The Fearless DM

This is an ongoing report of the Black Key- a Cyclopedia/Labyrinth Lord megadungeon campaign that takes place on Thursdays. The characters are first level, and it’s kinda starting to get real.

Our gang (Hafrazyn the fighter, Aelfwine the magic-user, Beldrin the thief, Dariel the thief, Trugilio the fighter, Balinor the dwarf), headed back into the Black Key after recruiting Bloody Rose Red, a disreputable young priestess of Arawn. They brought with them an assortment of hirelings including 3 porters (who Hafrazyn was in the process of arming and training- I only remember one was named Skip because.. well read on), a mercenary of the Black Riders named Shemp, and Olaf the Peasant.

They headed back to the dungeon, and noticed that the skeletons had re-formed themselves in the old  niche.. but decided not to mess with that area. After wandering around a bit, the group uncovered a series of alcoves that displayed scenes of a possible future- many of the scenes were similar to the scenes from my own notional version of the hallucinatory hell (like a Lynch movie or the Garden of Earthly Delights)..

Most of the alcoves were scenes like this:

“   B: In this scene, a pale old man dressed in a priests robes and carrying a staff seems to be riding a white crocodile down into a darkened valley. He seems to get further and further away. After a moment, human children appear from the shadows and begin following him in a solemn procession. The scene fades to black and does not repeat.”

These are clues about the nature of the demons, and possible futures.

One of the scenes was an attempt at actual communication:

“D. In this alcove a scholarly looking donkey-headed man is studying a scroll in a sumptious study. He wears deep purple scholars robes and wears glasses. Eventually, he seems to notice  ​ whoever is looking at him and he holds up the scroll so that the players can see. It bears the  single word ”Samigim” and an inscription that says ”Liberate me”. This vision seems to cut off  suddenly and does not repeat itself. “

This is a clue for later, this entity is further in the dungeon, trying to use the alcove illusions to communicate with a possible liberator.

Further in, they did actually break the seal of a unicorn-headed demon prisoner called Amdusias- who exchanged knowledge of a spell for his freedom in gratitude, and whom Rose Red decided to seduce while the rest came up with a plan to kill him. During this plan (which amounted to “we gank him in the hallway”, if I recall..) , however, things went horribly wrong. Olaf was accidentally splashed with flaming oil, and died horribly, and Dariel the thief was speared through the heart with the unicorns horn. But they did kill him, eventually.

So I did feel a bit of DM remorse for this death. Dariel had just pulled off a brilliant backstab and was making a retreat in the next round while the main fighters moved up. But Amdusias won initiative and killed the thief before he could get away. Amdusias was then cut down, moments later by the dwarf.

The fact is, even a single weapon attack (and Amdusias was able to do 1d12+2 damage) could kill a level 1 PC, with his 6-10 hit points or so. Even a dagger does 1d4. A housecat does 1d3/1d3.

It was early in the night so the player started making a new guy immediately (“A cleric, so I can heal myself!”) and we brought him in quick. I had not even considered the possibility of raise dead in this campaign yet.

Later on, on a visit to a local witches cottage, (the aim- to sell the Unicorn horn that the demon had) they were beset by giant ticks and lost two more hirelings- one of the porters (named Skip) and Shemp the mercenary. During this battle the dwarf was also infected by a fatal disease.

So in the end they *did* sell the unicorn horn, but then paid back about 25% of it in order to cure the dwarf. And then back in town Hafrazyn had to explain to Skip’s poor old mum why he had been killed by giant ticks in the swamp.

Later on, they returned to the dungeon! So, on a second foray they got lost in the dungeon, (with many barbs being thrown at poor Aelfwine who had been the designated cartographer for the expedition. Aelfwine was not really at fault, it’s hard to map an elaborate dungeon just via descriptions and my room and corridor descriptions can leave a bit to be desired..) but eventually they did two things: they uncovered the staircase leading down to the third level of the dungeon.. and they backtracked and went a bit further until they reached one of the key areas of the dungeon where the ‘story of the dungeon’ (future post) starts to unfold. They found a pair of cushioned divans and some kind of medieval dentist/torture/surgical machinery with swiveling arms and instruments.. and a sealed set of cupboards with a rune-inscribed wax seal. They knew at this point it was a trap. After much deliberation, Hafrazyn opened the cupboard which blew the seals on a gas-trap that immediately killed one of a pair of goblin hirelings that Rose Red had picked up, and Beldrin and Aelfwine both.. they failed saves, the gas killed them.

This was near the end of the night and I could feel there was some disappointment (they were on the verge of leveling to 2, had scoured the level to defeat most of my toughest traps, including a very clever workaround to a drowning-room trap). So we established on the spot: intact corpses can be raised for 500gp, provided you get back to town within 5 days. I then felt a bit bad for the guy that had his character killed early on. 

Beldrins Player also went on to point out- that the thief find/remove percentages are really too low to be of any use- I’m better off with an ad hoc system of description and negotiation “ok, you see the wax seal, what do you do?”  I.. get my dagger out and carefully peel the corner off? Wait, I clear the room first..everyone get out. “

This to me, seems a more natural fit for the rules we are using rather than percentage rolls or whatever.

I was free with the description of the wax seal once it was searched out, and Hafrazyn did pop open the cupboard (thus killing two party members and a hireling) without any real attempt to disarm the trap, but I think I should probably give them a more explicit clue that the wax can be peeled back carefully next time. In any case.. magic books in the cupboard! We ended there and started counting out gold to raise dead on the two deceased party members. 500 gp is a suitable ‘death penalty’ as far as I’m concerned.

The trap has since been revised a bit: rather than 2d6 damage, I bumped it down a bit (to 2d4) and provided instructions for carefully removing the wax seal once detected. But still, hey, can’t make a deathtrap dungeon without deathtraps!