guarding souls through endless night.

O Shul, unseen, our path defend,

Until your eye returns again.

Husband of the Three, you weave unseen,

Though all is dark, you keep us keen.

Through whispered stars your darkened eye,

Holds us close as night rolls by.

In darkness deep, we know your light,

Guarding souls through endless night.

O Shul, unseen, our path defend,

Until your eye returns again,

Until your eye returns again,

Until your eye returns again.”

The last notes of Erin’s hymn washed over them, and the group sighed almost as one. Despite the horrors of the previous day and night, their spirits lifted. Joane and Briene hugged each other tightly. Haffoot patted Umur’s thigh companionably, and the dwarf grinned back.

“Beautiful,” Hilda said into the silence that followed.

“It really was,” Joane said. “Thank you.”

Erin nodded and sat back near the dying embers of the campfire. Her own prayer, it seemed, had strengthened her, for she did not grunt or groan in pain when settling down.

“So,” Joane said, disentangling herself from her friend and sitting up straight. “What happens tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” Umur said. “We return to Hirot so you two can get your affairs in order. We’ll resupply, perhaps repair our armor if there’s a smithy. Then we’ll keep on, towards the Trollteeth.”

“And the mad witch,” Haffoot chided. “Don’t forget her.”

“You leave it now,” the dwarf grumbled. Haffoot giggled.

“She did supply the net,” Hilda said delicately. “And a promise is a…”

“Leave it I said!” Umur bellowed, and the halfling beside him burst into laughter.

“Well, what about the Jarl?” Joane asked. “You said he won’t be giving you all any credit, which I agree with. That bastard will find a way to make everything your fault if he can.”

“Our fault,” Hilda offered. “You’re with us now, and he’ll see it that way too.”

“We’ll just tell the truth,” Briene offered. “He’ll be grateful, won’t he?”

Umur snorted. “We’ll tell our story, aye. What the Jarl does with it, I can’t say. But that’s tomorrow. Tonight we sleep, eh? I’ll take first watch.”

They did. Below a moonless night sky, the companions finally found a long stretch of uninterrupted peace. And though each ran through their own imaginings of the next day’s events, none could have predicted what awaited them in Hirot.

Doom of the Savage Kings, chapter 15

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 13

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying4 Comments

Despite purging the Hound and its black seed from the cavernous chamber, no one had a desire to make camp in the muck surrounding the dark pool. The climb out, however, took most of the night.

Briene attended to Erin’s wounds with herbs and a thick paste that smelled strongly of mint. Not only did the medicines help to close the cleric’s many puncture wounds, but they seemed to provide some vigor as well. When Erin revived, she did so with a gasp and wide eyes, already trying to stand and fight. It took three of the companions to hold her down and assure her that the evil of the Hound had been vanquished.

Briene (with her newly acquired Healing Herbs ability) was indeed able to heal Erin, which I did between level-up post and this chapter. She rolled an Intelligence check (+1 modifier) plus her level, rolling a [16+1+1] 18 total. That result heals 2 Hit Dice of damage, which for Erin means 2d8. She rolled 8 healing, bringing Erin up to full health. Go go herbal healing!

With that task done, the party is unharmed from the battle with the Hound, though Hilda and Haffoot still have ability score damage to recover with rest. Hilda regains access to Chill Touch if needed, and Erin’s disapproval chances return to natural-1s only.

Though Briene’s pungent paste could awaken Hilda, the young woman’s herbs could do nothing to heal her. Hilda’s skin was gray and sallow, and she had, thanks to the magic that had summoned their strange, winged stone ally, become thin and seemingly malnourished. The wizard smiled up weakly, past the healer to where Erin stood, with arms crossed.

“It’s as the witch says: Death follows us,” she croaked through dry lips. “But it’s not time to give my hair quite yet, is it?” Then the woman chuckled darkly, her eyes unfocused.

“What does all of that mean?” Haffoot asked, wide-eyed and looking at Erin.

“She’s delirious,” the cleric frowned, even as her companion continued to cough weakly and chuckle. “We must leave this Chaos-infested place and rest.”

With that, Erin stooped and began to haul Hilda up. Briene squealed in concern, and then Umur was there pushing the cleric away.

“There will be time to move her,” the dwarf growled. “But you won’t be doin’ the moving. Let Briene’s remedies work on you before you go bustin’ all of those wounds open again, lass. We do need rest, aye, but you most of all.”

They had thoroughly searched the cavern waiting for the Hound’s arrival, so knew that there were no hidden passages and that their only escape was the gaping maw above. Yet ascending was far more difficult than descending. To leave the lair would mean climbing a rope straight up for twenty paces before the aid of a wall, and then still another forty paces to the sinkhole’s edge. All the while, brackish water would cascade upon them, making it both difficult to see and grip the rope.

I don’t see the need to belabor what is a mundane hazard, but the more I’ve imagined the scene, the more difficult escaping the Hound’s lair seems to me. I’ll do a Strength check for each PC at DC 12. If any of them roll a 1 or 2, I’ll figure out if they fall. Lower rolls mean the task takes a long time. Higher rolls mean less time. I’ll roll in the order in which I see them ascending.

Haffoot goes first and has a -1 penalty because of her leather armor. She rolls a [14-1] 13. She reaches the top and makes it look as difficult as it is.

 Umur will have to remove his armor, but will still take a -1 penalty for the bulk of carrying it. He has to roll three times (rolling a 7 & 6 the first two times), eventually passing with a [17-1] 16. It takes him a long, long time.

Joane’s next in leather armor, and it takes her even longer. After four rolls, she eventually makes it to the top barely, with a [13-1] 12.

Erin, with the help of Briene, also removes her scale male to make the climb, and does it in two tries, crushing the second role with a 19.

Briene is going to tie Hilda’s weak form to the end of the rope and help her to the top, with the others pulling from above. I’ll lower the DC to 10 for her roll, and it takes two attempts to get there, just making it the second one.

Like I said: It takes all night.

Haffoot, light and nimble despite her club foot, made the climb first, at first laughing at how she couldn’t imagine Umur scaling the rope, then grunting with difficulty, and, eventually, falling totally silent with concentration. By the time she made it to the lip of the sinkhole, Umur and Erin were already removing their heavy, scaled mail and murmuring strategies for how best to follow.

The dwarf went next, and the journey seemed to take forever. Haffoot was not strong enough to pull him, and he was too old and depleted from the day to find hidden reserves. Twice Umur stopped, looping the rope around his legs to hold him dangling over the black pool, cursing and panting, until the others were sure he would never move again. Eventually, however, he found his way to the surface, bellowing at Haffoot to stand aside and stop laughing at him.

After that the task went more smoothly. With both Umur and Haffoot pulling from above, Joane Cayhurst, then Erin, made the climb without incident. The cleric’s wounds had begun to seep red through the paste that Briene had applied, but Erin assured them all that she would be fine. She glanced skyward, a frown creasing her face, and idly touched the crescent moon at her neck.

The young healer Briene had insisted on staying with Hilda and vowed that the two of them would make the climb together. She wound the rope around the wizard’s hips and legs, tying competent knots she’d learned from her woodsman father. Then she scaled upwards, staying within arm’s length of Hilda in case she needed aid. It was a remarkable demonstration of care, especially given that both Joane and Briene had openly shown horror at Hilda’s magic. Briene’s noble heart and concern for the infirm, it seemed, overrode her distaste for what she saw as Chaos-touched powers. When they had successfully pulled Hilda’s thin, weak form onto the marshy ground surrounding the sinkhole, Joane gave her close friend a fierce hug while the others watched Briene with thoughtful appraisal.

Indeed, something about the ordeal below had created a confidence and resolve in the young woman that was undeniable. She returned Joane’s hug with a smile, chuckling at their utterly dirty and disheveled appearance. Then she turned to the others and said in a voice gentle but firm, “I know we’re all exhausted and wish to be out of this place, but we need rest. It won’t be a feather bed, Master Dwarf, but let’s see if we might find somewhere within these marshes to regain some of our strength.”

I haven’t made any “survival” skill rolls in the past when the group has camped in the wilderness, but a) the Sunken Fens is a dangerous and foul place, even with the dark seed of Chaos in the sinkhole destroyed, and b) we now have a Ranger in the party. So let’s see how Briene does at finding shelter in a corrupted swamp.

She will get a +1 for her level and a +1 Intelligence bonus to her Wilderness Skills roll. I’ll make the DC 10 which is the “average deed” for an adventurer. If she achieves above a 15, I’ll say the party receives the full benefits of rest. If it’s below a 5, they will not only have penalties for being fatigued but will roll on a random encounter as well.

Heh. Briene rolls a [19+1+1] 21! Hilda will gain 1 Stamina (bringing her to 9 of 19) and Haffoot 1 Luck (10 of 12) thanks to Briene’s survival skills. When I rewrite Doom of the Savage Kings as a single narrative as I did with Portal Under the Stars, it will certainly be Briene leading them to the Hound’s lair, not Umur.

In the darkness of the early morning hours, with fog curling all around them, Briene led the group through the Sunken Fens and away from the sinkhole. The others followed, stumbling and fatigued and more than willing to have the woodsman’s daughter take point in navigating their route back to Hirot.

Eventually, she paused, pursed her lips, and nodded to herself. “This will have to do,” Briene announced, unshouldering her pack. “Let me see to Erin and Hilda, if you two might set up camp there, where those trees are huddled? It’s the best shelter we’ve seen, and the ground is as dry as the Fens provide.”

Haffoot and Umur exchanged a look, both with eyebrows climbing. Umur nodded gruffly while Haffoot stifled a giggle, and the two did as instructed. Joane followed them, providing her height and youthful energy to help make a competent camp. Briene, meanwhile, reapplied her remedies to Erin’s wounds and ensured that Hilda had consumed both water and food. Though the group felt far from safe, they spent the morning in quiet companionship, each finding small pockets of sleep and peace.

By the time they agreed to continue, Umur thought it was probably early afternoon, though it was impossible to tell by constant mists and lack of light within the Sunken Fens. Briene agreed, and thought she could find her way back to Hirot before nightfall and the closing of the palisade gates.

Of course, returning to the village conjured its own uncertainty.

“There’s as likely to be an armed force waiting for us as a parade,” Umur groused. “The Jarl’s pride won’t allow him to accept us as saviors, I think.”

“Perhaps the wedding will distract him!” Haffoot chided, cackling momentarily and then clapping hands over her mouth.

“You be quiet,” the dwarf grunted, elbowing his companion.

“And you two,” Erin interrupted, directing her words at Joane and Briene. As always, the two young women were together, though the healer’s attention was focused on navigating the moors. “What will you do, now that the Hound is gone?”

The group stopped and fell silent at the question. All attention went to the women of Hirot.

Joane glanced at the others and cleared her throat. “Bree and I have been talking. The only life waiting for me in Hirot is the Wolf-Spear. Ah, the inn, not the weapon,” she clarified, seeing the others’ momentary confusion. “But I’ve got no family anymore. Someone else can run it.”

“And I,” Briene sighed. “Am better here, in the forest, than with Father Beacom. The forest needs healing and protection, it’s clear to me now. Staying inside a palisades wall feels wrong now.”

“Which is to say,” Joane stammered, suddenly looking unsure. “We’d join you, if you’d have us.”

“At least until the Trollteeth,” Briene clarified.

“After all the danger you’ve faced with us,” Umur asked. “You’d face more? The wilds here are as likely to kill us as not before we even reach my homeland.”

“We would,” Briene nodded decisively. Even covered in two days of grime and mud, it was difficult not to be struck by her beauty.

“If you’d have us,” Joane added, blowing a stray strand of dirty red hair away from her face.

“Of course,” Erin said seriously. The others nodded in agreement. The two Hirot women blinked, surprised at the lack of deliberation.

Umur chuckled at their response. “Heh. You’ve kept us alive as much or more as we have you,” he grinned, nodding at the paste on Erin’s sides and the spear in Joane’s hands.

“Come on, then!” Haffoot whooped, jumping and throwing her arms wide. “Let’s have a hug!”

There, in the damp, warm mists of the Sunken Fens, the group met in a collective embrace. All except Hilda, who sat back and away upon a rotting, fallen tree to rest. From beneath her hood, the wizard grinned at the scene.

I’m going to use the mechanic of getting to the Hound’s lair on the way out of the Sunken Fens. Briene will make another Wilderness skill check, +1 for her Intelligence and +1 for her level. On a result of 15+, they’ll take the most direct route back to Hirot and travel 2 more hours. 10-15 will mean 3 hours. 5-9 will mean 4 hours. And a lower result will mean 5+1d4 hours and missing the closing of the gate.

Briene rolls a [7+1+1] 9. Not a great result, and will mean four rolls on the random encounter table. Yes, the Hound and its seed of evil or gone, but Briene is correct that the corruption of the forest doesn’t end overnight. There are still dark forces roaming the mists. Once again, I’ll roll a d5, with a 4-5 resulting in an encounter of some kind.

Hour 1: 5.

Hour 2: 5

Hour 3: 5

Hour 4: 2.

Holy crap! Well, let me roll three times on the encounter table and see if I can combine or somehow speed up the narrative so it doesn’t take multiple chapters to reach Hirot. I roll two 6s (which are the same scene and not an encounter per se, so I’ll combine those into one set piece), and a 7 (which is very much an encounter, and makes sense to have in the aforementioned set piece). Very cool, and also means that we’re not quite ready to wrap this adventure yet.

An hour or more later, Briene was not smiling. She stopped and squinted, her eyes scanning the forest around her.

“What is it, Bree?” Joane asked.

“This isn’t the way,” the young woman answered. “And something is stalking us.”

“What!?” Umur growled, reaching for his sword.

“Hold, Master Pearlhammer,” Briene said with a calming wave. “They have been stalking us for some time, always at a distance. I think it’s wolves, wild dogs, or jackals of some kind.”

“Well I like that not at all,” Haffoot said, turning and searching the mists.

“I had hoped that if we kept moving at a good pace they would eventually leave us be, but they’ve been remarkably persistent. In my haste and distraction, though, I took a wrong turn. I– I think this way should get us back to Hirot.”

“Keeping their distance or no, weapons out,” Umur instructed, unsheathing his longsword.

The group stayed close to one another, not speaking, as they followed Briene’s instructions through the tangles of brown briars, withered oaks, and marshy grasses. More than once, someone would swear they’d seen a pair of dark eyes watching through the swirling fog, but as soon as they’d turned, the eyes were gone. Sounds, too, came at them weirdly in the fens, making it impossible to verify if creatures surrounded them or it was simply the groaning, creaking branches combined with bird calls.

“I sense Chaos here,” Erin growled. Something loomed ahead, shrouded, and she stepped forward along the soft ground to meet it.

The mists shifted, revealing a skull pierced upon a tall, sharpened stake. The wood had been driven into the swampy ground, but it still canted somewhat to one side. The skull itself appeared to be human, and strange symbols had been carved into the white bone.

“What in the Nine Hells?” Umur gasped. He had fanned out next to Erin and faced another skull, almost identical to the first, though the symbols etched into it were slightly different.

As they moved cautiously forward, the group entered an entire field of skulls on stakes, watching them with empty eye sockets. The ground was uneven, but the stakes seemed to have been placed in a pattern, all facing outwards in rough, concentric circles, and at the center a larger skull that appeared to be something with horns, perhaps a bull. In all, more than two dozen stakes made the unsettling formation. More than two dozen, which meant a field of death.

“Who were these people?” Joane asked. “And who placed these here?”

“The important question is why,” Hilda rasped from behind, leaning heavily upon her staff. “Those are arcane runes. This is either a warding or a summoning. I would guess–”

Before she could finish her thought, the first creature leapt in a flash of fur and teeth from the mists.

The party is facing a pack of swamp jackals. I rolled 3d7 for how many and unfortunately landed on a whopping 15. Individually, each has only 4 hit points and does only 1d4 damage, but with so many this encounter could become quite deadly.

