Tag: D&D

ToC01: A Decent Job [with game notes]

On By MagicJMSIn Fantasy Fiction, Tabletop Roleplaying, Tales of Calvenor2 Comments

[prose-only version here]

Artwork by © anaislalovi. All rights reserved

I.

Frostmere 14, Thornsday, Year 731.

The Heart & Dagger tavern crouched near the lakeshore, its weathered sign showing a bleeding heart pierced by a long, crooked dagger. The sign swung gently in the nighttime breeze, lit by two smoky torches that shimmered hauntingly in the chill, lazy lake mist.

Inside, the tavern was low-ceilinged and lantern-lit, dense with the smells of hearth smoke, stale ale, and spiced fish. The oak beams were blackened with age and soot, and voices echoed off mismatched walls. Dunfolk traders, off-duty Iron Thorn enforcers, and a half-dozen loud drunks all competed to be heard over the constant din. Candle stubs guttered atop crowded tables, their wax pooling on warped old boards.

From a back table, Vessa scanned the entrance for the hundredth time, swearing softly. Her long black hair, tied with a frayed leather cord, revealed a sharp, freckled face. With long, lithe fingers, she absently rubbed at her bent nose, something that had become a nervous habit since the accident that broke it two years ago.

“He’s bloody late,” she murmured to her companion. When it was clear she hadn’t been heard she leaned over and said more loudly, “He’s late!”

“You’re too impatient!” Maelen bellowed back. Where Vessa was lean and wiry, built for balance and speed, Maelen was thick and powerful, built for breaking bones. The woman’s pale, nearly amber eyes flicked from Vessa to the entrance and then down at her half-empty mug. Maelen took a long, loud draught, then wiped the back of a calloused hand across her mouth.

Vessa, irritated, barked back, “And you’re too… too… gah!” She threw up both hands. “We need this, Maelen!”

Maelen’s grin showed more predator than warmth. The scar decorating one cheek tugged when she grinned. “He’ll come, lass.”

A small brown mouse scampered across Maelen’s shoulder and curled into the crook of her elbow. The square-jawed woman’s face entirely transformed as she looked down at it, from hard to soft, like a doting mother. With a thick finger, she stroked the small creature’s head. Tatter the mouse had been Maelen’s only friend when Vessa had first been introduced to her two years ago. Now, she supposed, it was only herself and Tatter, with the rest of their crew gone. It was a dark thought, and Vessa scowled back, rubbing at her crooked nose.

Maelen, meanwhile, pushed herself from their table to go order more ale at the bar, reflexively moving Tatter from elbow to shoulder as she stood. Vessa reached for her own mug, hardly touched, and caught a glimpse of the tattoo of a lark upon the inside of her wrist. The glimpse only made her mood darken. Her whole life was a curse. Damn the Larkhands, all dead but her and Maelen. Damn the Latchkey Circle who’d hired them last year. Damn the incident that had killed her friends and left them in debt, scrabbling for scraps ever since. Damn sneaking jobs outside the watch of the Guilds for pips and spare copper oaks. How had her life come to this at only eighteen years old?

As if reading her thoughts, Maelen returned and cuffed her on the shoulder to bring her back to the present. Vessa rocked to one side from the blow and ale sloshed over the side of her mug.

She opened her mouth to complain when she saw him.

A pale-faced young man in robes stood in the doorway, squinting in the candlelight and looking wholly out of place. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but Vessa saw immediately that his body held none of the hard edges of real work, and none of the menace of someone who knew how to wield a blade. That said, he looked like a priest or scholar, not a privileged merchant or noble. His tunic was brown and simple, tied at the waist with a cord, and his boots were beaten and worn.

“He’s here,” Vessa announced with a slap of the table. In one fluid motion she was out of her chair and weaving through the Heart & Dagger’s maze of tables towards the doorway. When she was already within range of a knife thrust, he finally saw her, gray-green eyes going momentarily wide. Up close, he had a handsome enough face, with heavy brows and an obvious sharp wit. He seemed close to her own age, maybe just under twenty.

Once they’d made eye contact, Vessa turned and waved for him to follow. She paused, though, and cocked an eyebrow when she saw the young man’s first, shuffling step. One of his feet turned inward, the leg thinner than its mate. It looked like a condition from birth rather than injury, but regardless, it gave the man a shuffling, loping gait as he made his way across the common room and to the table with Maelen.

