[Review] The Black Hack

The Black Hack pdf can be bought from RPGNow.

The Black Hack is an OSR game inspired by 70's original rules and a result of very successful Kickstarter. I was going to review this immediately after getting the pdf reward, but decided to postpone, as the first version was really unsatisfying and they were going to update it soon. Now that I have the new(est) version of The Black Hack, I am ready to review it, as many of the flaws I (and probably many others) had pointed out to the creator.

With The Black Hack you get a simple system with unified mechanics across all the things you want to do in a roleplaying games. With familiar six attributes from Dungeons & Dragons, you roll under for skill checks (attribute checks), to attack, to avoid being attacked, and to save versus various effects and dangers. Basically this means you don't need all kinds of attribute modifiers and sub-systems. Everything is d20 roll under. That is simple, and quick, and even though it reduces every bit of attribute bonuses and usages and sub-systems and whatever downgrading the game into extremely simple one-rail system actually downgrading into the core simplicity of original alternative attribute test rule, it is extremely innovative. You get to keep the old-school feel and high compability with other OSR games' stats with a different kind of a system. This is what is great with OSR: Whitehack is different from Labyrinth Lord which is different from Basic Fantasy which is different from The Black Hack, yet all these different systems are highly compatible with six same attributes with same ranges, and with AC and HD. Even though AC is different from damage reducing to ascending to descending, you can easily convert them around.

Being a different game with similar stats really makes The Black Hack stand out in the crowd of clones. You get D&D feel with different rules. And there is a reason to use these rules, if you want something simple, easy, and quick, but still want to play D&D.

One innovative thing is also penalties from example armor. If you are not proficient in armor you wear, you add the armor's protection value to your roll under roll result. The better (higher points) your armor is you are not proficient with, more likely you fail the task tests. Great! There is one problem with armor, though. Armor points reduce as much as they reduce the damage taken, until you rest. The explanation is, that the character is too tired or wounded to use the armor efficiently before resting. I find this a bit unsatisfying, when a leather armor protects you from 2 points. That is less than average damage from an attack dealing 1d6 of damage, and half of dagger (1d4) attacks make your leather armor using too demanding... Deadly, and makes armors one-hit-protectors. Advantage is that you cannot be this knight in a tin can no one can hit, but disadvantage is that armor makes little difference.

Instead of different save values for different things like poison or wands, you roll under your attribute to save. This is great! All attributes are equally important, not only to bend bars and sneak, and attack, but also for this! In other games save score is attached to character's class and level. When you level your save gets better. In The Black Hack when you level (no experience points, you level after a session or adventure, or when Game Master decides), you try to roll higher than your attribute score to raise it. Similar system you can find in Call Of Cthulhu for skills. And I like it; the better/higher your attribute is, harder it is to increase and develop it!

Two-handed weapons, critical damage, and effects of dropping below 0 HP are all discussed, which are not necessarily covered in original edition(s) or other OSR games. There's even an advantage/disadvantage system similar to Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition presented.

Inventory rules are what I like a lot, thanks to Lamentations Of The Flame Princess, where instead of weight you consider sizes. Innovation in The Black Hack is usages. Instead of keeping track of how many items you own of a certain type, you track usage dice. Roll 1-2 on a die, and it drops to one category lower. This is brilliant!

The four basic classes even with not that much technical data are different from each other, which is naturally good. There are no races, but I don't mind. The Black Hack can very well be grittier human-only monsters-are-monsters-not-your-friendly-companions.

There are few changes to magic rules. Usually slots you memorize spells in are slots you can cast spells "from". So if your character has two first level slots and one second level slot (third level cleric - this is basically the table found in other OSR games to determine how many spells your caster can memorize per day). When casting a spell and a save is failed, you reduce one spell slot of corresponding level of the spell. So, you can cast lots of spells and only a failed save cuts back your daily spell casting limits. You can cast directly from a book or memorize spells to automatically cast them without referring to that clumsy old tome. The text in spells section is a bit unclear, so I hope I understood it correctly.

Spell descriptions are short, but enough. Same with monsters. Even though they are (now) arranged in descending HD order, the monsters of same HD are not in alphabetical order. Frustrating flaw. HD 3 monsters are listed in this order:
Bugbear, Harpy, Wererat, Shadow, Doppleganger, Wight.
A small flaw, but annoying.