Even though I’ve distracted the PCs with the unsettling tapestry of skulls, they have been on guard for danger. As a result, there will be no surprise round for the jackals. Instead, it’s just a straight initiative roll, fifteen combatants versus six.

Round 1, and four swamp jackals have won initiative. The first runs through the marsh towards Erin, rolling [19+2] 21 and hitting for 2 damage with its bite. The second does the same at Joane, hitting with a [14+2] 16 and doing a maximum 4 damage. The third attacks Hilda from the rear, rolling [18+2] 20 and also hitting for 4 damage. Finally, the fourth attack Umur and barely misses with a [12+2] 14.

Joane is up next and rolls a measly 1 on her Deed Die. Thankfully she hits with the wolf-spear on a [14+1+1] 16, but does minimum damage at [1+1+1] 3, leaving the jackal that attacked her with 1 hp.

Okay, now I am officially worried.

 A fifth jackal misses Joane with a [2+2] 4. Another misses Umur with a [10+2] 12. A seventh misses Haffoot with a [5+2] 7. Haffoot returns the attack but misses with both blades. I consider burning Luck for the second attack, which is 1 off the jackal’s AC, but I think it’s too early to do so.

An eighth jackal joins the fight against Haffoot and misses by 1. Briene’s turn, and she backs up to fire at one of the jackals surrounding Joane. She hits with a [19+1+1] 21, doing 3 damage. That’s great but leaves yet another jackal at 1 hp and able to attack next turn.

Jackal number nine attacks Umur and hits with a [13+2] 15, doing 2 damage. Next is Hilda’s turn, but let’s pause to describe this first burst of action.

It was as large as a medium-sized dog, with patchy, filthy fur and the features of a fox. It snarled and yipped as it leapt from the mists, jaws snapping at Erin’s armored legs. Before the cleric could react, others had leapt from bushes and from behind trees, all darting in to tear at the companions’ legs. While Erin and the others had paused to examine the strange skulls, it was clear now that these hungry, desperate jackals had maneuvered to surround them. Once the party had paused, the pack made their attack.

The creatures were everywhere, more than a dozen of them and attacking the companions in twos and threes. Umur, Haffoot, Joane, and Erin all cried out from sharp teeth that found flesh between armored plates and leather boots. Then they were gone, back into the swirling fog.

Frantically, the companions lashed out with their weapons. But though they fended off several jackals, the beasts leapt away and danced back, keeping their prey off guard and swinging wildly.

“Form up!” Umur bellowed. “Do not get separated!”

Hilda, grimacing, pulled back her hood. The black rectangle upon her forehead glowed blue in the shrouded swamp. Though she could feel the power pulling yet more of her strength, she embraced it and threw her arms wide, chanting.

Oh Hilda. Time to spellburn yet again. She’s going to fund her Invoke Patron spell check with 2 points of Agility. To do so, she first rolls on her patron’s spellburn table, rolling a 2 on d4. That result says, “A conduit is opened to Ptah-Ungurath, who supplies magical power in exchange for part of the caster’s soul (expressed in ability score loss). There is a 50% chance that Ptah-Ungurath wants more than the caster in willing to give, and takes 2 points for every 1 point of spellburn gained.” Ugh. I roll d100 and thankfully get a 74. Her patron will “only” take the 2 points of Agility (leaving her at 9 of 11).

Her spell check, then is +2 for the spellburn, +1 for her level. She rolls a [10+2+1] 13, which is the lowest possible result above a failure but will still be useful for this combat. The result says, “A strange apprehension of danger sweeps over the area, and every enemy within 100’ of the caster has a -2 penalty to all attack rolls, saves, skills, and ability checks due to a brooding sense of doom. This penalty lasts for 2d6+CL rounds, but even afterwards those affected may experience bouts of melancholy and despair).” I roll [10+1] 11 rounds, which is roughly 2 full minutes and will undoubtedly cover the entire combat.

With the aid of the penalty, the tenth and eleventh jackals miss Erin, and the twelfth misses Umur (I’m going to stop always listing rolls for this combat given the number of actors).

Sensing the party’s predicament, Erin is going to try casting Holy Sanctuary for the first time. As always, she gains a +1 for her level but a -1 for her Personality, which makes it a straight d20 roll. She rolls a 14, thankfully, which states, “Enemies are compelled to focus their attacks against other targets. As long as an attacker can reasonably attack some other target instead of the cleric, it must choose to do so. In order to resist this compulsion and attack the cleric, an enemy must make a Will save vs. spell check DC. If the cleric is the only reasonable target, the creature need not make a save to attack the cleric. This effect lasts for 1 turn. It is immediately dispelled if the cleric attacks or takes aggressive action in any way.” Those Will saves will be at -2 thanks to Hilda.

The thirteenth jackal misses Haffoot (which would have been a hit if not for Hilda’s penalty). Umur finally gets his turn, missing with his longsword with a 1 on his Deed Die and a roll of [8+1+1] 10, but he does manage a slight shield bash, with a [13+1+1] 15 on the d16 and doing 1 point of damage. The penultimate jackal, though, darts forward and rolls a 17 to bite the dwarf for 2 damage. Finally, the fifteenth jackal attacks Hilda, hitting and doing 3 damage.

A quick status check: Briene & Haffoot unharmed (9 & 6 hp, respectively). Erin 8 of 10 hp. Hilda 11 of 14 hp. Joane & Umur both at 6 of 10 hp. All fifteen swamp jackals remain. YIKES!

A pulse of light swept out of the wizard in all directions, leaving her companions untouched but causing the swamp jackals to whimper and roll their eyes in unease. Though they continued to leap and gnash at them all, their conviction waned as an unnatural dread settled over the pack. It was only when one bravely leapt at the magic user and tore at her legs that the jackals seemed to regain some of their savagery.

Erin Wywood, meanwhile, clutched her crescent pendant with one hand and swept her dagger defensively with the other. A glow began emanating from her white, battle-scarred armor, making her appear like a small moon settled into the moor. The jackals danced away from the cleric, focusing their attention on other members of the party and giving her a moment to assess the situation. Everywhere she looked, furred bodies gnashed at legs or leaps away from wild swings of weapons. Erin’s companions were losing this fight, and badly.

It feels useless to describe each individual action in the narrative, so let’s proceed with Round 2. The first jackal fails its Will save badly (natural 2), which I’ll say means it cowers for a turn. The second misses Joane (only because of Hilda’s spell), the third misses Haffoot, and the fourth misses Umur. Whew.

Joane decides to target an uninjured jackal and rolls a massive 3 on her Deed Die. She’s going to try and throw one of the creatures into another as her Mighty Deed. She hits with a [12+1+3], killing the first jackal she stabs. I’ll let her make a second attack at d16, and she hits there too with a [14+1+3] 18! Thanks to the Deed Die damage, it doesn’t matter what I decide for damage dice on that second attack, because it kills the next jackal as well. Great job, Joane!

The fifth jackal again misses Joane only thanks to the -2 from Hilda. The sixth misses Umur badly, but the seventh rolls a 15 and bites Haffoot for 2 damage. The halfling swings both swords, but only hits with one of them, doing 2 damage as well. That same jackal returns the attack but misses.

Briene will shoot at one of the injured jackals harassing Joane and hit with a [19+1+1] 21, skewering and killing it. Another jackal misses Umur, leaving Hilda to swing with her staff at the one that hurt her (no surprise, she misses). The next jackal rolls a natural 20 on its Will save and attacks Erin, but misses.

Speaking of natural 20s, the next jackal scores a critical hit on Umur. Yikes. It rolls a 2 on the monster crit table, which states “Stunning blow! The PC falls to the bottom of the initiative count for the remainder of the battle.” – that stinks for Umur but could have been a lot worse, especially since the swamp jackal only rolls 1 damage.

Recognizing that the jackal in front of her is no longer affected by her spell (which would end this turn anyway), she strikes with her dagger, hitting with a [16+1] 17 and doing [4+1] 5 damage and killing it. The next jackal misses Haffoot.

Another high roll from a jackal facing Umur hits for max damage, dropping him to a single hit point. Meanwhile, the fifteenth swamp jackal bites Hilda for another point of damage. Umur, clearly harried and wounded, rolls a 1 on his Deed die and pitifully low on his two strikes, missing.

Round 2 status check: Briene is still unharmed (9 hp). Erin 8 of 10 hp. Haffoot 4 of 6 hp. Hilda 10 of 14 hp. Joane 6 of 10 hp. Umur 1 of 10 hp. Eleven of fifteen swamp jackals remain, and three of those are injured.

Though they are technically winning the fight, I’m going to do a morale check for the pack of swamp jackals. The way morale checks in DCC work is by rolling a d20 Will save at DC 11. Failure means the creatures attempt to flee. The jackals will be at a -2 save because of Hilda’s spell. Their normal Will save is +1, so it will be a -1 total for the roll. I also won’t roll individually; they attacked as a pack and will flee as a pack.

The morale check roll is a [15-1] 14. They stay and fight, which means that Umur and Haffoot are in danger of dying.

We press on. Round 3!

The first jackal rolls another natural 20 on Erin, doing 3 damage and “Legs knocked out from beneath the character, knocking her prone.” Another jackal takes advantage of her being prone and just hits with the +2 bonus, doing 2 more damage and bringing Erin to 3 hp.

Joane steps in and obliterates one of the wounded jackals, doing 9 damage (it had a single hp left).

Meanwhile, two jackals miss Haffoot and another misses Umur. Haffoot again hits with one of her two swords and kills the jackal she had previously injured. Seeing his plight, Briene fires an arrow at one near Umur and kills a jackal with a max roll of 6 damage. Hilda again misses with her staff. Another jackal misses Umur, and Erin also misses. A jackal misses Haffoot, but another bites Erin, dealing 1 damage and leaving her at 2 hp. We now have three PCs within a single strike of death! To make matters worse, the one latched onto Hilda is starting to do serious damage. She takes 3 more damage.

The round ends with Umur, who rolls a 2 on his Deed die. He rolls a [19+1+2] with his longsword, dealing an absurd [8+2] 10 damage and killing another jackal. His shield bash, however, misses.

Round 3 status check: Briene is still unharmed (9 hp). Erin 3 of 10 hp. Haffoot 4 of 6 hp. Hilda 7 of 14 hp. Joane 6 of 10 hp. Umur 1 of 10 hp. Seven swamp jackals remain.

Time for another morale check now that their number is less than half of what started this assault: The pack rolls a Will save of [16-1] 15. Wow. Apparently they are desperate, hungry, and sensing that a meal is close. I’ll continue to roll at the end of each round in which one of the jackals dies.

Round 4 will be, I think, the deciding one. But since this is already an incredibly long chapter, let’s find out what happens next time! Will it be death for one or more of our PCs, brought down by scavengers even after purging the forest of the Hound of Hirot? Or will the group rally and survive the Sunken Fens? It’s going to be a close call, either way.

The next moments were a frenzy of activity. Jackals darted in to tear and rip at the group of bedraggled adventurers, each of whom swung weapons in a desperate attempt to survive. The animals were desperate and clearly hungry, their ribs straining against patchy fur, yet there was something unnervingly intelligent about their assault as well.

At one point, Joane pierced a creature with the broad head of the wolf-spear and flung the corpse into another, smashing it against the trunk of a tree. Umur heard a sharp yelp behind him and turned, only to see an animal with one of Briene’s arrow shafts protruding from its eye socket. Yet amidst these fleeting, heroic moments, too many teeth found purchase. Soon all the companions bled from wounds on their legs and torsos, their attacks slowing and steps stumbling. Though the adventurers had thinned the pack of scavengers considerably, the jackals still outnumbered them.

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 14

DCC Character Level 1: Briene Byley

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying5 Comments

What the heck, right? The Hound is just dead, without a satisfying, climactic fight?! And Briene, who has proved utterly useless in combat with the Hound, just decided it was a good idea to wade into the bubbling black pool of awfulness in the Hound’s lair!?!

Honestly, Briene has more than earned a level-up based on surviving repeated dangers alongside our party of adventurers. Yet I said previously that her advancement would wait until the end of Doom of the Savage Kings. We aren’t precisely at the end of our adventure (How will the Jarl react to the party’s actions? Will Umur make good on his promise to marry Ymae? etc. etc.), but we’re close enough to allow her an actual DCC class. I also mentioned that, if Erin died, Briene would become the new Cleric of the party. Although she fainted at the end of the last installment and her healing powers have momentarily failed her, Erin is very much alive. In that case, then, I said that I wanted to explore a possible third-party class for Briene. Today is that day!

First, let’s remind ourselves of Briene Byley’s Level 0 character stats:

Briene Byley. Level 0 Healer. STR 8, AGL 14, STA 11, PER 9, INT 15, LCK 15 (righteous heart, +1 to turn undead). Init +1; Atk club +0 melee (1d4); AC 11; HP 1; MV 30′; Act 1d20; SV Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +0; LNG Common (+1); AL Lawful; Equipment: grappling hook, holy water (vial), 33cp.

It’s always interesting to look back on the Level 0 stats. For example, I completely forgot that Briene would get a +1 bonus to turning undead had she become a Cleric, or that she randomly carried a grappling hook around.

In the fiction of the story, we established that Briene’s father had been a woodsman and hunter, teaching her about the outdoors. It was Briene that led the party to Ulfheonar’s tomb, through the dense woods north of Hirot. In looking through possible third-party classes, I thought it would be fun to make Briene a Druid (one option is here, and another here). But as I sat down to level her up, it occurred to me that having a third spellcaster was probably overkill, especially given how unique and scene-eating magic can be in Dungeon Crawl Classics. At the same time, I like that Briene has obtained a bow, playing to her Agility bonus and away from her underwhelming Strength. A ranged combatant is something the party desperately needs. Alright, then: Briene is about to follow in her father’s footsteps and become… a Ranger!

As far as I can tell, there are three different third-party options for a Ranger class. First, there is Raskal’s, which debuted in the awesome Crawl Fanzine #6. Second is one that builds on ideas from the first, by John Carr. Finally, the amazing Knights in the North (where I stole my Shul Cleric write-up, you may recall) have also offered one. Which flavor of Ranger do I choose for Briene? They’re all sweet, but I’ve chosen John Carr’s for a few reasons:

  • d8 Hit Dice makes more sense to me than the d10 of Raskal’s.
  • The other two options provide Mighty Deed effects, and I like keeping this benefit restricted to our Warrior and Dwarf classes.
  • The “Healing Herbs” feature fits the fiction and character perfectly.

That said, I’m going add one small feature to John’s that the other two include, which I’ll describe below. Fun fun! Let’s get into what Briene gets as a John Carr Ranger…

Hit Points: I’ve already covered this roll in Joane’s level-up (link above in the header). Briene is happily sitting at 10 hit points and will gain a d8 each level thereafter.

Combat Path: Briene can choose either Two-Weapon Fighting or Archery. It’s clear that, for Briene, archery is the way to go. This path means that she can ignore the -2 range penalty for medium range (which for her shortbow means she can fire up to 100’ with no penalty). More importantly, she can ignore the 50% chance of hitting an ally when firing into melee. This “firing into melee” penalty came up in the Hound battle, and will be especially important since Umur, Erin, Haffoot, and Joane all fight up close.

Favored Enemy: All three Ranger options have something like this, where a broad class of creatures is the specific foe of the PC. I like how John handled this feature the most: When attacking a favored enemy, Briene will gain three boons: 1) she will increase her Action Die from a d20 to d24, 2) her critical hit range will increase (to 21-24 on a d24), and 3) she gains an improved Crit Die and Table when landing a critical hit.

The only time Briene was particularly useful in combat was against the ghouls in Ulfheonar’s tomb. She will, as we find out below, also be wholly dedicated to purging the forest from blights like the Hound. Finally, her lucky “boon” (though she doesn’t know it and likely never will) is for turning undead. Putting these three ideas together, Briene favored enemy will be “Undead.” I also like Briene being an undead hunter as a nod to her almost becoming a cleric (at least in my mind).