His face shone with sweat as he settled into his chair, his eyes darting between the two women. Vessa had to give him credit, though: She was sure he’d never been to the Heart & Dagger before—maybe not even to this side of the lake—but neither his hands nor lips were trembling, and he met their gaze without flinching, even Maelen’s. He might lack a fighter’s build, but at least he wasn’t a coward.

He leaned forward to say something conspiratorially, but his low voice was lost to the din of the crowd. He frowned, clearing his throat, when he realized the predicament.

“Is there a place we can speak privately?” he asked loudly. His voice was rich and deep.

Maelen gave him that malicious grin of hers. “You can say anything in the Heart & Dagger, lad. Don’t waste our bloody time and get on with it.”

He pursed his lips, clearly not liking the situation, and ran a calloused hand through his thick, brown hair. Vessa knew that she was not the most charming or persuasive person in Oakton, but she may have some of the keenest eyes in the city. This man—who she decided was a Marchlander scribe by trade, and a low-ranking one at that—was a thinker, a planner. He hadn’t expected such a chaotic, noisy conversation and was now adjusting his approach. Vessa could almost see his mind working, like a great water mill. After no more than three heartbeats, he nodded almost imperceptibly and straightened his posture.

“Alright,” he said, leaning forward again but this time speaking so they could hear him. “I need an escort, out of the city and over the western hills. Perhaps two days’ travel, and back. I was told you were available to hire.”

“Out of the city?” Maelen scoffed. “You need a ranger, lad. Do we look like woodsmen to you?”

Vessa shot her companion a sharp look. They needed the coin, desperately. Even the expense of Maelen’s refill of ale gave Vessa heartburn. But her friend just winked at her and fixed her dark grin on the stranger.

“I don’t need a ranger,” he said, nonplussed. Vessa noticed an ink stain on the inside of one finger. “I have a map. What I need is protection,” he nodded to Maelen, “And a thief,” he nodded to Vessa.

So. The scribe had done his homework. This whole situation had the Latchkey Circle’s footprints all over it, but then she supposed all their jobs did since… the incident. Normally, she’d have interrogated him about how he got their names, but she guessed it came through a chain of middlemen. He likely had no idea that he was dealing with one of the most powerful and least known guilds in Oakton, or that she and Maelen were so deep in debt to the Circle that they would accept his job no matter how little it paid.

The man clearly misinterpreted their silence, because he reached into his robe and pulled out a fat purse that he dropped onto the table before them.

“I have coin,” he announced. “One hundred thorns for the job. Sixty now, forty when I’m back here safely.”

Maelen snarled and grabbed the man by the front of his robes, pulling him into half-standing. “You bloody idiot! Lower your voice!”

“But you said–”

“That was before I knew you brought a sack of silver that could get us all gutted,” she hissed, and then released his robe. She nodded to Vessa, who swept the purse off the table and into her lap faster than a blink. It sat there heavily, and she didn’t need to count them to know the coins were indeed thorns, and a lot of them. She nodded back to Maelen.

The scribe looked momentarily confused, straightening his robe. “She took the purse,” he said. “Does that mean you accept?”

Maelen’s eyes scanned the tables around them to see if anyone had overheard or seen the money. Finally, she licked her lips, slapped the table, and stood.

“When do we leave?” she smiled at him, her scar tugging at her cheek and making Maelen look somewhat crazed.

“Oh! Very good. Tomorrow morning?” he also stood. Vessa stayed sitting, the heavy purse weighing on her thighs. “How about we meet at the Root Gate?”

“Done,” Maelen nodded. “Watch yourself getting home, lad, and we’ll see you at first light.”

“My name’s Alric,” he said.

“Don’t care,” Maelen scoffed. Her face hardened as she jerked a thumb to the doorway. “Now get out. We’ll be seeing enough of each other over the next four days.”

“But–” he sighed. “Fine.”

As the young man shuffled his way awkwardly out of the Heart & Dagger, Vessa caught Maelen’s wide smile, displaying her chipped front tooth, and grinned back. Perhaps the Gambler had finally decided to favor them, after all.