Character sheet is neat. It would be awesome in all it's minimalistic glory only if "spells" section was more useful. Many games have a sucking spells section in their character sheet.

Last page is an example of play. It is not that bad giving all kinds of different situations how to use rules, but it is plagued with typos.

ORIGINAL FLAWS

• Poor editing (somehow edited)
• Text a bit unclear at times (lots of inprovement)
• Chapters badly organized (quite the same)
• No spell list (added)
• Monsters in random order instead of alphabetic or HD (organized with HD)
• Banishing undead written so that you roll for each individual undead (fixed to groups of undead)

Biggest problem for me was the abstinence of spell list. The author explained, that you can get the spells from any of other games, so he didn't want to increase the page count with them. My argument was, that as The Black Hack is a small game and would be a stand-alone game with spells, it would be extremely stupid to carry a big hardcover (or whatever edition and version you take spells from) with a small game like this. My suggestion was to make spell list like in Tunnels & Trolls earlier editions, or like the monster entries, one liners.

Now as there are spells, this can be used as a complete game and you don't need to carry your big bulky PHB (or whatever rules with spells) with you to actually use The Black Hack.

Original score would have been:

4/5 for cool ideas and house rules

2/5 as a full game

Score for current edition 1.1.

4/5 for being a full game with neat ideas and simple playability

Forsaken Soul session 1: Faces Without Screams

Campaign idea draft and rules draft can be found HERE.

The Character

A student in a mages' school who got sick of slow pace of learning. She wanted true power, not to start with controlling some light balls. So she left to pursue eldrich knowledge on her own. Unfortunately she was killed by a wild animal during her journey. But death is not the end, and now she is forsaken...

The Mini Manor: Faces Without Screams

(You can get this adventure from RPGNow for free. I'm a lucky SOB for owning a print copy of it! +Tim Shorts is one of my favorite adventure writer and I highly recommend his stuff!

DISCLAIMER: This post will include spoilers of aforementioned adventure! I made some minor changes during the play, though.

Shackled, naked, a big guy cutting up faces of other chained persons. Nameless removes a sharp bone from severed foot waiting for the big guy to get closer. Then she attacks. She only deals one point of damage, but wins initiative attacking again again and dealing 4 more points of damage (exploding dice). Big guy misses critically and slips on bloody floor missing his next round. Nameless stabs the guy on neck killing him and taking the key. Then unshackles herself and opens the door to a corridor...

Slowly proceeding she passes the first crossing pushing forward, until she finds a dead corpse wearing a leather armor and a short sword leaning against the wall (random encounter, actuall). The corpse is rotting and bloated and in his cut wounds awful maggots roam. Nameless is considering should she take the armor and the sword, as they are on corpse slime, but decides to cover her naked body with some kind of a protection...

She passes the next opening to the right but decides to check out the following to the right. Behind a corner there is a beastly man chained on the wall; he is covered with spikes, and he growls animalisticly and madly at Nameless. Luckily the shackle restrains the spiked man-beast from making contact to Nameless, who decides to withdraw back to the main corridor.

In the end of the main corridor there is a door, barred from this side. As Nameless approaches it, she feels how air gets chilly and she can see her breath. Lifting the boards, she hears whispers behind her but no one's there. Determined she enters the room...

A desk with two candles and a chair, nothing more. She goes to the desk ready to search it, finding a parchment on it. She reads it - "Welcome" -  and the door shuts in before her. And a face appears and whispers get really loud. She ignores the face, saves versus the whispers few times (failing once and losing one point of Wisdom) and searched the room to find a new placing on the wall. She broke it with the pommer of her newly found short sword to discover a hidden Soul Dunjon. The soul dunjon is a vessel with prisoned souls. Mages use these kind of "batteries" for eldrich purposes. But undead and forsaken like Nameless could use it to power herself (edible soul experience). Away from the room and back to the corridor.

Nameless doesn't want to go back to where spiked man was so she decides to go to the corridor next to it. In the end she finds a door of hundreds of faces. As she touches it she feels pain, but bears it (save successful), and the faces start to move. Inside is an empty huge room where a corridor leads onwards.

This corridor has a metal veil preventing the spirits to venture any further. After the veil is a red carpet leading into a big room. In the middle of this big room there is a comely man wearing a dress (originally a female, but for a female player I switched gender). He invites Nameless to step further, but she dithers. Man shows off his gown made out of faces stitched together, all faces blink and open their mouths without a sound. Then man winks and hows Nameless' own face sewed on the gown! And Nameless touches her face, but there is only bone and muscles and soft tissue, not faces of her!