Healing Herbs: Among three great Ranger options, this feature pushed me most onto John Carr’s write-up. Using naturals herbs and saps, Briene can heal as per the Cleric Lay on Hands ability, using the “Adjacent” column for all effects (in other words, the healing is not dependent upon alignment of the healer and patient). John doesn’t say what attribute roll Briene will make, but for me it makes most sense that the roll be based on Intelligence (not Personality as the Cleric). As an added bit of flavor, if Briene rolls a natural 1 on a healing check, she will accidentally poison the victim.

Other Benefits: Briene will now get her level (for now +1) to several useful wilderness skills, including climbing, detecting and setting natural traps, sneaking and hiding in natural environments, traveling without leaving a trace, and survival skills (like making camp, tracking, foraging, etc.). She’ll also gain a +1 to her Reflex and Fortitude saves.

Finally, I mentioned above that I would steal one feature from the other Ranger class write-ups, which is language proficiency. I like the idea that Rangers pick up languages in their travels, and so Briene will get twice the number of languages she’d normally get for her Intelligence (in this case, 2 instead of 1 additional language). One of these will be the alignment language of Law, which is a nod to her time in the Temple of Justicia. For the second language, I’ll leave this open for now and wait for the story to shape the answer.

Title: John doesn’t offer title suggestions for his Ranger class, so I’ll peek at the other two. Even though Briene will keep her Lawful alignment, I like the title suggestion for a Level 1 Neutral Ranger from Knights in the North: Seeker. It fits her temple origins, and the general vibe of Briene looking for her purpose now that she’s linked up with this crew of adventurers. Seeker Briene Byley, welcome to the party!

Putting all of that together, here is her new character sheet (not an official Goodman Games one because of the unique class, so instead I used a generic one from Jeremy Deram:

Stepping back, Briene fills many of the obvious holes in the current party. She is the singular ranged attacker (although Hilda can do some damage at range, it’s highly unpredictable). Briene is a secondary healer, especially important for times when Erin is the one who drops. Finally, the party now has some wilderness skills to aid them in overland travel, something I’ve been hand-waving up until this point but now can make a more interesting part of adventuring. Despite entering this level-up intending to make Briene a Druid, I’m highly satisfied with where she finds herself.

I’m equally pleased that Briene’s third-party class doesn’t feel overpowered (which is the primary concern for most third-party products in any system) while adding significant flavor to the existing party. In short, Briene feels “ranger-y” in a very DCC way. There are something like a hundred possible classes created by fans over the last dozen years of the game’s existence, and the Ranger feels like a nice way to explore the possibilities here.

As a reminder, I’ve decided to level up characters after the completion of adventures (though I’m also tracking XP, which I’ll detail in my Doom of the Savage Kings reflections). Erin, Haffoot, Hilda, and Umur will achieve Level 2 soon, and it will take them two decent-sized adventures to reach Level 3. Joane and Briene, now officially a cohort, will level up after the first of these two adventures. This system means that Joane and Briene will always be lagging slightly behind the other four, but they should also find themselves at the same level more often than not.

Circling back to where I started this post, why was Briene wading into the pool again? Let’s add a narrative, as I’ve done with other level-ups, to explore Briene’s motivations…

The black pool did not have the consistency of water. Instead, it was like slippery tar, both clinging to and sliding off Briene’s skin and clothing as she waded into it more deeply. The liquid was also hot, though rapidly cooling. She suspected that, while the Hound had been alive, the black stuff would have badly scalded her.

When asked later–repeatedly–why she had walked directly into the Hound’s birthing pool, Briene could not articulate her motivations clearly. As the others had huddled on the shore opposite her, near their foe’s rapidly dissolving form, her initial instinct had been to run to Erin’s aid. The cleric of Shul had collapsed. Though Briene could not perform the miracles that Erin performed, she was a healer by training. It was why she’d endured the fanaticism of Father Beacom at the temple in Hirot, to gain access to people in need who required her mix of herbs, poultices, and medicines, all learned from her woodsman father. The sight of Erin slumping to the muddy ground made Briene gasp and drop her bow, and, before realizing it, she had already taken a step in her companion’s direction.

It was then that she’d paused. Alone in this part of the cavern, something called to her. The call was not a sound so much as a tingling down her spine, an invisible line connecting Briene with… something wrong. She’d frozen, mid-stride, and her eyes had swiveled to the black pool, encircled by swamp water cascading into it from above.

To be sure, the horror of the forest’s corruption had deeply shaken Briene, whose fondest memories were trailing her father through trees and game trails. She hadn’t realized it until guiding Erin and her adventuring party to Ulfheonar’s tomb, but she felt most at ease surrounded by nature’s abundance. Briene’s mother had died in childbirth, so her father had been her world. His love of woodcraft had shaped the forest into a private sanctuary of love and protection, a world that felt more sacred to Briene than any temple to Justicia. To have the forest defiled was… well. It was exactly, she suspected, like a cleric seeing her god’s temple defiled. The wrongness of it overpowered her.

With the threat of the Hound eliminated, it was as if her senses had expanded, taking in the wider chamber for the first time. Something within the pool–she was utterly certain–was the true origin of the forest’s pollution. The Hound was merely a herald, a minion of the true evil here. The witch’s net, the fabled spear, the might of the assembled adventurers… all of it was to combat the herald, not the true threat to the natural world surrounding them. It was as if, she tried explaining later to her companions, the forest itself was pointing her to its wound, imploring her to help.

To heal.

And so Briene found herself wading through hot, unnatural fluid, Chaos’ birthing chamber. With each stride she moved deeper, first to her calves, then to her knees, and now to her hips. As she moved deeper, the forest seemed to cry out louder, the tingling upon her spine becoming a maddening, frantic scratch. Here was the source of corruption. Here was its blackened heart.

“Blast it all to the Nine Hells,” she heard the dwarf’s voice, dimly, echo across the chamber over the crash of falling water. “Briene! Get over here, lass! We need a healer!”

Briene, her face a mask of concentration, pushed deeper towards the center of the pool, the foul waters now to her ribcage.

“Briene! No!”

Momentarily, Briene startled out of her trance and looked over. Her dear friend Joane stood upon the shore. In one hand she held Ulfheonar’s wolf-spear, the butt digging into the muck below. Joane’s face was etched with shock and concern.

“I– we have to stop it,” Briene said uncertainly. “It’s here.”

“What?” Joane called out. “Bree, what did you say? I can’t hear over the water!”

Briene shook her head. Without trying to explain herself, she plunged under the liquid’s oily, clinging surface, hand outstretched.

Several heartbeats later, when she surfaced with a gasp, the entire group ashore was shouting and crying out. Briene wiped muck from her eyes to see Joane already to her knees in the pool, trudging towards her with a face of utter horror. Umur had also taken several strides into the black water, cursing in his native tongue as he passed through the halo of falling water from above. Haffoot knelt by Erin and Hilda’s slumped forms, her eyes wide and focused on the seemingly crazy young healer from Hirot.

“It’s okay!” Briene shouted at them. “I found it!”

Fist outstretched, she began moving towards her companions. Joane and Umur stopped their advance, waiting for her.

“What in blue blazes are you doing, lass?!” Umur shouted over the waterfall, just as Joane yelled, “Are you alright, Bree?”

“I found it!” Briene said again, almost hysterically. She walked past Joane first, then Umur, and both followed in her wake. They exchanged a look behind her back, confused and concerned.

The thing in her fist pulsed and throbbed, making the fluttering along her spine almost maddening with its intensity. When she reached the shore, she opened her hand.

It was a black orb, perfectly round, the size of an acorn. Such a small cause for such overpowering darkness, she thought with wonder, even as every fiber of being recoiled at seeing it. But then, Briene supposed, mighty oaks originated from acorns, didn’t they? Everything begins with a seed. And here was the seed of corruption, this oily black orb, some ancient item of Chaos that had begun with magic like Hilda’s that Briene could not understand, borne of forces beyond the limits of her conception. For a fleeting moment, the thing reached out to her mind, trying perhaps to connect with her despite its alien evil. Or perhaps it sensed the threat of Briene, the warden of the sacred forest, and it made one final attempt to survive.

Before Joane or Umur could glimpse the item in her palm, Briene clenched her wet fingers and crushed the thing in her fist. It squelched, like an egg bursting. Black ichor oozed between her fingers, dribbling to the wet soil below.

All at once, the cacophonous, staccato dancing upon her spine ceased. The clinging, slippery fluid drenching her seemed to sigh, returning to something closer to water in its consistency.

Briene smiled a tight, fierce grin, shaking her hand free of the orb’s gore. The forest was still ill, a dire sickness that would take years to heal. But at least the infection was gone.

Her companions, agape, stared at her, unsure what to say or do. Briene, still grinning, dropped to her knees in the muck and immediately began rummaging in her satchel for the herbs and poultices that might heal Erin’s wounds.

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 13

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 12

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying6 Comments

Around midday, Umur found the heart of the Sunken Fens. All hint of sunlight was gone because of the tangled branches overhead and heavy mists that seemed to cling to everything. The stench of burbling muck, like rotten eggs, hung in the air and made the companions wrinkle their noses. But what made Umur swear in his dwarven tongue and stop their advance, what made him know that they had found the Hound of Hirot’s befouled lair, was the gaping hole before them.

The waters of swamp drained away here, all moving like sludge inexorably towards an enormous sinkhole, more than three times across as the humans were tall. Slow, billowing clouds of black miasma roiled at its edges, though there was no sign of fire or cause for the smoke. Visible through the haze, dozens of fat flies the size of Haffoot’s fist buzzed almost drunkenly over the hole’s width. The bark of the rotting trees surrounding the sinkhole was stained black, and branches reached out like warding arms. It was a blight, this place, and wholly unnatural.

“By the Dancer of the Half-Light’s Path,” Erin gasped. “It is no wonder that this lair is shrouded from the sun and moon alike. Shul preserve us.”

“It’s killed the forest here,” Briene whispered, covering her mouth with a delicate hand. Tears formed in her wide eyes. “Corrupted it.”

“There is power here,” Hilda intoned from the back. “Ancient, dark power.”

“We have to go down, yeah? Into the hole?” Haffoot asked anyone who would answer in a small, halting voice.

“To rid the world of the Hound, absolutely we do,” Erin said. One hand strayed to the silver crescent at her neck, touching it for reassurance.

Umur had edged forward as the others huddled and whispered. He stood a stride’s length from the gaping maw of the sinkhole and peered over its edge, squinting to see through the putrid, oily clouds and bloated flies.

“Blast it all. Let’s get to it, then,” he said, and began unshouldering his backpack.

Even with his dwarven darkvision, Umur could not see the bottom of the sinkhole. They tied their ropes together, then secured one end to a rotting tree. The bark squelched and burst like a boil when the dwarf and Joane tightened their knots, releasing a smell like spoiled meat. Yet the anchor appeared strong enough to hold their weight, which Umur tested with violent tugs.

The armored dwarf went first, his face stoic and etched in concentration. Shield strapped to his back and longsword sheathed at his hip, he dug his boots into the soft muck of the hole’s side and lowered himself hand over hand through the coiling smoke and flies. The others held their breath, fear and disgust warring within their bellies.

Long after he had disappeared into shadow, Umur’s voice called up. “Alright,” it echoed. “Haffoot next. The rope’s sturdy. We can take two at a time.”

As instructed, the halfling chuckled nervously, then, with a quick salute, hopped over the edge. Her boots squelched into the side, and then she disappeared. Joane, with Ulfheonar’s wolf-spear jutting over one shoulder, followed her. Once they’d called up, Erin Wywood, her white armor and softly glowing eyes in contrast to everything in her surroundings, gripped the rope. Then lovely Briene, tears still glistening on her cheeks, disappeared over the edge as well.

Finally, Hilda of the Empty Star stood at the sinkhole’s maw. She peered around abstractly, studying the effect of the Hound on this place. The young healer had been correct, the magic had corrupted the forest. Shaped it. No different, she realized, than what she had accomplished near the standing stones when she reached out to her patron. What would this place look like if shaped by the bald man in the orb instead of the Hound? Would it be beautiful or horrific or something else? Someday, long from now, would the orb in her satchel lay forgotten in a sinkhole somewhere, sculpting the world to its whims and calling out for a new master? There was still so much about the nature of the power she wielded that she did not understand. What powers had the Savage King been tampering with, long ago, within the portal under the stars?

“Hilda?” a voice called from below. It was Erin’s. The wizard grinned.

“Coming!” she responded. She pushed her reverie aside and descended into the depths of the Hound’s lair.

It was a long way down, and two-thirds of the way the walls flared out and away, leaving Hilda to dangle like a spider on a slender thread to the bottom, with water above splattering down constantly and wetting her robes. Waiting at the bottom were her companions, who steadied and helped her stand on the sludgy ground.

They stood, all of them soaked, in a single chamber that was roughly circular. From above rained a cascade of dark water from the swamp, spattering at the edges of an inky black pool at the chamber’s center. The pool’s surface roiled like a boiling cauldron, yet inexorably slower. Bubbles lazed their way at the pool’s black surface, taking several heartbeats to slowly burst. The result was a pool that felt as if it did not boil so much as undulate, the effect as unnatural as everything else about the sinkhole.

All around the pool’s perimeter, at the companions’ feet, bits of rusted metal, bones, and broken weapons littered the muddy, slick shore. Otherwise, no signs of life existed. Not even the gorged flies, it seemed, would venture here.

“Ugh, it stinks even worse than above,” Haffoot complained, covering her nose and mouth. The halfling’s high voice echoed weirdly.

“I can barely see,” Joane added. “You’d think more light would come from above.”

At that, Hilda reached into her satchel and removed the glowing orb. Immediately, a pulsing, celestial light filled the chamber. In some ways, the orb helped to push back the horror of this place, but it also highlighted the foulness all around them. If anything, the surrounding shadows deepened. Joane and Briene edged away from Hilda, unsure if they were grateful for the illumination or resentful of the reminder of the wizard’s unnerving powers.

 “Now we wait,” Erin said. “I suggest we fan out and surround the pool.”

“If it comes at nightfall,” Haffoot grimaced. “Won’t it be hours still?”

The cleric smiled, but the expression did not travel beyond her lips. “Time enough to dry ourselves. And to pray. We battle an ancient Chaos tonight. Make peace with your gods and ancestors.” With that, Erin settled to the wet ground, resting hands on armored knees. She closed her eyes and began to hum a haunting melody. She did not say it aloud, but the tune was meant to shield her from the evil of the black pool as much as to connect with Shul. It radiated a… wrongness that threatened constantly to infiltrate her thoughts, and the moon tonight would be the barest sliver. She prayed that her god’s gaze would find her.

Time did not pass quickly that afternoon. Erin stayed motionless, her various cants echoing within the foul chamber. Joane and Briene huddled and whispered, distracting themselves with banter. Umur, Haffoot, and Hilda, meanwhile, spent their time searching the shore. Between the three of them, they found dozens of bits of gold and silver jewelry, some of which seemed ancient. The most valuable of these was a golden necklace decorated with bronze that Haffoot happily pocketed. With some polishing, she said, they had more wealth from the debris here than any of them would have seen in a lifetime working in Graymoor.

The armaments, unfortunately, were mostly shattered beyond use. There were two exceptions: the first was a wavy-bladed sword, inlaid with silver, that seemed perhaps as if it once belonged to a warrior from the Snake King’s tribe. Umur thought it might be reparable in a proper smithy, though unlikely better than their existing weapons. The second was a small, round buckler shield. The shield itself was dirty but in remarkably good condition, but the leather straps had long since disintegrated. With some care, the dwarf said, it was a proper shield for a two-weapon duelist like Haffoot. The halfling’s eyes lit up at the idea, and she found a place for the metal disc as well in her possessions.