We gotta start this new story in a tavern, right? I had this opening scene in my mind when I rolled up the three PCs, with Alric hiring the indebted Vessa and Maelen to accompany him on a quest to find some ruins in the forest. I decided to pool their silver coins from character creation and then have Alric give them over as a first payment (and no, he doesn’t have the second payment, the silly man), which helps establish their starting wealth.

But I’m not working from a prewritten adventure, and so whether they actually go find ruins in the outlying forest is an open question. In fact, my first roll is going to be a fun one: On the Carousing table! Vessa is not what you’d call “responsible with money” and so will blow through some of their newfound wealth before ever meeting up with Alric in the morning.

A few things about carousing in Tales of Argosa: First, it costs at least 20 silvers, so the purse is automatically lighter by a third. Second, it can lead to its own adventures, which could take our opening tale into some unpredictable and wild directions. Let’s see. The Carousing Table is d100, and I roll a 96. That gives me—gulp!—this result:

“Fool’s Dare: While highly intoxicated, a fool’s dare or act of bravado causes you to (i) shave your head, (ii) shave your eyebrows, (iii) pull out a tooth, (iv) kidnap one of the watch’s hounds, (v) steal the watch’s lucky anvil, (vi) kidnap a maligned merchant, hog tie them naked to a horse, then set them loose in the main street. Make a Luck save. On a fail, the guards know it was you (2d6 months prison, 1d6 x 100 sp fine, and kidnapping brand on forearm).

Whoah! Rather than assume that all of that happened, I’m going to roll a d6 for how many of those things occurred on Vessa’s night of revelry. Four. She: a) kidnapped one of the watch’s hounds, b) shaved her head, c) pulled out a tooth, and d) stole the watch’s… something (maybe not an anvil, which is difficult to picture, but something important).

Now we get to the Luck roll, which will be a straight d20 roll versus her current Luck score of 11. She needs a result of 11 or less (everything except attack rolls in Tales is “roll under”), so she has a 55% chance of success here. I roll… 3. Whew. So Vessa will not be actively wanted by the Oakton authorities. She also gains 1 xp for her night of debauchery (for reference, level 2 is at 10 xp). That’s the good news. The bad news is that she’ll start the journey into the forest down a Luck point as, even on a success, the score drops to 10 until she gets a week of rest (i.e. after this quest).

I’ll increase the Mythic Chaos Factor from 5 to 6 for the next time the PCs are together, signaling that they are a little less in control of the plot than they’d want. What does the Chaos Factor do? When I ask Yes/No questions to determine outcomes, the higher the Chaos Factor, the more often the answer is “Yes.” It’s a neat ebb-and-flow mechanic for storytelling that will become evident as we go.

Frostmere 15, Goldday, Year 731.

Vessa woke because someone was licking her face. She groaned and shrank away from the offending tongue. Blinking woozily, Vessa attempted to gain her bearings. She lay atop a straw pallet, and she had that cotton-headed feel, so familiar to her, of a night inhaling too much lotus leaf.

“By the Rootmother,” she wheezed, running a hand over her face. She moved her fingers higher and found only a thin layer of stubble where her hair had been long and tangled the night before.

Vessa sat up straight, blinking. Stubble?

A dog sat a stride away from her, panting happily and tongue lolling. Right. Someone had been licking her face, and it was, apparently, the hound.

She groaned again and ran a palm over her shaved head. Where had her hair gone? And… her tongue probed a gap at the side of her mouth… why was she missing a tooth?

Vessa scanned her surroundings. Other than the dog, she was alone. It appeared that she had not been sleeping on a straw pallet, but simply straw. It was a barn, and not a particularly clean one. She was still clothed in her leathers, which was a blessing, and both shortsword and dagger lay unbuckled nearby. Apparently, she’d come here of her own volition, not been dumped unconscious.

In a flash of panic, she patted her belt but heard the jingle of silver coins. Vessa still had the money from that scribe at the Heart & Dagger, or least most of it. Well, some of it, anyway. The problem with heavy purses, she found, was that she used them for lotus leaf. And drink. And gambling. And brawling. And usually sex. She gently probed her face and neck with long fingers, then stretched. She wasn’t injured, thank the gods, so maybe last night had been more drink and lotus, and less of the rest.

