Gaming in Feb 2023

Having to take a lot of odd days off work before the end of the leave year in March, I thought I would be able to get to some of the regular weekend games I normally have to miss.  Of course, it didn't work out that way...

• 4 Feb - Rambling Through the Shudders - (Dungeon Crawl Classics)
• 7 Feb - The Evils of Illmire - (Old School Essentials)
• 15 Feb - The Evils of Illmire - (Old School Essentials)

Rambling Through the Shudders

A one-off using Dungeon Crawl Classics rule system.  I'm not sure what I make of DCC.  The system itself seems nice, but the (admittedly less than half a dozen) games I've played seem thin.  This is probably because they were one-off 0-Level funnel games with the sole intent of winnowing out characters.

In this game, four of us set out with four characters each, we met ghosties and were subsequently reduced to five characters between us.  So far so good - meh!  But it was an enjoyable evening and a good session.

The DM is giving some thought to running another game with our newly-levelled characters and my regular group is also signed up for some DCC tournament action, so I may get a better feel for it all in the near future.   [Sadly, since I wrote this at the beginning of the month, I've heard that the tournament is off as only two teams signed up for it.  Nevertheless, there may be opportunities for more DCC action as the year progresses.]

The Evils of Illmire

• 7 Feb - Session 3: Let's Give the Elf a Big Hand

The party picked up the pieces following the death of Darius, the more flamboyant of our thieves.  They continued on towards the Loggers' Camp, where they were welcomed with hospitality by Rigdorf.  He told them more of the district's lore and offered them a quest - to stop the raids by the pesky fishfolk.  He even lent them one of his crew - the half-orc Yancy (new PC) - to help in their search for Yorivar, the missing Druid.

Deciding to carry on with this search before taking up any more side-quests, the party skirted around the Impenetrable Thicket, avoided the Misty Lake, and ended up stumbling across the Lost Crypts.

These they entered, immediately encountering a group of hostile culitsts.  Having fought them off, they attempted to interrogate a captive who, though he spouted some interesting doctrine about The Fearmother, gave little information of practical use before managing to comit implausible suicide.  Perhaps the items recovered from the bodies would give more clues...

Delving further in, the party discovered puzzles and iconography that suggested that the crypt-builders had some affinity with raccoons.  They discovered that the crypts weren't empty, having to fight off two determined fire beetles and later finding a half-rotted mummy.  (Much hilarity, when a disembodied hand grabbed at the leg of the Elf paddling in the mirky crypt-pool.) 

We wound up the session with the party trying to navigate a skull-lined room, which they guessed might be a classic step-in-the-wrong-place-and-get-an-arrow-trap, and then confirmed the hard way.

• 15 Feb - Session 4: Did Someone Say "Skeletons"?

Exploration of the crypts followed.  The party carefully (and slowly!) navigated the trapped room, only to find that the next one contained two Guardian Skeletons.  These they fought, rather than retreat back into the potentially leathal room (they didn't trust several hints that they'd disengaged the mechanism). 

 

The Guardians were - naturally enough - guarding the final room, which contained the tomb of the chief of the Racoon Tribe.  Unfortunately, he was also an Undead Spellcaster and a rather tough cookie.  In the fight that followed, not only did they loose their only remaining NPC -  Jonas Redeye the Goatman - but also out longest-surviving PC - Eldar the Thief.  One other PC was serverely wounded and unconsious, and another had received an arrow in friendly-fire.

Sensibly, the survivors decided to hunker down and spend the night barricaded in the tomb room.  Our Friar was able to apply healing herbs and, after a night's rest, call upon divine healing.  Despite strange nightmares, everyone rested and even had the time to rig up prank traps with frying pans.

Cheiftan's tomb looted, time to go home you'd think?  No! Our intrepid crew pressed on...

Further corridors, further rooms....

One contained five more animated skeletons, which were successfully turned by the Friar and ran off into a dead-end.  Rather that leave them harmlessly bumping away into the wall, the party decided that it was best to pick them off one-by-one in case they became unturned later.  Of course, the party had seen a lot of action, and it only took one good hit from a skeleton to kill Yancy our Half-Orc Lumberjack.

Two PCs and an NPC down, and you'd think that it might not be best to open any more doors.  Or, if you did and there was a sarcophagus in the room, to keep clear of it.   Especially, it contained the skeleton of the tribe's pet Dire Racoon...

Our final casualty of the day was good old Friar Ignatius Luncheon.

Of the five PCs and one NPC who'd entered the crypts, only two were still alive.  Now it was time to go home.