Eventually, after long hours, night arrived. They did not know its arrival by the waning light from above, for the place seemed unchanged in its gloom. Instead, they knew nightfall by the stilling of the black pool before them. The slow boiling of the foul waters ceased, and an unnatural quiet fell over the chamber. Even the falling water above seemed muted in its patter.

The companions sensed the change, and as one they assembled around the pool’s perimeter in pairs. Umur had his longsword in one hand, sturdy wooden shield in the other. Near him stood Haffoot, dancing side to side with one thin blade and one short, flat one. Joane and Briene likewise stood together. The tavernkeeper’s daughter gripped the ancient wolf-spear in sweaty palms, while the trembling healer notched an arrow in her bow. Erin held her long, curved dagger, while at her side Hilda cradled the pulsing orb in one hand.

“Remember,” Hilda said into the stillness of the moment. “We will use the net to bind it. Only once bound can it truly be slain.”

As the final word left her lips, the Hound of Hirot arrived.

In their first two battles, the party pretty much mopped the floor with the Hound. But here in its Lair it has almost twice as many hit points. It can also fly within this chamber, which the companions may soon discover. Let’s see how initiative goes… even though the party is awaiting the Hound, there will be no surprise for either side this time. Final boss fight, here we go!

The Hound gets a natural-20 on initiative and goes first. I’ll roll a d6 to see who it attacks first: I roll a 3, and going clockwise on my map that’s Joane. Makes total sense, since she’s wielding the wolf-spear.

It leaps towards Joane and tries to bite her, missing her AC by one with a [9+3] 12. Whew!

Joane is up next, and responds with a Deed Die roll of 2 but a miss at [7+1+2] 10.

Briene, next to her friend, backs up and fires her shortbow. She misses with a [3+1] 4 and, because she missed, rolls a 50% chance to target Joane instead. She rolls 28 on d100, then another attack roll on Joane. Thankfully, that roll also misses.

It’s been an anemic start, but Hilda knows this is a final boss battle and acts as all DCC wizards do in important moments: with spellburn. She is going to attempt to cast Invoke Patron, sacrificing a whopping 7 Stamina into the spell (bringing her from 15 to 8). To do so, first I need to roll a d4 on a special Ptah-Ungurath spellburn table. I get a 4–same as last time–which means that in addition to the cost of the spellburn, “for one brief moment, the caster sees all things as they really are. Although she cannot hold the vision, her soul is blasted by its perception. She is disoriented for the next 12 hours and suffers a -2 to all checks (not including this spell check) during that time.” Alright, Hilda… better make this one count!

Hilda rolls a [10+1+7] 18, and Haffoot contributes 1 point of Luck (bringing her score to 10), for another +2. That makes the check a 20 total, so she summons a freaking gargoyle to attack the Hound. Hell yeah! The summoned gargoyle has an AC of 21, 9 hit points, and does an impressive 2d8 with its claws at a +4 to attack. The gargoyle gets an immediate attack, and rolls a [14+4] 18, slashing for [3+1] 4 damage. Woo! She’ll also receive a +4 to any spell check next round, which will offset the dizziness of her spellburn.

Haffoot and Umur are all the way across the pool from the Hound, and both have less movement because of their short legs. They’ll spend their entire turns getting into the fray, or at least close enough that next turn they can move and attack.

Last in the first round is Erin. It worked so well last time, that she’ll run up to Briene’s side and attempt to cast Paralysis on her dagger. She does not have spellburn as an option, so it’s just a roll of pure faith. Erin rolls an 18 (+1 for her level, -1 for her Personality)! That result gives her: “The cleric’s weapons are charged with paralysis. The charge remains for 4 (d4+1, and I rolled a 3) rounds.” If she can get a hit in, this fight might again be over.

The creature did not rise slowly, like something newly birthed. Instead, it exploded from the still, black pool, sending ichor flying in all directions as it roared towards its target. That target was a wide-eyed Joane Cayhurst and her wolf-spear. The red-haired woman yelped and stepped back, avoiding the pony-sized beast as it landed in the mud. The Hound snarled and snapped with its jaws, oily black spraying from its fur and teeth. It looked larger than the two nights at the standing stones, and somehow more savage.

Hilda raised the orb overhead, its light now an eerie blue instead of white. A wind briefly swirled around her, rippling her robes and causing her hood to fall backwards. The black rectangle upon her forehead shone with the same blue light, matching the sphere in Hilda’s hand. She chanted in a language she did not understand, and, instead of avoiding the power pulling at her, she embraced it. Her body noticeably withered, becoming gaunt and gray where it had been plump and pale, as her chanting reached its climax.

In a flash of blue light, something emerged from the shadows beyond Joane and the Hound. It was human-sized, but with hunched shoulders, overlong arms, and enormous hands tipped by claws. The thing seemed to be made entirely of stone, and its face had neither eyes nor mouth, like a statue worn away by time and elements. Indeed, the Hound did not realize the stone creature was a threat until it had swung one of those large hands sideways, tearing at the Hound’s oily sides. The Hound snarled and snapped at the stone beast, and then its head swiveled around, eyes searching. For the first time since it had leapt from the pool, it seemed to realize the full number of intruders in its lair. Haffoot and Umur were making their way around the pool towards it one way while Erin circled the other.

The Hound rumbled a low, threatening growl. Its red eyes locked on Erin and her blade, which had begun to shine in its pale, holy light. It launched itself into the air, away from Joane and Hilda’s summoning, hurtling past Briene and directly at the cleric of Shul.

Round 2! The Hound is no dummy and has learned from the previous encounter that Erin and her paralysis are a true threat. It flies to Erin and bites at her, rolling a [9+3] 12 and missing her 14 AC. The party is getting pretty lucky here.

Joane charges and misses with a [10+1+2] 13, including a 2 on her Deed Die. Briene is now once again right next to the Hound. She yelps and flees to a far corner. Will she again shoot into melee? Yes. She rolls a pitiful [3+1] 4 (she’s just tragic at combat, it seems), then a 29 on d100, which means she now has to target one of her allies. Thankfully, the arrow flies well wide of Erin.

Hilda, dizzy, will use her turn to pull out Ymae’s magical net, eschewing the bonus to cast another spell. The gargoyle, meanwhile, will advance and slash, missing with a [5+4] 9.

The Hound has moved even further from Haffoot and Umur, so they again must spend their turns huffing up to it.

That leaves Erin, with her paralysis-imbued dagger. One hit could end the fight, but she rolls… a natural 1! Oh my. Thankfully, the fumble table results in the “best” possible result: “Your incompetent blow makes you the laughingstock of the party but otherwise causes no harm.”

In other words: Nothing happened that round! I may even skip describing this round entirely and pretend it didn’t happen. Let’s go to Round 3.

The Hound tries again to bite Erin, and again misses with a [5+3] 8. Since it doesn’t have to move (and to make the fight more interesting), I’ll also let it attack with a claw, but that too misses.

Joane rolls a 3 on her Deed Die and a [14+1+3] 18, hitting! Her deed will be to pin the Hound, requiring it to use its move to break free with a contested Strength check. Her damage with the spear is [2+1+3] 6. Good turn, Joane! And while the Hound is pinned, it can be killed (though it’s currently at 24 hp).

Briene misses widely (rolling a 3), but thankfully the shot doesn’t threaten any of her allies.

Hilda hands the net to Haffoot, stumbling away with dizziness. The gargoyle isn’t so calm, and rolls a [18+4] 22 to hit, dealing a whopping 11 damage.

Taking the net from Hilda, Haffoot will try to further bind the Hound. Even pinned, though, she misses with a [8+1] 9, even with a d24 to attack because of the Hound being pinned. Umur, meanwhile, rolls a 1 on his Deed die and misses with his longsword ([9+1+1] 11), but hits with his shield ([16+1] 17). He bashes the creature for 3 damage. The Hound is down to 10 hp, when Erin steps up and slashes, but she misses with a [10+1+1] 12.

Surprising them all, the Hound had not leapt at Erin. Unmistakably, it flew to her, massive jaws stretched wide. The cleric used her glowing dagger defensively, keeping the beast at bay while her companions moved around the pool to attack.

“Raaaargh!” Joane screamed, eyes wide and red-haired braid swinging madly. She brought the wolf-spear overhead with both hands and plunged it down, impaling the Hound and pinning it to the soft muck below. The crossbars on the wolf-spear did their job, and Joane put all her weight into keeping the creature held while it thrashed and snapped.

“While it’s pinned!” Briene shouted from the back of the cavern. She held the shortbow in her hand but felt incapable of firing into the frenzy of battle for fear of hitting her allies.

The stone monstrosity loomed at Joane’s shoulder. It brought both enormous fists overhead and slammed them down onto the Hound’s neck, eliciting a yelp of pain and snarl of hatred.

Haffoot, panting, finally made it to Hilda’s side, several steps from the melee. She blinked, startled at her friend’s loss of weight and vitality.

“Hilda! Are- are you alright?”

“Take,” the wizard gasped, then swooned with vertigo. She pulled forth the item from her satchel, a net made of hair that glowed like the embers of a fire. “Take this. Bind the beast.”

The halfling, wide-eyed, slammed both of her swords into their scabbards and reached for the net. “I’ll do it,” she nodded.

“Blast it all!” Umur thundered, stomping past them. He was the slowest of them with his short legs and heavy armor, and had been opposite the Hound, across the pool. Only now had he joined the battle. “I’ve got you now!” He yelled, shield held forward like a battering ram.

Round 4, and the Hound really needs to do something if it’s going to make this a fight. First, it must escape the wolf-spear. It rolls a Strength check of [14+3] 17. Can Joane beat that? She also rolls a 14, but with no modifier she cannot. The Hound breaks free of the spear, and attempts to chomp on Erin. It rolls a [14+3] 17, and does [4+3] 7 damage (Erin is down to 3 hp). I’ll say that it now has her in its maw, ready to throw her into the pool beyond.

Joane wants to re-pin the Hound, but only rolls a 1 on her Deed die. She does hit, though, with a [18+1+1] 20, dealing [5+1+1] 7 damage. Now both the Hound and Erin are at 3 hp.

Briene now has allies crowded all around the Hound. She does not feel she has a clear shot and waits.

Hilda, likewise, feels out of the fight with her dizziness. Her gargoyle rolls a [3+4] 7 and misses, which is just as well since the Hound can’t be killed unless bound. Indeed, I have a mischievous idea that if they kill it now, it will reemerge from the pool at full health.

Which means it’s Haffoot’s turn. She’ll use a single attack at d20 (instead of her twin blades at d16 each). She rolls a [12+1] 13 and would miss except that she’s a lucky Halfling. Haffoot will burn another point of Luck (bringing her to 9) for a +2. That brings the total to 15 and the Hound is officially snared.

Can her companions take advantage of the opportunity? Umur is up next and will roll with a d24 for his longsword and a d20 for his shield because of the net. He rolls a paltry 1 on his Deed die, but it’s enough, with a [13+1+1] 15, he strikes the Hound for 5 damage and kills it.

Wow. This fabled Hound of Hirot was sort of a chump in three battles. I’m starting to see how hard it is for a single opponent to challenge a party who can spellburn and Luck their way into controlling the battle. Then again, they were well prepared, rested, and had two means of binding the Hound. Win for the good guys!

Roaring, the Hound stood. The movement threw Joane aside like a ragdoll. The wolf-spear still protruded from its back. But it was no longer pinned.

In a flash, its enormous jaws closed around Erin. She yelled out in pain as it worried and tore at her with its jagged teeth, each nearly as long as her glowing dagger.

“No!” Hilda yelled weakly. “Haffoot, the net!”

“Heeeyah!” the halfling whooped, leaping up and throwing the strange net up and over the Hound’s flank. Haffoot twisted as she jumped, tangling two of the creature’s legs. It was a wholly lucky throw, yet no less effective. Indeed, the magical net seemed to hug the Hound tighter, further hampering its movement. The glowing embers of its strands contrasted with the deep black of the beast’s coat.

Umur stepped past Haffoot and stabbed. Councilwoman Leda Astford’s ancestral longsword, the item that had pulled Umur Pearlhammer from a sedentary life in Graymoor back into a quest for his homeland, plunged into the neck of the Hound, past its oily, thick fur. Black blood erupted from the wound, and the Hound howled out, dropping Erin from its maw. At first the sound was a wailing despair, but it quickly became a whimper and, finally, an almost human-like sigh. When Umur pulled his blade free, the creature had ceased moving. As the companions all watched in horrified wonder, it began to dissolve into oily sludge, like rapidly melting black ice within the glowing net.

The battle may not yet be over. Although the Hound is defeated, Hilda’s spell reads “The gargoyle remains on the field until slain, or until CL (1) minute passes, or until there are no longer any opponents in sight. The caster must then roll a d20 under her Luck; if she succeeds, the gargoyle flies away. If the caster fails, the gargoyle turns on the caster and his allies.

This Ptah-Ungurath is a kick in the pants as a patron, isn’t he? Alright, so Hilda’s Luck score is currently 10, so it’s a 50/50 chance. She rolls a 7. Whew. Combat over.

The stone creature that Hilda had summoned loomed over the dissipating form of the Hound, seeming to examine it. Then it stood and, with a grunt that sounded like two boulders crashing together, two enormous stone wings erupted from its back like insects hatching free. Joane cried out in surprise as one of those wings pushed her aside. The creature then turned its eyeless, stone gaze upwards, hunched its legs, and launched itself into the air. It flew awkwardly, almost like a bat carrying something too heavy. The group of adventurers gaped as the thing flapped its way to the mouth of the sinkhole and then disappeared into the darkness above.

Hilda, gaunt and gray, watched the stone monstrosity rise. As it vanished from sight, the glowing black rectangle on her forehead went dark, her eyes rolled up in their sockets, and she fainted into the mud.

The Hound had almost completely dissolved, now nothing more than a mound of black sludge. Next to it, Erin groaned, rolling to her knees. Blood spattered from her lips as she coughed. Her dagger lay nearby, discarded and no longer alight with its divine aura.

“Erin!” Umur gasped, shaking himself out of the shock at seeing the stone creature fly off. He dropped to his knees next to the cleric.

“I’m alright,” she coughed weakly. “Just give me a moment.”

Lay on Hands check! Erin rolls an 8, which is a failure and increases her Disapproval chance from a natural 1 only to a dice roll of 1-2. I think perhaps Shul wasn’t too keen on providing his power to her dagger and having it go unused, plus Erin’s failure to do even a point of damage to this embodiment of Chaos.

She closed her eyes, murmuring between coughs. Her companions expected Shul’s power to heal the cleric, as had happened earlier that day in the fens. Instead, Erin’s coughs kept interrupting the prayer, and she shook her head in frustration. Then she, too, fainted, bleeding, her inert body slumping next to Hilda’s.

“Blast it all to the Nine Hells,” Umur swore. “Briene! Get over here, lass! We need a healer!”

Joane gasped. “Briene! No!”

Umur and Haffoot turned at the exclamation. Then they too cried out, as Briene Byley, her face a mask of concentration, waded to the center of the corrupted, black pool.

DCC Character Level 1: Briene Byley

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 11

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying7 Comments

“It’s just embarrassing, Bree,” Joane scowled, pushing through a low-hanging branch. Clouds had covered the once-blue sky this morning and temperatures had cooled. The night before, the companions had trekked across the river near Hirot and stumbled through darkness to find a rest spot as far away from the Jarl as they could manage. All had slept poorly in the wet forest. Umur had complained about his lack of bed most of all, but was also the one pushing them to wake before the sun and push on towards the Sunken Fens. As a result, conversation this morning had been limited and gruff. Joane Cayhurst and Briene Byley found themselves shoulder to shoulder, whispering, as they trudged along dutifully.

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you’re making out,” Briene assured her friend. “You had the killing blow, after all. Everyone agrees it was you.”

“But I stumbled right away, then fought like a fool. It’s almost like…”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Joane grumbled.