That’s when she felt something else in her pouch, sitting oddly and poking her in the ribs. After some fumbling, she pulled it out and examined it. The item was a heavy piece of polished brass, about the size of a large walnut, shaped into a hexagonal stamp. Its face bore the stylized sigil of Oakton—the Argenoak framed by twin scales—and ringed in delicate, curling script spelling out “By Order of the Castellan.” Its handle was bound in dark, cracked leather to give a firm grip, and the underside was caked with red, waxy residue. A thin iron chain, snapped at the clasp, dangled from a drilled hole in its spine.

A writ-seal? From a clerk of the Castellan? Vessa shook her head, trying desperately to recall the previous evening after the Heart & Dagger. The hound panted its way closer, pressing its head into her hand. She stroked it behind the ears idly, her mind working slowly at the problem of a strange barn, friendly dog, and a government writ-seal.

“Shit!” she exclaimed, startling the animal, who yelped and jumped away, tail between legs.

Vessa buckled on her weapons and started running, the mysteries of the evening forgotten. It had just occurred to her that light had been slanting into the barn from outside. Sunlight.

Wherever she was, it wasn’t the Root Gate. She was late, very late, for the first decent job she’d landed in a year.

Next: Into the woods [with game notes]

Portal Under the Stars, Chapter 3

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Fantasy Fiction, Tabletop Roleplaying5 Comments

Introduction: Portal Under the Stars Playthrough

Portal Under the Stars, Chapter 1

Portal Under the Stars, Chapter 2

The seven remaining Graymoor residents, in wonder, examined their surroundings. The room they found themselves in was rectangular and larger even than where they’d just escaped the deadly, fire-spewing statue. This space was dominated by an enormous pool of water running the entire length of the room. Something shone from beneath the water’s surface, illuminating the polished walls and ceiling with dancing, spectral light. A walkway of stone surrounded the pool, and along the western and eastern sides were several pillars reaching floor-to-ceiling. In the far, northeastern corner, Leda spied a doorway.

“It’s beautiful,” Erin Wywood, the minstrel, sighed.

“Oh, but– oh no!” Hilda Breadon whispered urgently. The baker looked incongruous wearing pieces of enameled, black armor while wielding a rolling pin in one of her large hands. “Something’s moving. There! Between the pillars.”

They all froze. Indeed, it wasn’t a single humanoid figure moving, but perhaps half a dozen. All of the creatures, it seemed, were shuffling their way towards them. The movements were stilted and slow, like a puppet on the end of a beginner’s strings.

All around Leda, hands gripped weapons, and Umur drew his short sword from its scabbard. Veric Cayfield even fumbled in the pouch at his hip and pulled forth a pair of iron scissors.

Leda, for her part, left her father’s sword sheathed. She had never drawn it in combat–never fought with any weapon, really. Instead, she involuntarily made fists at her side, hands shaking, and her back still throbbing with pain.

The nearest, shambling figure rounded a pillar and came fully into view. It was a human woman, except that she seemed to be made entirely of a translucent crystal. Because of her glasslike nature and the shimmering light, it was difficult to make out too many features, but the details were astounding. The figure looked exactly like an armored, barefoot woman, yet transformed to crystal.

“What– what is it?” Ethys Haffoot gasped.

“Traps, not monsters,” Veric whispered fervently. Leda saw that his hands were shaking far worse than her own, the scissors bobbing in the air in front of him. “Traps, not monsters. Traps, not monsters.”

The crystalline figures are not inherently dangerous, but they will defend themselves if attacked. So the question is: Are any of the PCs dumb or nervous enough to attack unprovoked? I’m going to say that Ethys, Umur, and Erin are all too smart to be reckless. For DCC, Intelligence is a combined stat for what D&D would call Intelligence and Wisdom. From the DCC rulebook: Intelligence is the “ability to discern information, retain knowledge, and assess complex situations.” It’s that last bit that matters here.

There is only one PC currently alive that has a negative modifier to Intelligence, and that is sadly Councilwoman Leda Astford (she has a very high Personality, which is how she became an elected leader). So let’s roll a DC 10 check, giving her a 50/50 shot at success…

Leda rolls a (17-1) 16. Whew.