“Don’t do that. What is it?” Briene urged, her large eyes concerned.

“It’s just that the spear feels, I don’t know… alive. Not alive, maybe, but with a will of its own. I could swear it was resisting me, Bree. Like, it hasn’t accepted me yet, or something.”

“That’s just in your head,” the healer laid a gentle hand upon Joane’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. The next time will be the final battle against the Hound, and you’ll fight well. I promise.”

“Joane! Briene!” Erin’s voice startled them both and they looked up guiltily. The white-mailed cleric stood some ten paces ahead, a hand on her hip. “You’re falling behind. Less talk. The terrain is getting wetter and there are dense mists ahead. We must stay close.”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” Briene blushed.

Gotta love Erin’s low Personality score. Before we jump into the narrative, there are three topics to cover:

First, I’ve been slowly making my way through the entire 10+ year history of the Spellburn podcast, which is dedicated to Dungeon Crawl Classics. I recently finished an episode dedicated to magic items, and it made me realize how rare and special Ulfheonar’s wolf-spear is. According to p.366 of the DCC core rulebook, magic weapons are each: 1) unique, 2) intelligent, with specific desires, and 3) special in some way associated with the materials and conditions from which they were forged. I’ve talked about those special properties–the spear has a +1 to hit and damage, grants a +1 to initiative, and can pin even magical forms of escape. But what about the rest, including its alignment, intelligence, and desires? Let’s roll some dice to figure it out.

What is the Alignment of the spear? Rolling on the tables in the core rulebook, I get a percentile roll of 16, which makes it Chaotic. Interesting… so ‘ole Ulfheonar was trafficking in not-so-nice forces, much like Hilda. How about its Intelligence? Again, a percentile roll gets me a 10, which means it’s not very smart, gaining a d6 score. I roll a 5, which would equate to a -2 modifier for a PC with this score. At this Intelligence, it cannot communicate directly with its wielder, nor does it have a “Bane” (in other words, it might have been forged specifically to destroy a particular kind of creature). A little disappointing, but thankfully fits the fiction so far.

What, then, is the purpose for which the wolf-spear was forged? Rolling a d16, I roll a 5 and get… “To acquire wealth through theft.” Oh my. I’m getting a sense that maybe the Snake King wasn’t such a nice guy, and was pillaging his nearby Savage Kings to accumulate a horde. It all sounds a little draconic, honestly, which is a fun way to think about it.

Alright then: If Joane rolls badly in a fight, it will be easy to explain that there’s no profit in it and the spear was resisting her. And I’ll pull her a little towards Hilda’s way of thinking when it comes to treasure as it subtly affects her behavior. Fun!

Second topic: The group has rested (albeit poorly) for another night. Haffoot gains another Luck point, bringing her to 11 out of 12. Hilda would recover another Stamina point, but I remembered that one of the requirements of attempting to cast Chill Touch—as she did in the Hound fight—is to spellburn at least one point. I’ll take away that point now. She is still at 15 of 18 heading into this final, climactic day. That’s it from a “daily rest” standpoint. Otherwise, the group is in good shape.

Finally, the next obstacle in front of the party is the Sunken Fens, a place heavily corrupted by the Chaos of the Hound and the lingering magic that has kept it an immortal tool of death. From the adventure module: “Few creatures make their home in the fens, but all present a threat to the PCs. For every hour spent traveling the fens, the characters risk a random encounter. Roll a d5, on a 4-5, the PCs suffer an encounter.”

The first question, then, is how well do they navigate the fens? I’ve been using Umur as the guide of the group, since he is the only one of them who has done overland travel of this scope in his lifetime. He has a +1 Intelligence bonus, so let’s have him roll a d20. On a result of 15+, they’ll take the most direct route and travel 3 hours. 10-15 will mean 4 hours. 5-9 will mean 5 hours. And a lower result will mean 5+1d4 hours.

Umur rolls a [17+1] 18! Nice. It will take the group 3 hours to get to the lair of the Hound, which is likely as good or better than what it took them to discover Ulfheonar’s tomb. Here are the d5 rolls for each hour:

Hour 1: 2

Hour 2: 4 (winner winner chicken dinner!)

Hour 3: 1

Halfway through their journey, the PCs will “suffer an encounter” (I love this turn of phrase). To figure out what sort of encounter, I’ll roll a d7… 4. Oh boy…

The terrain indeed transformed over the next hour from a moss-covered forest into low, marshy moors. Tangles of brown briars and withered grasses huddled everywhere, and a foul black mud sucked at the companions’ boots with every step. The chill air from the morning gave way to something warmer, like the breath of a great beast. Low-hanging fog enshrouded the way ahead and behind.

“Truly, Chaos lives here,” Erin commented darkly, her voice echoing weirdly in the mists. The rest gritted teeth and stepped carefully through brambles and muck.

Umur, somehow, seemed nonplussed by the cloaking fog, thorny branches, or dark mud. Unerringly and with a confidence that almost felt misplaced, he guided them through the fens, avoiding hidden sinkholes, quicksand, and, at one point, a gap in the ground that spewed a choking, stinking cloud into the air.

Well into the morning, Haffoot sidled close to her dwarven friend. “How are you navigatin’ these cursed fens? I’m grateful, mind, but it seems almost unnatural, yeah?”

Umur grunted. “Part of it’s payin’ attention to the terrain. The other part is seein’ the worst, most corrupted place and goin’ towards it. I figure the Hound’s lair is at the heart of this darkness.”

The halfling blinked. “I can’t tell if I hope you’re right or wrong.”

Her dwarven friend grunted again. “Careful with your step there. Now quiet. Something here–”

That was when the brambles around them writhed to attack.

On the encounter table, I rolled tindalos vines, semi-sentient plants that try to pull victims beneath the murky swamp waters. First step: How many vines are there? I roll a 3 on d3. Ouch.

Now let’s do Luck rolls for everyone. The lowest of each will suffer a surprise attack from a tindalos vine next to them.

Haffoot rolls a 19. Erin 12. Briene 11. The three lowest are Umur (10), Hilda (7), and Joane (3).

I won’t give the vines a +2 to attack in their surprise rounds because the party are all very much on guard. Working in “worst first” order of rolls, the first tindalos vine lashes out at Joane and rolls a [4+3] 7, missing.

The second vine attacks Hilda with a 17, doing 3 damage. Our wizard is now also restrained and must break away or be constricted and dragged down into the muck.

The third tindalos vine finishes the surprise round with an attack on Umur. It rolls a [18+3] 21, doing 2 damage and grabbing him as well.

Initiative goes badly for the party, with only Joane acting before two of the vines. She obviously chooses an imperiled Umur over Hilda (who she fears and doesn’t like so much), and moves to strike the vine grabbing him with the fabled wolf-spear. She rolls a 2 on her Deed die, then a [17+1+2] 20 with the spear, doing a max [8+1+2] 11 damage. Joane severs the tendril grasping Umur and leaves it with 1 hit point.

Next is the tindalos vine grabbing Hilda. It squeezes her for 3 damage and pulls her beneath the mud. Yikes.

The vine that had grasped at Joane no longer has her as a target. It can choose between Erin and Haffoot and rolls to strike Erin. Its attack roll is [15+3] 18, and it does 2 damage and now our cleric is restrained and being pulled down. The vines’ attack rolls are… quite good so far.

Here is the advantage of having a dagger. Erin can easily strike at the vine holding her while restrained and does so, but just misses with a [8+1] 9 against its AC 10. She will also try a DC 15 Strength check to break free, but isn’t close with a [6+1] 7.

Hilda’s turn, and she is currently underwater. She also rolls a Strength check, 11, and remains bound, effectively ending her turn.

The nearly dead tindalos vine goes next and lashes back at Joane, but she is apparently quite prepared for these animate plants, because it rolls a [8+3] 11 and misses.

Haffoot’s turn, and she jumps in to help Erin. Her twin strikes on d16 are [10+1] 11 and [9+1] 10. Sweet! She inflicts 3 damage with her first sword and 5 with her second. I’ll count the 8 damage as a “single strike” for the purposes of severing a vine, and she frees the cleric.

Umur acts next. Can he finish off the vine that struck him? He only rolls a 1 on his Deed die, then a measly [4+1+1] 6 with his longsword. Thankfully, the shield bash does its job, and he rolls a [14+1+1] 16, dealing 3 damage and crushing the plant to destroy it.

Finally, it’s Briene’s turn to end the round. Though she’s not at all strong (-1), she will attempt to break Hilda free of the vines dragging her down. Her Strength check is a [3-1] 2. That would be a no.

Like ribbons dancing in a strong wind, thorny, black vines rose into the air and lashed out at Umur. They struck, then wrapped tightly around him. The thorns probed to find soft areas between armored plates and painfully dug in as they constricted.

“Gluck!” was all he managed to sputter as Haffoot shouted in alarm and freed her swords from their scabbards.

In less than a heartbeat, Joane Cayhurst was there, slashing down with the wide blade of Ulfheonar’s wolf-spear. Thick, dark liquid like blood sprayed from the severed vine as she freed Umur from its grasp. The dwarf had no time to loosen his own longsword, but instead roared in fury and bore down with his shield. He ground and crushed the plant beneath its oaken weight until the vines ceased moving.

All around them, similar battles were taking place. Another set of thorny vines had wrapped themselves around Erin, the vines black against her white armor. Haffoot dove to free her, spinning her long, thin blade and shorter, flatter one to cut her free.

“Help!” they all heard Briene cry out. Turning, they saw the young woman on her knees, frantically digging at vines that disappeared into the mud. “It took Hilda! She’s gone below the water!”

Round 2! Joane steps towards the vine Haffoot has just slashed open. She rolls a 3 on her Deed die. Since Briene is her closest friend here, she will attempt a rallying cry to the healer, giving her an additional Strength check at +3 to pull Hilda free. Her roll is an impressive [19+1+3] 23, and she rolls [7+1+3] 11 damage, obliterating the tindalos vine.

That gives Briene a chance to pull Hilda free. But alas, she rolls a [6+2] 8. Still, good turn, Joane!

The tindalos vine holding Hilda beneath the mud rolls another 2 damage as it constricts her. Hilda is now at 6 out of 14 hit points. On one hand, it’s good that she’s the one taking this punishment, otherwise another PC might be dead by now. On the other hand, we’re hitting a critical zone here, and that tindalos vine holding her is unharmed.

Erin can’t help, as she rolls a [3+1] 4 to attack. That brings us to Hilda’s turn, who will fail another Strength check with a 9.

Haffoot misses with her first sword with a [3+1] 4, but slashes with her second on a [12+1] 13. She does 3 damage, which is good but doesn’t free Hilda.

Can Umur save the day? He rolls another 1 on his Deed die, sadly, but hits with both his longsword ([13+1+1] 15) and shield ([10+1+1] 12), doing 3 damage with each attack. Unlike Haffoot, I don’t see those two attacks as simultaneous, so the 6 total damage won’t free Hilda. The attack does leave the tindalos vine at 3 hp, however.

Still pulling with all her might, Briene rolls a [12-1] 11 Strength check. No luck.

That leaves Joane at the top of Round 3 to attempt to save Hilda before the vine does more damage to her. She rolls another 3 on her Deed die, and then a [13+1+3] 17 on her attack! The [5+1+3] 9 damage is more than enough to kill the plant. Since she was again going to rally Briene, I’ll say the maneuver fills her friend with a burst of energy and it is the healer who pulls Hilda free.

“Pull her up, Bree!” Joane shouted, thrusting the spear into a tangle of thorny vines.

Her arms vanished beneath the muck, Briene’s face reddened. She pulled, muscles standing out on her neck, to no avail.

Umur was suddenly there, shouting something in his native tongue and slashing at the vine near Briene with his longsword. Haffoot joined him, and the two cut away thorny appendages faster than they could rise to attack them.

“PULL, Bree! Pull her UP!” Joane screamed at her friend.

It was then that the vines holding Hilda below the surface slackened. Whatever damage the blades above had done was enough. With sobbing, panting effort, Briene strained. As her arms, covered in brackish filth, appeared, they clutched another arm. Soon Erin joined in, and the two pulled a dazed and coughing Hilda to the soft, wet ground. Limp vines hung off her form, and it was clear that they had wrapped around her again and again, cutting into her flesh. Hilda, on hands and knees, vomited and gasped for air. Blood spilled from her torn robes, pooling in the mud around her.

Alright, let’s take stock: Joane, Briene, and Haffoot were unharmed in the combat with the tindalos vines. Umur and Erin each took 2 damage, leaving them at 8 out of 10. Hilda, meanwhile, needs some attention with her measly 6 hp.

Erin will attempt to Lay on Hands with her wizardly friend. She gets a +1 for her level but a -1 for her Personality, which means a straight d20 on the Lay on Hands table. Erin rolls a 14! Since Hilda is Neutral and Erin Lawful, that means that Erin will heal 2 hit dice for Hilda. Unfortunately for Hilda, wizard HD are d4. Erin rolls well, though, and heals Hilda for [3+4] 7 damage. Whew!

Briene, our novice healer, will get a check with all damaged parties at DC 15, +1 for her level (though we still don’t know her class). She fails her rolls for Umur and Erin but rolls a [17+1] 18 for Hilda, healing the last point of damage. Good for our wizard, but I’m worried about Umur and Erin going into the Hound’s lair with damage. Does Erin attempt to heal them both? I think she would, feeling the same way as me.

Erin rolls an impressive 18 on her Lay on Hands check for Umur, easily healing his 2 hp of damage. She saves herself for last and rolls (holding breath)… a 13! Nice. So we’ll go into the final set piece at full health. Just as important: Erin hasn’t received any disfavor from Shul today.

“I– there are too many cuts,” Briene stammered. “I’ve staunched one but there… there are too many.”

Hilda groaned and slumped, still coughing, to the ground. Her eyes closed and, with hood pushed back by mud, the black rectangle upon her forehead was dark and dormant.

“Move aside, child,” Erin said boldly. “Grab my hand and Hilda’s. Umur, come here and kneel. I’ll want you to complete the circle. Come, quickly now.”

The dwarf moved to comply. With linked hands, they formed a circle upon the ground, Erin, Briene, and Umur kneeling in the mud, with Hilda gasping and groaning, unable to rise.

“O Shul,” the cleric said fervently, eyes closed. “Pale watcher in the shadows, though your light fades tonight in the sky, we still seek your mercy. In this dim hour, guide us with what remains of your gaze. Bring healing where Chaos creeps, and let the Law of night and order endure until your fullness returns. By your crescent’s glow, we trust and endure.”

The others in the circle also had their eyes closed, as they felt Erin’s holy power course through them. To Haffoot and Joane, however, they saw a pale, ghostly light form, first encasing Erin’s hands and then spreading to the others. By the time the prayer had ended, a white circle of light shone all around them, pushing away the shadows and mists. Then it faded, and the four holding hands gently opened their eyes. Umur and Briene looked at Erin agape, mouths open.

Erin Wywood, meanwhile, was grinning down on her friend Hilda. The woman smiled up, her face momentarily transformed back to that of Graymoor’s baker. With deep affection, like that of a mother to a child, Hilda released Briene’s grip and placed her hand on Erin’s arm.

“Of course it was you,” Hilda sighed. “The stars protect us, you and I.”

And then, with a contented sigh, Hilda of the Empty Star fell into an abrupt, and very deep, sleep.

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 12

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 10

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying8 Comments

Hilda peered over her shoulder to make sure that no one was approaching. In the early morning light, Hirot seemed practically empty except for the occasional emaciated dog skulking near walls and looking for scraps. Smoke from chimneys gathered overhead, making the sky hazy and gray. This was a dreary place, Hilda decided. Though she wasn’t as prone to the black-and-white views of Erin, Hilda couldn’t deny that it felt as if a taint of Chaos sat upon the village of Hirot. For the moment, however, she was thankful for the village’s emptiness. There was no sign that the Jarl or any of his minions had trailed her from the Wolf-Spear Inn.

A crow cawed suddenly above, momentarily startling her. Hilda sighed and pounded once again, harder this time, on the rickety door of the hut before her.

“Ymae!” Hilda hissed, trying to both yell and be quiet at the same time. “Are you there?”

After a third try, something moved within the hut. Hilda gripped her staff with both hands, leaning her weight on it while she waited. It seemed to take forever, but eventually the door cracked open.

A face peered up at her with one wide eye, the other drooping below folds of flesh on an ancient, craggy face. “By the balls of Bobugbubilz, child, can’t you let a woman sleep before you go rattling her door? What is it?”

“Ymae,” Hilda breathed, letting go of some tension. “Good. I’ve brought the hair and the Hound comes tonight.”

“Ah. I see,” the old woman nodded, smacking her lips. She receded into shadow and left the door open. “Come in, then.”

As before, the interior of the hut seemed somehow larger than the outside, though still cramped by numerous shelves filled with jars and curios. Beneath the thatched roof, the wide, round hut was dark, with its central fire pit unlit. The mottled cat, which had been eyeing her from atop a shelf in her previous visit, lay stretched out and asleep on the straw mat near the stone wash basin.

“Give it to me,” Ymae said, extending a gnarled hand. Hilda rummaged through the satchel at her hip and produced a folded cloth. The old woman took the cloth and brought it close to her wide eye, examining it closely. With a grunt, she carefully unfolded the cloth with shaking fingers.

“Lots of hair,” she commented. “All from corpses?”

“Yes,” Hilda nodded.

“Hm,” she sniffed the locks. “And all fresh, even the ones that look ancient. Death follows you, child.” As she said the words, Ymae raised her gaze to take in Hilda’s robed figure. For several heartbeats, she looked at the young wizard from head to toe, eventually grunting again. “You’ve been using his power again, this shadowed man in the orb, hm?”

“How– how do you know?” Hilda asked, smoothing her robe self-consciously.

“You’re weaker. Not frail, exactly, but diminished. You’ve given too much of yourself, or he’s taken it,” the crone tsked. “Dangerous. Very dangerous. You should rest before you call on the magics again, and be wary of letting it sap your own strength. Another day like today without recovery, and you may be the corpse offering the hair, hm?”

Beneath her hood, Hilda stared at the old woman, unsure how to respond.

Ymae chuckled darkly. “But you’ll do what you do, it seems. Take my words or not, makes no difference. As long as you bring your aura of death to the Hound and me a husband. He’s still coming at the end of this, yes? The dwarf?”

“He is,” Hilda nodded, swallowing. She was confident that Umur would fulfill Hilda’s promise to the old woman. Or, at least, reasonably confident.

Ymae watched her carefully, then half-grinned. “Good enough. Let’s get to work, shall we? Help me get this fire started.”

Hilda had seen it done two days ago, so she moved to gather sticks from the nearby basket as the old woman retrieved her flint and steel.

“We’ll bind the fire to the hair of the dead.” As they worked, Ymae spoke almost casually. “The Hound is from beyond the grave, you see. A spirit of Chaos from the time of the Savage Kings. It’s picking fights because it wants to be killed, to rest. But whoever summoned it or whatever force released it hasn’t made that easy.”

“The Savage Kings,” Hilda repeated, stacking sticks carefully. “Like Ulfheonar.”

“Mmm. He was the one they called the Serpent King, yes. The Savage Kings littered this side of the Trollteeth long ago, each seeking power to conquer the others, doing anything and everything to get the upper hand. Too many played with fell powers they didn’t understand, and we’re all paying for it still.”

“In Ulfheonar’s tomb, there were images of snakes battling wolves. Might the Hound have been summoned by another king to kill Ulfheonar and his snake tribe long ago?” Even as she said it, Hilda felt she was fumbling the history, not knowing nearly enough even to ask questions.

“You’ve been to his tomb, then? Did you find the spear?”

Hilda looked up at Ymae’s tone. The crone had stopped what she was doing and watched her pointedly. The former baker felt like she was seeing in Ymae a child from Graymoor as she removed a pie from the oven, hungry and eager. The old woman even licked her lips.

“Y-yes. It almost cost us our lives, but we have it.”

Ymae cackled and slapped her knee. “Good! Good. Well done, child. We’ll make you a net of flame and undeath, something to bind the Hound. Denying its freedom is like denying its essence, yes? Then your warrior friends can stab its heart with the Serpent King’s Spear. Oh, delicious, delicious. I wish that I could be there to see it. Ha ha!” She cackled again, shrill and dry.

“I don’t understand,” Hilda sighed.

Ymae tsked, almost mockingly. “Don’t you mind, child. You have enough to worry about with this patron of yours. The important bits are this: Find the Hound’s lair, for it can only truly be killed there. Bind it. Land the final blow while it’s bound.” She extended three knobby fingers as she ticked off the steps. “Let the otherworldly forces sort out the rest, mm? Now, get comfortable. While the fire burns, we must weave these hairs into a single thread, and your fingers are far younger than mine.”

“You’re sure she’s in there?” the Jarl growled, rubbing at his chin and examining the heavy, iron-banded door of the Wolf-Spear Inn.

“She was there when the sky topped its zenith,” Sylle Ru said in his high-pitched, whispery voice. “I watched her with my scrying.” The thin man rubbed at his hands as if they itched whenever he spoke of using his magics. “The outsiders as well, and the pretty pretty girl from the church.”

The Jarl grunted, ignoring the seer’s lascivious licking of lips, and regarded Claus. Sensing the attention, the lieutenant turned so his one good eye could see him. Claus raised a thick, black eyebrow.

“We do it fast,” the Jarl said. “They’re warriors of some skill, but we outnumber them two to one. Get one of them alive. That’s all we need.”

“It’s risky,” Claus said, his voice deep and harsh.

“We need a sacrifice,” the Jarl sighed. “And the town is close to revolt as it is. If it’s not the girl or one of these outsiders, it could get ugly. Everyone knows what they’ve been doing. We need to bring them down and show our strength. And their weakness.”

“Hirot folk we can cow,” Claus said. “If they truly beat the Hound as easy as…”

“Enough,” the Jarl barked.

Claus snapped his stubbled jaw shut and nodded. He turned to the others and began organizing them for the assault. All around were rough men and women in armor, grim-faced and quiet. None of them seemed to like this plan–or to be outside the relative safety of the manor, truth be told, as their eyes darted to every corner constantly–but they were trained warriors and would follow orders. Heavily calloused hands gripped swords and spears and axes, while gauntleted boots found purchase in the dirt, ready to charge.

“I’ll get that door down,” the Jarl growled, stretching his neck and flexing broad shoulders covered in iron and steel. The giant bear of a man stomped over to the door and grabbed the front latch.

It clicked open.

With furious confusion, he looked back at the seer. Sylle Ru shrugged, clearly not anticipating an unlocked, unbarred door.

“Careful,” Claus rumbled low.

“Bah!” the Jarl snarled and threw open the door. Recklessly, he charged inside. Behind him, men scrambled to follow.

The common room tavern of the Wolf-Spear was as it would be any night after closing. Dark. Quiet. Tidy. Chairs upturned on tables. But it was not the wee hours now; the late afternoon summer sun slanted in through the doorway.

By the time Sylle Ru entered, the room was flooded with armored forms, panting and wary. He gently slid his way around them, made easier by those who saw him coming and wanted to avoid even grazing the strange, oily communer of otherworldly powers.

He found the Jarl holding a single sheet of parchment. The burly man thrust it at his seer.

“It was on the bar. Read it,” he bellowed. The Jarl was all power and strength and had never learned his letters, one of the many ways he relied upon his advisor.

Sylle Ru accepted the document and unrolled it with knobby, long fingers. It was a clumsy, blocky script but written in the common tongue. The ink strokes said, simply: “We will handle the Hound. Stay away.”

Now is as good a time as any to do a bit of housekeeping on the party’s status after a long night’s rest.

Per the Dungeon Crawl Classics core rulebook: “A character who actively adventures and gets a good night’s rest heals 1 hit point. If the character gets a day of bed rest, they heal 2 hit points per night. …Ability score loss, except for Luck, heals at the same rate: 1 point with a good night’s rest, and 2 points with a day of bed rest. A character may heal both ability score loss and hit point loss on the same night’s rest. Luck, however, does not heal. Repeat: lost Luck does not heal. Except for the special abilities of halflings and thieves, a character who burns Luck does so permanently. Luck can be restored in the same way that a man normally gains good or bad luck – by appealing to the gods.”

After a day traveling into Ulfheonar’s tomb and battling Iraco and his huntsmen, Erin Wywood was fully healed by the Horn of Kings and suffered no ability score loss. What Erin gains from a night of rest and prayer is a reset of her “Disfavor” rating. Whereas before she would have lost favor with Shul on a d20 spell check roll of 1 or 2, that risk is back down to natural 1s only.

Joane Cayhurst, our new Warrior, is now a Level 1 PC and ready to fight with her 10 hit points. Similarly, Briene Byley is up to 9 hp, though still currently class-less until (likely) the end of Doom of the Savage Kings.

Umur Pearlhammer took a single point of damage from an arrow after the Horn had healed him from the tomb’s awfulness. He’ll heal that minor wound with rest and be back up to 10 hp as well.

Hilda Breadon took no damage from the day but did Spellburn her way to losing 4 Stamina, plus 1 Luck. Her night’s rest will give her back 1 Stamina point, bringing her to 15 of 18. As per the above rules, her Luck score is now permanently 10, unless the gods intervene in some way.

Finally, we have our Halfling, Ethys Haffoot. She also took an arrow hit for 1 damage, and burned a total of 4 Luck to help her companions. Since the party (other than Hilda, per the narrative above) spent their day holing up in the Wolf-Spear Inn, I’ll give Haffoot a day of bed rest, which means she will be back up to 6 hp (her max), and regain 2 Luck points, bringing her ability to score to 10 out of 12. As a sidenote, I’m still worried that Haffoot is the most vulnerable of the party members, though as we saw from the Iraco fight pretty much any critical hit from an enemy can kill you in DCC.

One more housekeeping note: Last time we outfitted Joane in leather armor and squared away her weapons. She’ll also have standard adventuring equipment that I suspect she could obtain from her family’s inn: A backpack, rope, torches, and a waterskin. Even though Briene doesn’t have a proper class, I’ve given her padded armor (+1 AC) and the same standard equipment. Recall too that Briene has a grappling hook and holy symbol of Justicia from her Level 0 days, as well as a shortbow and arrows from the huntsmen.

Okay, with the housekeeping out of the way… Let’s throw our party back into the action!

“Do you think they’ll actually leave us alone?” Haffoot whispered from the bushes. The group had gathered on the opposite side of the clearing surrounding the standing stones as before, the logic being that, if the Hound was expecting a similar ambush, perhaps originating in a different location would give them an edge.

The clearing itself was the same as they’d left it, minus the snow, which meant it was much changed by Hilda’s magic. All around the clearing, the trees and low shrubs appeared overgrown and wilder than the surrounding forest, because in the moments of Hilda’s spell the vegetation had burst out frantically, reaching for anything nearby. The grass in the clearing was noticeably longer than the pathway leading here, except where the black scar of a lightning strike marred an area near the standing stones. The stones themselves were cracked in places, the rope threaded through holes in them appearing frayed and ancient. All around were unsettling reminders of the powers that their hooded magic user could call forth.

Umur shrugged. “I hope the Jarl sees that for him it’s a win-win. Either we kill the Hound or it gets its sacrifice. But he’s a vicious bastard and has no reason to listen to us, so he may wait until after the battle to kill whoever’s left.”

“We have Briene watching the path,” Erin whispered, touching the silver crescent moon dangling from her neck. “She’s smart and will come running if someone approaches.”

“That’s the hope,” Umur sighed. “For now, let’s just worry about the Hound. It should be here soon, yeah?”

“The sun has set,” Erin nodded. “And this is the third night.” She looked skyward, frowning at the darkening sky.

“What’s wrong?” Haffoot nudged her.

“It’s nothing…” Erin said, uncharacteristic uncertainty in her voice. “It’s only that the moon tonight will be but a sliver. Shul’s gaze is less upon us now than when we first arrived.”

“Does that means you have less power?” the halfling’s eyes were wide.

“I– I don’t know. Perhaps. But Shul feels more distant. Or perhaps it’s merely a test of my faith, a chance to be his emissary even beneath a darkened night sky.”

With that thought, silence settled over the group. They watched the clearing warily as shadows overtook the twilight. Each of them remembered their previous time in this place vividly, and their eyes darted this way and that, waiting for movement.

They were still unprepared for the menace of the Hound of Hirot when it appeared.   

Emerging from the darkness was the same hybrid wolf and bat creature from before, as large as a pony. It stepped cautiously with its padded feet prickling with oversized claws, head low and black fur bristling upon its back. The Hound’s bat-like nose sniffed in deep, powerful huffs as its sharp ears twitched. The companions held their breath, staying silent and still while gripping weapons tightly as the Hound came fully into view.

Unlike before, the beast didn’t immediately approach the standing stones. Instead, it moved to the center of the clearing and circled, its head near the grass and scanning the surrounding forest with red eyes. As they’d hoped, the creature began its inspection where they’d hidden in the previous encounter, putting its back to the companions.

“Ready,” Umur said in a low, quiet whisper.

Initiative time! First let’s see if the companions have successfully hidden from the Hound to gain themselves a surprise round. The DC was 10 before, but this time I’ll increase it to 15 since the Hound has been ambushed in this place before and is on guard. Last time, I mistakenly said that Haffoot had the lowest Agility modifier of the group, which is technically true but she also receives a +3 to Sneak and Hide checks. So this time I’ll have Umur do the roll, as he and Hilda both have a +0.

Umur rolls a 19, so the group will indeed get a surprise round. Amazing.

Joane wins initiative and charges forward eagerly with the Wolf-Spear of Ulfheonar. She rolls a… oh no… a natural 1! Joane then rolls on the fumble table, which reveals that she tripped. She needs to make a DC 10 Reflex save or fall prone, losing her next round to standing up. Thankfully, she rolls a [11+2] 13. So it’s an embarrassing beginning, but no real harm done.

Since it worked so well on the tomb-ghouls (though in hindsight, there is an argument that they should have been immune to the spell), Erin will try a prayer to Shul and attempt to cast Paralysis. She rolls a [17+1] 18, which is awesome. Her result says, “The cleric’s melee and missile weapons are charged with Paralysis. The charge remains for d4+caster level (CL) rounds. Any attack delivered by the cleric during this period delivers the normal damage plus paralysis if the target fails a Will save (DC 18, the spell check). The paralyzed creature will be unable to move or take any physical actions for d6+CL rounds.” Erin then rolls a [4+1] 5 rounds, which should be the entire combat. Amazing.

Hilda is next. She only barely suspects the great cost of her Chill Touch while also knowing that her companions fear her Invoke Patron spell. So she’ll attempt to cast Chill Touch, the first time casting a spell without additional modifiers or Spellburn. She rolls a [5+1] 6, which is a failure and the spell is lost for the day. Perhaps Hilda now realizes that she must start every combat by calling upon her patron?

Haffoot charges in, swinging both swords. But she rolls terribly, scoring a [6+1] 7 and [2+1] 3. Needless to say, both miss the Hound’s 15 AC.

That leaves only Umur, who rolls a 1 on his Deed Die as he approaches. He rolls a paltry [2+1+1] 4 with his longsword, but for maybe the first time his d14 Shield Bash strike hits home, rolling a [13+1+1] 15. He does [2+1] 3 damage.

All in all, I’d say that was a decidedly mixed turn, and very different from the first time they surprised the Hound!

Almost inaudibly, Erin, acolyte of Shul, began a prayer. Her companions could not hear the words, but the long, curved blade of her dagger began to glow a soft white.

“NOW!” Umur bellowed. He, Haffoot, and Joane burst from the bushes, charging the black-furred back of the Hound.