The crystal figure approached Erin, who reached out a hand in awe and touched its unmoving face. The animated sculpture crowded closer, seeking the minstrel’s outstretched hand. Everyone else tensed.

Then Erin’s freckled face split into a wide smile. “They aren’t dangerous, are they? More like a stray dog needing attention. Why do you think they’re here? What is this place?”

Slowly, haltingly, the other crystal figures came nearer. They stood near the group of Graymoor residents and otherwise did nothing. It was a mixture of male and female sculptures, and the detail from whoever sculpted them was astounding. Up close, Leda could see individual folds in cloth, and each face had its own distinct personality.

Umur stood away from them, close to the pool’s edge, and peered downward.

“Looks like jewels or gems of some kind,” he said gruffly, but his voice was tinged with amazement. “On the bottom of the pool. Glowing gems, if I’m seeing it clearly.”

“I wish that our jeweler Egerth was here,” Bern Erswood said. In his leather armor and holding a spear of jet black, he looked the most like a warrior of any of them. The well-liked herbalist squinted, trying to see though the shimmering water clearly, then looked up to the group. “Where is Egerth, by the way? Did the fire get him?”

“No,” Ethys Haffoot said, the single word dripping with venom. “Selfish bastard watched Giliam die and closed the door in me face.

“Should– should we go back? Find him?” Veric asked in a small voice, not standing on the pool’s edge but stroking the back of a crystalline figure like one might a cat.

“No,” Ethys replied immediately. “He deserves whatever he gets. Bastard!” And then the young halfling burst into tears.

Leda moved to embrace her, and Ethys melted into the hug. She cried for several minutes, face buried in Leda’s enameled, scaled armor, while the councilwoman patted Ethys’ twin braids.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” she said gently. After a long while, Ethys stilled and sniffled, pulling herself from Leda and nodding in thanks.

Hilda stood next to Umur and the two of them continued to peer into the water. “If those are jewels, shouldn’t someone dive in to get them?” she asked. “Isn’t that what Old Bert said? We could change our fortunes? It doesn’t look so deep.” She looked around at the others helplessly, eyes pleading and clearly not interested in exploring the water herself.

“I can do it,” announced Ethys, wiping her nose with a sleeve. “Even with me foot, I s’pose I’m the best swimmer here.”

“If Veric is right,” Umur grumped. “This smells like a trap t’me. Soon as you dive in, lass, I suspect these statues’ll be a lot less friendly. Or somethin’ else more horrible.”

“It’s worth it, though, yeah?” Ethys said with chin raised proudly. “We can’t have come here for nothin’.” And without further conversation, the halfling handed her tall spear to Erin and dove gracefully into the pool.

Leda tensed, hand on the hilt of her sword. But as Ethys’ body disappeared below the water’s surface, the statues did not move or change their behavior. Neither did the chamber fill with poisonous gas, spikes drop from the ceiling, or any number of other visions that filled Leda’s imagination.

In a dozen heartbeats, Ethys gasped to the surface. She was grinning as she swam leisurely to the pool’s edge, legs like a frog.

“With my knife I got a couple free!” she announced, tossing them to Umur’s feet. “Must be hundreds of them down there. Be right back!”

Umur knelt, grunting with the effort, and plucked one of the jewels from the floor. Hilda picked up the other one.

“Looks valuable, yeah?” Hilda whistled. Umur grunted in assent.

Ethys was indeed a capable swimmer. She stayed below the water far longer than the others likely could have managed, and each time she surfaced she tossed more beautiful gemstones to the floor at their feet. What was initially two jewels became ten, then twenty, and each one a luminescent white. Beautiful.

The halfling trader surfaced, paddling closer to the edge and for once not depositing any treasure to the pile.

“Is that all you can pry loose then?” Hilda asked, marveling at the gems in her meaty palm. “A good haul.”

“Oh, I could get all of ‘em,” Ethys said, and Lena noticed suddenly that the girl looked worried. “Only, I think pryin’ ‘em loose is doin’ somethin’.”

“Doin’ what, then?” Umur frowned deeply, pulling at his beard with one hand, something she’d never seen him do before. His eyes scanned the chamber in alert.

“I think– I think the water’s drainin’ out,” Ethys replied, swiveling her head up to the dwarf. “I’m leavin’ holes on the bottom of the pool.”

As she said the words, Lena realized the truth of it. The pool was already several fingerspans lower than it was when the brave halfling had first jumped in, and there was an almost imperceptible hum of water like a drain in a washtub. She turned to Umur, and the dwarf frowned deeply. “What does it mean, stonemason? Anyone?”

I feel like I’m relying on Intelligence checks a lot, but I think that may be the way of solo play in a dungeon full of traps. In many cases, I can predict how characters might react to a situation. But how logical they’ll be about the information in front of them and how much they’ll see potential consequences… that’s more difficult for me to judge without a group of players.

So, we roll. I’ll again rely on the smarties in the group: Erin, Ethys, and Umur. I’ll make the DC to discern the implications of the draining water 15.

Erin rolls a [3+1] 4.

Ethys rolls a [11+1] 12.

Finally, Umur rolls a [10+1] 11.

Nope. None of the usually logical members of the party quite figure out what’s happening here.

The room looked back at her, blank-faced and shrugging. Certainly, the crystalline figures hadn’t changed their behavior; the translucent creatures huddled near members of their group passively and silently, seemingly unperturbed by either the stolen jewels or draining water.

“I suppose the water leaving is a good thing, then,” Hilda offered hesitantly. “It means it’s easier to reach the gems, right?”

“Alrighty, then,” Ethys said, and disappeared again beneath the surface.

For several more minutes, Ethys did her work. Leda and Bern, meanwhile, joined Umur in scanning for danger, her standing by the dwarf’s side and him wandering around the pool’s perimeter. Erin and Veric spent their time talking and interacting with the crystal figures, to no obvious effect. Hilda, meanwhile, never took her avaricious gaze from the growing pile of jewels at her feet. With wonder, the baker knelt and ran her fingers through the gemstones, counting quietly.

“That’s forty-five of them,” she breathed excitedly. “We’re truly all going to be wealthy, aren’t we?”

At Leda’s side, Umur grunted skeptically.

Bern, meanwhile, had made his way to the northeastern corner of the long, rectangular room, where the second door stood closed.

“Should I open it?” he called in a low, loud whisper.

“Absolutely not!” Umur’s bushy eyebrows climbed his forehead, and he again pulled his beard. “By the gods, man! Once Ethys has the rest of the gems, we leave!”

At this point the water level in the pool was only knee-high. Rather than dive, Ethys stooped down to work her knife. When she had another handful, she straightened to her full height, dripping, to make her way back to the pile at Hilda’s feet.

“Five more,” she grinned. It’s getting easi–”

Her words cut off as a giant THUNK! echoed in the chamber. Ethys cried out as she stumbled. Everyone’s eyes bulged with alarm.

“What was that?” Erin gasped.

“The floor–” Ethys splashed her way, stepping with high knees, to the shallow pool’s edge. “It buckled! I think pulling the gems is making it weaker or–” And then another THUNK!

Hilda was frantically grabbing as many loose gems from the floor as she could. Ethys deftly swung up and grabbed a large piece of folded sailcloth she’d brought, helping collect the shining jewels.

“Hurry, hurry!” Hilda yelled. “Help us!”

Leda and Umur rushed to comply, but Erin and Veric were rushing north to Bern’s side.

“This way!” Bern yelled to them across the chamber. “I’ve opened the door! It’s a stairwell!”

Leda was about to argue that they should escape the way they’d come, but then a sudden vision of that enormous statue, finger outstretched, filled her mind. She cursed.

“Let’s go. Follow Bern,” she urged. Umur helped her up, both wincing in pain from their earlier wounds. A quick glance and she saw that the water was almost gone now, draining quickly out of the holes left by fifty missing jewels. “We should hurry,” she panted.

As they all rushed to the doorway, the crystal figures shambled haltingly, following. They moved at a quarter of even the club-footed Ethys’ speed.

“Should we wait for them?” Erin asked, concern in her eyes.

There was another shudder from the pool’s floor, echoing.

“No,” Leda said with finality. She slammed the wooden door shut behind her.

As Bern had described, a spiraled staircase awaited them all, plunging down into darkness. Something from the pool room crashed and boomed.

They descended.

Portal Under the Stars, Chapter 4