Joane, however, was neither used to the leather armor she’d obtained from her late father’s rooms nor the long wolf-spear. She stumbled in the wild vegetation, nearly losing her balance. Haffoot sidestepped the young woman’s fumbling form, but it cost her momentum. Only Umur’s charge was unaffected.

The Hound turned lightning-fast, its top lip curled above jagged teeth as long as the dwarf’s hand. Roaring, Umur hurtled into the beast’s head with his wooden shield.

Within the cover of the forest, Hilda stood and removed her hood. As she began to reach for her patron’s power, Ymae’s words from the morning echoed in her mind: “You should rest before you call on the magics again, and be wary of letting it sap your own strength. Another day like today without recovery, and you may be the corpse offering the hair, hm?”

The black rectangle on her forehead flared briefly blue and then went dormant. Hands outstretched, Hilda found herself reluctant to embrace the forces swirling just beyond reach. Through wide-open eyes, she briefly glimpsed the umbral form of a bald, inhuman man, staring at her and frowning from within an orb glowing like a star.

Round 1 begins!

Joane recovers from her stumble and strikes out with the ancient wolf-spear, rolling a 3 on her Deed Die, and then… another natural 1! You can’t make this stuff up. The fumble table says that the weapon is damaged in some way, but I’m going to GM fiat and instead say that Joane gets the weapon knocked out of her hands. It will take a full round to recover it. It’s fair to say that our new Warrior is not off to an awesome start.

Thankfully, Erin steps in with her newly enchanted dagger and hits with a [17+1] 18. She rolls minimum [1+1] 2 damage, but now the Hound must make a Will save against her initial spell roll of 18. It rolls an 8, so is Paralyzed for [6+1] 7 rounds. Holy crap. I think this fight is suddenly over?

It would have been the Hound’s turn, but it doesn’t get to act. Hilda is next but given the Hound’s paralysis, I don’t want to risk another spell failure here. I’ll say she is stunned by the disconnection with her Patron and doesn’t act this turn either.

Finishing the Round are Haffoot and Umur, both of whom get a larger die size for their attacks because of the paralysis. Haffoot rolls a [12+1] 13 and [10+1] 11. I’ll say that she hits, but the Hounds hide is too tough to penetrate. Umur, meanwhile, rolls another 1 on his Deed Die, and then a [5+1] 6 (on a d24 roll!) with his longsword and an [11+1] 12 with his shield.

Round 2, Joane retrieves her spear. Let’s get the three other melee combatants’ attacks in: Erin rolls a [13+1] 14. Haffoot rolls a [16+1] 17 and deals a whopping 6 points of damage with her first shortsword, but then rolls a natural 1 on her second (thankfully, with Halfling two-weapon fighting, she needs to fumble on both attack rolls to officially fumble). Umur then rolls a 2 on his Deed Die, a [18+2] 20 with his longsword, doing 2 damage, and a [14+2] with his shield bash, doing 1 damage. All told, that’s 9 more damage to the Hound, leaving it with 6 hit points.

Finally, at the top of Round 3, Joane Cayhurst retrieves the weapon designed to kill this thing, rolls a 3 on her Deed Die, and a [22+1+3] 26 on her d24 to hit. She rolls enough damage to kill the Hound, [6+1+3] 10 total.

Whew. Paralysis for the win! The Hound fights feel stressful, although both have been absolute romps.

The Hound snarled savagely, throwing its impressive weight in a thrash meant to knock its enemies prone. Joane cried out in shock at the wolf-spear was torn from her grip and tumbled into the long grass. Umur hunkered behind his shield, absorbing the Hound’s frenzy but unable to strike back. Haffoot danced back and out of the way, but her short blades and arms prevented her from touching the aggressive creature. For breathless, frantic moments, the combat seemed a stalemate.

Shouting her defiance, Erin Wywood stepped forward with her glowing blade. Clad in her white armor, with eyes and dagger shining like a full moon, she appeared to be the perfect foil for the black-furred creature of darkness. Erin plunged her weapon into the Hound’s side. It shrieked, more like a squealing bat than a canine, and fell sideways into the clearing. Its red eyes rolled up to the sky, even as its limbs jerked spasmodically and stilled.

“Quickly!” the cleric yelled. “It is paralyzed! End it now!”

Her dwarf and halfling companions complied, stepping forward with their swords and hacking at the beast again and again.

“Step back!” Joane snarled. She had retrieved Ulfheonar’s wolf-spear and held it overhead with both hands. The young woman’s eyes narrowed as she bore the broad-headed blade down and into the Hound’s side. The spear first met resistance, and then the creature was dissolving into oily smoke. Panting, weapon buried into the long grass in front of her, Joane screamed her father’s name.

Umur immediately brought his sword up and turned to face the path, waiting for an ambush from the Jarl and his thegns. Haffoot, taking his cue, stood back-to-back with Umur, swords raised.

No ambush came. The companions’ breaths calmed. The wild, magic-touched clearing was empty and still in the night air.

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 11

DCC Character Level 1: Joane Cayhurst

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying9 Comments

What’s this?! A level-up post smack dab in the midst of an adventure!? That’s right. Dungeon Crawl Classics doesn’t presuppose that a party of adventurers is all at the same level, nor does it expect that their level-ups will occur at the same time. Both Joane Cayhurst and Briene Byley have survived a terrible ordeal at the Tomb of Ulfheonar, more than earning a “Funnel-like” experience that warrants a real class and some additional stats. In addition, bringing both characters up in level means that the party can finish the Doom of the Savage Kings with six Level-1 PCs, which is what the adventure suggested in the first place. In practical terms, this means that any surviving PCs from The Portal Under the Stars funnel will reach Level 2 at the end of this adventure, while Joane and Briene will have the wait until the next full adventure concludes. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. For now: let’s focus on Joane (and a little bit of Briene… curveball incoming).

First, let’s remind ourselves of Joane’s Level 0 statblock:

Joane Cayhurst. Level 0 Corn Farmer. STR 12, AGL 13, STA 14, PER 7, INT 16, LCK 9. Init +1; Atk pitchfork +0 melee (1d8); AC 11; HP 3; MV 30′; Act 1d20; SV Fort +1, Ref +1, Will -1; LNG Common (+2); AL Lawful; Equipment: hen, 10’ pole, 29cp.

I never really justified why and how she was a corn farmer while her father ran the Wolf-Spear Inn. Thankfully, I never called her out as a farmer, though I did keep her as wielding a pitchfork in Ulfheonar’s tomb. In my mind, she was the innkeeper’s daughter and helped him there, and the pitchfork was the tool from her work at the inn that she felt was the most practical weapon to bring with her. I never worried about her having a hen or a 10’ pole, nor did I roll any skill checks that relied on her farming occupation. Yay for not having to retcon anything there (although boo for me not more fully leaning into what I’d rolled).

When I first sat down to level up Joane, I assumed that she would be the party’s Thief. It’s a class not represented by the current PCs, Ethys Haffoot sort of stinks at thieving, and narratively it’s easy to pluck a random, brave villager and make them the person who sneaks around and backstabs stuff. But the more I read about the class, the less it fit with my image of Joane, who I’ve described as the quintessential headstrong teenager with a stereotypical red-headed short fuse. At the same time, I had been struggling with the idea that Erin, our Cleric of Shul, was the only one realistically capable of wielding Ulfheonar’s Wolf-Spear, which would mean eschewing her god’s favored weapon and the very cool crescent-shaped dagger. I even started imagining that perhaps, as Erin wielded the spear, its blade would begin to curve or something so that I could keep it as her holy weapon.

Anyway, combine these two struggles and it suddenly occurred to me that Joane didn’t necessarily have to be a Thief. Instead, she could be our party’s first Warrior. Yes, the Warrior and Dwarf classes are close cousins and have a lot of the same attributes and advantages. That said, with six characters there are bound to be some overlap, and I don’t think a party can really have too many Deed Dice in combat. Once I started thinking about Joane as a Warrior, everything sort of clicked.

Hit Points: A Warrior gains a whopping d12 in hit points at each level, +1 for Joane’s high Stamina. I roll a [6+1] 7, adding to her original 3 hp. Joane now has 10 hit point, matching both Umur and Erin.

Mighty Deed of Arms: Just like I described with Umur,  Erin gains a d3 Deed Die to express her martial prowess. Like Umur, she’ll declare her “Mighty Deed” when she attacks, and if she rolls a 3 on the Deed Die, she will do some cool combat maneuver effect.

Critical Hits: The biggest single advantage that Warriors have over Dwarves is their expanded Critical Hit range. At Level 1, Joane will score a Critical Hit on a roll of either 19 or 20, not just a natural 20. She also rolls on a sweeter crit table, like Umur, meaning that her Critical Hits tend to be more devastating to opponents.

Weapons and Armor: As a Warrior, Joane will be able to wield whatever weapons and wear whatever armor she can afford. If she had a Luck bonus, she could also apply that bonus to her “favored weapon,” which of course is going to be Spears (she was using a pitchfork before, which is mechanically a spear, and now she will be the proud bearer of Ulfheonar’s Wolf-Spear). Whereas Umur is a “sword and board” fighter, swinging his longsword and bashing with his shield, Joane will be our “two-handed reach” fighter, able to stab from further away.

Speaking of the Wolf-Spear, let’s talk about it for a second in mechanical terms. It is a +1 spear for both attacks and damage, and also grants a +1 to initiative rolls. On a successful hit the wielder can use the cross bars mounted below the spearhead to pin a creature, reducing the target’s AC by the wielder’s Strength bonus (which for Joane is 0, so unlikely something she’ll do often). By sacrificing her actions in a given round, the wielder can maintain the pin on the target with a successful contested Strength check. With the spear, Joane can even pin magical creatures, preventing them from assuming gaseous form, teleporting, stepping to another plane, and so on. This last ability may come in handy against the Hound if Ymae’s net somehow fails.

For now, I’ll give Joane leather armor, which feels like something she could obtain easily enough in Hirot. Hopefully sometime soon she can upgrade her armor situation. She already has Iraco’s longsword, and I’ll say she also took one of the huntsmen’s shortbows. So, while she doesn’t have the highest Armor Class, Joane is bristling with weapons!

Title: Despite her hot-headedness, Joane is decidedly Lawful and a sworn enemy of Chaos. It makes sense to me that she’ll look up to Umur and begin calling herself his Squire. Squire Joane Cayhurst of Hirot is not at all how I thought we’d end up from my dismal band of retainers before I started Doom of the Savage Kings, but as seems always happen in any Funnel, I’m pleasantly surprised by the PC waiting on the other side.

Finally, Joane also gets a +1 to Reflex and Fortitude saves and Initiative, which are reflected in her handy new character sheet:

Stepping back, I’m thrilled to have a Warrior in the party who can wield the magical Wolf-Spear, allowing Erin to stay focused on her god’s favored weapon. I wish she had a Luck or Strength bonus, but having bonuses in Agility, Stamina, and Intelligence is sweet. Because of her high Intelligence, in fact, I’m going to say that, while Joane does not benefit from any formal education, she is a quick study in pretty much everything she tries. Moreover, she will surprise the others in how quickly she picks up both the Dwarven and Halfling languages from her party members. Her low Personality is already established as her fiery temper, and I suspect she’ll clash with everyone from time to time.

Now, Briene Byley had the same Funnel-like experience as Joane and also deserves a level up. But I’m going to wait until we’re through Doom of the Savage Kings before giving her a class. Why? First, because the most obvious class for her is Cleric, and we already have one of those. If Erin dies in the final clash with the Hound (or some other threat along the way), Briene will slide nicely into that role for the party. If instead Erin survives, well… Thief makes no sense for our do-gooder healer. Keep your fingers crossed, though, because I’ve decided that Briene will be my first dip into the many (literally, dozens and dozens) third-party classes available in DCC.

That said, we can’t have Briene waltzing through danger with a single hit point. A Cleric has a d8 hit die, and so does the class she’ll take if Erin survives. As a result, I’ll roll and get… an 8! Nice. So, while Briene won’t have class abilities to help the party yet, she will be a bit more durable.

I’ve ended these level-up posts with some fiction to help establish the character’s identity. Here we go, then, as we dip back into the Doom of the Savage Kings narrative. Consider today a sort of Chapter 9.5.

The Wolf-Spear Inn was quiet as a tomb that night. Lloré the bard neither sang nor played. The scarred tables sat empty, chairs stacked neatly, upside-down and atop them. The heavy front door was locked tight. Only a single lantern burned to shed a low, dancing gloom across the tavern’s six inhabitants, all either sitting or standing near the long bar.

“We’ll sleep here tonight, but we can’t linger in town,” Erin said in urgent, low tones. “The Jarl will know we’re here, and that his plot has failed. He won’t sit idle.”

“Maybe he’ll lock himself in his manor ‘top the hill?” Haffoot offered. “Maybe he’ll be as scared of us as we are of him, yeah?”

“A hopeful thought,” Erin scowled. “But he’s shown himself to be more active than that. He’ll come after us, sure enough.”

“Mm. Probably,” Umur said, draining his tankard of ale and leaving himself a wet beard. As he set it atop the bar, Joane woodenly moved to fill the empty mug. Her face was lifeless and dull, as it had been all evening. “But Hilda needs time with the old witch to make this net. So we’re here at least the day tomorrow, I’d think.”

“I’ll go at first light,” the hooded woman said. Hilda stood away from the others but seemed to hover nearest Erin. In the dim light, she seemed almost a wraith.

“We must inform the families of those we’ve lost,” Erin sighed. “It will be unpleasant, but we owe them that.”

“I’ll handle that, ma’am” Briene said, her voice soft at first but then gaining in strength. “I don’t know what rumors the Jarl has spread in our absence.” She paused, scowling. “Father Beacom as well. But I’m safe from the Jarl, I think, and know everyone’s family. I– I think it best if the news comes from me.”

“You’re brave, lass,” Umur smiled, briefly laying a hand atop her forearm. “Thank you.”

Briene blushed and nodded.

“Share the coin we found on the huntsmen with each family,” Erin said. She looked at each person to see if they’d argue. None did, though Hilda frowned beneath her hood.

“So… we stay here tomorrow?” Haffoot asked. “What do we do about the Hound? Tomorrow night it’s back if it comes every third night.”

“The Jarl will have a drawing at midday,” Briene said. “For the sacrifice.”

“If he knows who’s returned, it will be Joane’s name on the lot,” Erin said. “He promised her that.”

Umur’s thick fingers drummed the bar’s surface in thought. He took another long draught from his mug. The others deferred to him in matters of tactics, so they sat in silence until he was ready to speak.

“If that’s so,” Umur said slowly. “Then he’ll show up here in full force, with all his thegns, and he’ll expect us to give her up, sayin’ it’s the town’s will or whatever. He’ll paint us as outlaws if we disagree.” His fingers drummed again as he paused. “This inn’s probably the most defensible structure outside the Jarl’s manor, but methinks he’ll just trap us here and burn it. Dammit all.”

“Let him,” Joane said suddenly. All eyes snapped to her, startled.

“What’s that, lass?”

“Let him burn it. This inn is dead. It died with my father. When Hilda’s back, let’s go kill the Hound at the standing stones, and then let’s go into the Fens. Let’s never let the Hound take anyone else ever again. Let’s purge it from Hirot and then leave the Jarl to clean up the mess he’s made of this town.”

“You’d just… leave?” Briene gasped. “The whole village?”

“Hirot died a long time ago, Bree. I don’t know when. Maybe it’s when the Jarl first stepped in, or when his seer began making the Jarl his puppet, or when the Hound started appearing, or when we made our first sacrifice to it. But it’s as dead as my family. We’re living in a stinking corpse, decaying all around us. Hirot’s like those things in the tomb, gray and twisted. At some point the rot beneath will burst out. You’ve got to see it that way, don’t you?” her voice rose, as she looked pleadingly at her friend. “Does Father Beacom bring you any hope at all? Or, or… faith?”

“No, he doesn’t,” the young woman said softly, and cast her eyes down at her lap.

“Maybe I’m dead too,” Joane spat angrily. “But I’m not just going to be tied up and dragged to some sacrifice. I’m going to kill the bloody Hound or die trying. I’m not letting dark forces control my life anymore. I’m fighting back!” Panting, a sheen of sweat upon her face, she looked around at the others defiantly.

“It’s a plan, then,” Umur nodded. “When Hilda returns, we’ll go hunt the Hound, first at the standing stones, and then find its lair.”

Joane seemed almost in disbelief. “Truly? You’d let me join you?”

The dwarf chuckled. “Lass, seems you already have.”

“It’s a quest of conviction. Of faith,” Erin said the word forcefully, directed at Briene. “And whatever fell forces are responsible for the death in this village, including your father, we will see them ended. By Shul’s light we will.” She made a fist.

None saw Hilda frown at the mention of Joane’s father’s death. The robed wizard stepped back further into the shadows, saying nothing.

“Thank you,” Joane said with a rush. “Master Dwarf, I pledge my sword to you.”

“Oh,” Umur blinked, stammering. “Well, uh… that’s not strictly necessary, lass. But I… That is to say…”

“You do not fight with a sword,” Erin said loudly. “Joane Cayhurst, I have seen you fight with a common pitchfork bravely and with skill. Don’t rely on a sword. Take a weapon designed for your holy quest.”

Almost casually, the white-armored cleric hefted the Wolf-Spear of Ulfheonar onto the bar, knocking empty cups and mugs aside as it landed with a loud CLUNK!

Everyone stared at the weapon, then to Joane. The innkeeper’s daughter’s eyes widened at the sight of the broad-bladed spear, even as a wooden replica hung over her head above the bar.

“Yes!” Umur bellowed, slapping the surface in front of him.

“Yes!” Haffoot cheered, small fists raised in triumph. “Joane the Hound-Slayer!”

Briene and Erin nodded encouragingly.

Hesitantly at first, yet with growing conviction, Joane’s hands moved to the ancient weapon. As she grasped the long haft, worked with carvings of serpents along its length, something sparked on her freckled face. She raised the spear, tears blurring her eyes.

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 10

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 9

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying10 Comments

In the previous chapter, our Cleric of Shul, Erin Wywood, was sent below zero hit points by Iraco the Hunt Master, part of an ambush meant to slaughter the party and take the items they had retrieved from Ulheonar’s tomb. Is she dead? Not yet. Once a PC reaches Level 1, a character can attempt a Luck roll to see if they’ve somehow dodged their fate. I wanted to give myself some time to read the rules on “Recovering the Body” (often called “Rolling the Body”) to make sure I understood how it worked.

Imagine my surprise when I rediscovered the section preceding Recovering the Body in the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook on “Bleeding Out.” Oh! A PC gets their level in Rounds to be healed before dying. Would any other PCs be able to come to Erin’s aid in the Round following her death? Even though she is the party’s healer, the answer is a definitive YES. Timing-wise, the same round that Erin went down, the party eliminated the other threats, and everyone except Hilda acts before her on Round 5 of combat.

Briene, as a healer by trade, can attempt a skill check to staunch Erin’s bleeding and keep her alive. Previously, I’ve set this as a DC 15 Intelligence check to heal 1 hp. She gets first crack and rolls a [14+1] 15, just hitting the DC (for the second time in three tries, which is amazing). Even had she failed, Umur can rush in with the Horn of Kings, using a second (of three) monthly charges. He’ll do so, healing Erin an additional max of 12 points on a d12! My goodness. Erin is fine. I’m sure she’ll, uh… live forever, probably. [insert nervous chuckle]

Because of Bleeding Out, Erin’s Stamina is reduced by 1 permanently, from 13 to 12. That takes her from a +1 bonus to no bonus. Here is, by the way, another feature of DCC… Once you become a real PC adventurer, it is difficult to kill you. But each time you avoid death, you are diminished and easier to kill.

“Dead!?” Umur crouched down, eyes wide and troubled. “By the gods, no.”

To her credit, Briene appeared neither panicked nor overwrought. Her pretty features were creased in concentration, her hands moving efficiently and rapidly over Erin’s bloody side. Already the novice healer’s hands were soaked in red halfway to the elbow as she pressed an end of her cloak down firmly to staunch the wound.

Erin groaned.

“She’s alive! I have something!” the dwarf stammered, fumbling at his belt. He pulled out the Horn of Kings, newly acquired from Ulfheonar’s tomb, a polished horn capped in gold with ancient script upon it. “Pull her head up, lass, cradle it while I pour the liquid.”

Briene moved to comply, supporting Erin’s sweat-damp head while Umur uncapped the horn and brought it gently to her lips, all while holding the sodden cloak to the cleric’s side.

By now the others had begun to gather round. “What is it?” Haffoot asked, craning her neck to see past them both. “Is that Erin? Is she okay?”

“Quiet,” Umur barked. Trying not to spill a drop, he tilted the horn. Clear liquid crept into Erin’s mouth, wetting her lips and briefly causing her to sputter. In a heartbeat, however, the cleric of Shul was drinking, her throat bobbing. When Umur tilted the horn away, capping it once more, Erin’s eyes opened.

“Let me up,” she said clearly, beginning to stand.

“I don’t think you should–” Briene tried, but Erin pushed her hand away.

“I’m fine. Let me up.” With a groan, she stood. Her white-scaled armor was punctured from the sword thrust, and all around it shone with Erin’s scarlet blood. But the wound beyond the rent mail was fully healed, its skin unblemished. Briene gasped.

Erin’s gray eyes, narrowed and calculating, took in the wider scene of the clearing.

“We’ve lost so many,” she said gravely. “I’m sorry, Brienne and Joane. You joined us with the hope of saving Hirot from the Hound, and instead we couldn’t protect your neighbors from the world’s other horrors. It is a cruel cost for this spear. Who were these ambushers?”

“Iraco was this one’s name,” Joane said, kicking the corpse in frustration and disdain. “The Jarl’s hunt master. And the rest are his huntsmen. Or were. Hunting us instead of the Hound.”

“But why?” Haffoot asked, confused, looking around the fallen bodies.

“Sent by the Jarl, obviously,” Joane growled. She tossed her red braid aside angrily. “He wanted credit for whatever you found, or maybe just wanted rid to be of you lot, not caring what you were doing but only that you were out of town and vulnerable. Bloody fool.”

“No, he wouldn’t do that,” Briene argued.

“Open your eyes, Bree!” the young woman spat. “He’s got no plan! The Jarl has lost all hope and doesn’t want anyone else to have it either!” And with that she collapsed to her knees, dropping her pitchfork into the grass and covering her face with both hands. Briene moved in to envelop Joane in a hug with bloodstained arms.

“The lass has the right of it,” Umur said in low tones to Erin and Haffoot. “This was a calculated moved by the Jarl, and he will be none too pleased that it failed. He’ll find some way to blame us for all this death, despite the spear.”

“Are you okay, Erin?” Haffoot asked hesitantly. The gash in her white armor was almost eye level for the halfling, and her stare flicked from it up to the cleric’s face.

“I’m tired,” she sighed. “Perhaps a little weak from blood loss. But the horn healed me fully, when I was close to meeting Shul. It’s not my time to face the moon, it seems.” She tried a grin, an expression uncharacteristic for her serious face. Her ponytail was messy and frayed, and blades of grass clung to one side of her head.

Haffoot met the grin with wide eyes. “Bloody miracle is what it is. That horn might be a better find even than the spear, yeah?”

“It’s almost empty,” Umur grunted. “Maybe one more draught is all that’s left. It’s a precious thing, but today taxed it.”

“And yet worth the cost,” Hilda said, approaching the trio. Her hooded head was fixed upon Erin. Umur and Haffoot shuddered at seeing her, suddenly remembering the shadowed whispers of her magic and the despair that had filled them because of it. “We cannot lose Erin, our acolyte of Shul.”

It was an odd prioritization of the four of them and hung awkwardly in the air. It was Erin who broke the silence, saying, “Your magic again turned the tide, Hilda. We would all be face down in the grass if not for you.”

Hilda inclined her head, expression unreadable beneath the hood.

“But,” Erin continued. “I’m troubled by the manifestation of this magic you wield.” She looked over at Iraco, whose withered skull gazed up at the clear blue sky from empty sockets. “It seems… a thing of Chaos, if I’m honest. I worry for you. For all of us.”

Hilda waved a hand dismissively while leaning on her staff. “I’m fine, though I admit more questions than answers about it all. As some truths become revealed, others wander into shadow. It is the way of magic, I think.” She sighed. “The important thing is that you’re alive, Erin, and that our quest continues. Let’s focus on the creature of Chaos terrorizing Hirot first, eh? Then we can all worry about me.”

If any of them noticed that Hilda’s hands seemed almost gaunt, or that her neck was far thinner than the former baker had possessed even that morning, none said anything. Indeed, Umur and Haffoot seemed to give the wizard a wide berth, much as the Hirot villagers had done within the tomb. It was as if some unnoticed stench permeated the air around Hilda, subtly pushing them away. Erin was the only one who seemed unaffected by robed woman’s presence.

The cleric frowned in thought. “Hirot doesn’t feel safe with the Jarl bent on ensuring we are gone. He has tried once to kill us and will not stop now. Do we camp near the standing stones and wait for the Hound there tomorrow night?”

“Hrmph. That’s a sure way to force a bad confrontation,” Umur sighed, smoothing his beard with a hand in thought. “The Jarl’ll pick another lot to sacrifice, probably Joane’s father if she’s not around. Then he’ll charge up on horseback with all his thegns. That’s not a fight we can win.”

“And we must return to the town,” Hilda intoned. “The spear is but one tool with which to kill the Hound, and Ymae will create another for us.”

“The hair from a corpse,” Umur growled. “I’d forgotten.”

“The hair from a corpse,” Hilda agreed. “She will make a net from her magic to bind the creature. Then the spear can slay it.”

“Does the mad widow know where to find it once we’ve got the net?” Haffoot asked.

“Everyone knows where,” Briene called out from nearby. The four companions turned to see her still cradling Joane. The two rocked gently, and the young healer met everyone’s eyes but Hilda. “It’s in the Sunken Fens, downriver. I don’t think anyone knows where, exactly, but its lair is there, sure enough.”

“Sunken Fens,” the dwarf groaned. “Sounds lovely.”

“It’s a cursed place,” Briene said earnestly. “Full of malevolent spirits from a bygone age, Father Beacom says. A place steeped in Chaos.”

“Excellent, Briene,” Erin nodded. “So we return to Hirot and get Ymae working on her net. When it’s ready, we cleanse these Sunken Fens of its Hound, and whatever other evil we find there. It is a fine plan, and a noble one. How do we avoid the Jarl and his madness until then?”

“And what if the net’s not ready or we can’t find the lair until after tomorrow night?” Haffoot asked. “What do we do about the bloody sacrifice?”

“Something to contemplate on the way back,” Umur said flatly. He looked up at the cloudless sky. “But we should gather the dead and Erin should do her rites. We’re already into the afternoon, and if we don’t make it back by nightfall they’ll lock the gates up tight. I don’t relish another night in the woods.”

For the next hour, they gathered the dead into a grisly pile. Though it felt vile to them all, they rifled through the huntsmen’s possessions for items of value, eventually equipping Joane with Iraco’s longsword and Briene with the best bow and fullest quiver of arrows. Haffoot found a purse upon Iraco’s belt heavy with coin; either the man had recently won at gambling or, more likely, the Jarl had paid him handsomely for today’s ambush. Once the others were done, Hilda stepped in with a dagger from a huntman’s belt to cut hair from each corpse. The others grimaced but let her do the task without comment.

The number of dead outnumbered the living almost two to one, so it was clear they could not transport the bodies back to Hirot through the dense forest. Unsurprisingly, Iraco had come on foot instead of horseback, further limiting their options. It was Briene who said that it was common in Hirot to burn the dead as a tribute to Justicia’s cleansing fire. Erin suggested that doing so may also prevent any of the corpses becoming infected with the serpents from the tomb, and that the number of discarded snakeskins within the false room within far exceeded the three creatures they’d destroyed. Shuddering at this realization, they quickly agreed to build a pyre, despite the waning afternoon sun.

As the fire blazed near the serpentine mound within the clearing, sending a column of smoke up into the open sky, Erin sang out in a haunting prayer.

“O Shul, Silver Lord of the Night,
Guide us through the veil of darkness.
As the moon fades and returns,
So too may we rise from the shadow of death.
Grant us rebirth, as your light renews the sky,
For in your eternal cycle, we find hope,
In your endless rising, we find life anew.
Shul, keeper of time and tides,
Shine upon our souls and lead us back to the light.”

It was perhaps the most reverent moment in Briene and Joane’s young lives, and they both wept openly for their losses and hugged one another long after Erin’s words had ended. For Umur and Haffoot, the hymn was a balm for the lingering malaise of Hilda’s magic, and they found themselves spiritually renewed, even if physically exhausted.

The effect of Erin’s voice upon Hilda was unclear, but she looked upon the cleric with an open, warm smile throughout the brief service. If anyone had watched her, firelight illuminating the shadows beneath her hood, it was akin to the look of an exceedingly proud parent upon a precocious child.

“That’s done, then,” Umur said simply as the pyre smoldered. “Let’s get going.”

The way back to Hirot through the forest should be easier, since they’ve done it before, but time is not on their side. I’ll do an Intelligence roll for Umur, who is their guide. If he hits DC 15, they arrive in Hirot just in time to enter the palisade wall. If he misses DC 5, they will get lost and I’ll figure out a random encounter. Anything in between and they’ll find the way back, but after night has already fallen.

Umur rolls a [14+1] 15! Coolio.

Despite his obvious fatigue, the dwarf guided them expertly back through the forest and occasional marshes to the palisades wall of Hirot. It took all the remaining daylight, and he urged them on at every rest, seemingly motivated by the promise of a comfortable bed over a damp bedroll. By the time they arrived, everyone was sweat-soaked and bedraggled, stumbling their way to the tall gate.

“Ho! Nothan!” Joane called out.

The stern face with the long moustache appeared at the top of the palisades, looking down with some surprise.

“Joane! Where have you been all day, girl?” he barked. Umur and his companions listened carefully to determine if he perhaps knew about Iraco’s ambush and assassination plot, but it seemed the watchman was fixed on the red-haired young woman more than any of the others. Indeed, Nothan seemed not even to note that they had returned with only a fraction of the original group who’d left at dawn. There was rebuke in his words to Joane, but something uncharacteristically gentle as well.

Joane seemed to pick up on the peculiarity. “We were out in the forest. What is it? Has something happened?”

Nothan grimaced. “Come in, girl. Come in, and let’s talk. I’m afraid I do have grim tidings.”

The group exchanged confused looks and entered the village. They were not so alarmed as to have their weapons drawn, but their eyes darted everywhere looking for threat, expecting a second ambush at any moment. The place seemed once again empty, though the few eyes in town watched them with interest.

Tall and whip-thin Nothan barked orders at the two watchmen on duty to close the gate behind them all while he regarded Joane with sorrowful eyes.

“What is it?” Joane demanded. “What is the–”

“Your father’s died,” he responded abruptly. Briene gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. “I’m sorry, Joane. Damndest thing. This afternoon he… well, those present said he just clutched his head and fell over. I– I don’t think there was much pain in it. He passed in a blink.”

He had barely finished his words when the young woman with the red braid was already running for the Wolf-Spear Inn, Nothan shouting after her. The others looked at each other sadly, shaking their heads and moving to follow them both.

Hilda, in the back, pursed her lips in thought. Something about the description of Broegan Cayhurt’s death made her hands itch, and the black rectangle upon her forehead tingled with something she could only describe as amusement.

DCC Character Level 1: Joane Cayhurst