Man declares, that even though Nameless is interesting and all, it would not be fair to other victims of him if Nameless didn't also die. So he attacks. But Nameless initiative kick ass and she stabs her shortsword deep int the guts of the protagonist (great roll, great exploding damage worth of 15 points). In pain man blasts magic missile at Nameless, who jerks the sword deeper. Second magic missile doesn't stop her either! But neither Nameless can kill her opponent yet. Man casts hold person, keeps a speech and finally slays Nameless breaking her forsaken neck.

Next time it will be Pamphlet 1: Fields Of Forsaken (PWYW PDF and PRINT)! And maybe Nameless will get a name, too!

Notes

The rules worked extremely well! Swords & Wizardry combat action is so smooth (well damn, Dungeons & Dragons combat system) and fun and fast and quick. We used Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playtest document saves, which in spite of my doubts worked very well. Full success, half success and failure are actually very intuative using dicepool system: Wisdom for all saves and Charisma for magic saves, attribute score determines dicepool of d6s. Roll two sixes and you success, one for half success, zero for failed save. Quite nice!

Starting a campaign with Swords & Wizardry Core + Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playtest document 0.1 mash-up

Today my girlfriend asked if I'd like to run a campaign for her. It's been a while since she was interested in roleplaying games, so naturally I said yes! As I have been waiting for this day for over six months, I was prepared. I am going to use +Tim Shorts' The Mini Manor, and from there go to my Pamphlet 1: Fields Of Forsaken and continue to The Flayed King. From there... I don't know yet.

The setting is inspired by Dark Souls videogames.

Image from Dark Souls 3

The rules are a mix of Swords & Wizardry Core, Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playtest document 0.1 and some of my own house rules I've used for a while. I don't have details for the rules, but basically game play will be close to S&W, character has options from LotFP playtest rules and rest is house rules. For example the character sheet is custom made.

There are some big differences to characters. This is one-Gamemaster-one-player situation, so character is more important as an individual.

• All attributes are 3d6, arrange as you want to
• Each level get one point to put in any desired attribute to rise it
• 1000 experience (soul) points per level. You die, you loose your soul points of the moment
• Free multiclassing. You can choose any class to add when you've collected 1000 experience points. Core classes (Fighter, Thief, Magic-User, Cleric) are always usable, special and other classes must be "found" in the game world to "unlock".
• Total of your class levels is your character level
• Experience (soul points) only from killing monsters (freeing souls) or doing some deeds that are worthy. Also rewards
• Spells are not memorized, character has as many spell points as his Magic-Using level of spell category is. When all spell points are used, character can cast spells, but there is a risk of failure (table from Liberation of the Demon Slayer by +Venger Satanis).
• Death & Dismemberment table by +kirin robinson when at negative hitpoints. Death effect will result as 1 point loss of appropriate attribute
• Character starts at third level

In a nutshell, it's like that.

After character is rolled (no equipment), the player will answer three questions.

1. Who are you?

2. How did you die?

3. Why do you wake up after you have died?

D-oom Products publications available at Tabletop Library and more

https://tabletoplibrary.com/

There is a new neat online store for roleplaying games, Tabletop Library, where you can also find D-oom Products' catalog! At the moment you can also find products from:

• As If Productions
• Battlefield Press
• Cawood Publishing
• Chaotic Henchman
• Cumberland Games & Diversions
• Eldritch Enterprises
• EN Publishing
• Expeditious Retreat Press
• Fail Squad Games
• Flaming Crab Games
• Forrest Aguirre
• Frog God Games
• Gamehole Publishing
• GM Games
• Griffon Publishing Studio
• Imperfekt Gammes
• InfiniBadger Press
• Jeremy Reaban
• Jeshields
• John M Stater
• Kobold Press
• Lazy Sod Press
• Lesser Gnome
• McNabb Games
• Metallic Dice Games LLC
• Middle Kingdom Adventure & Trading Co.
• Moebius Adventures
• MonkeyBlood Design
• Mythmere Games
• Nomad Gaming
• Pacesetter Games & Simulations
• Playground Adventures
• Purple Duck Games
• Rite Publishing
• Rogue Comet
• Rogue Genius Games
• Space Pirate Games
• Tab Creations
• Tabletop Library
• Thunderegg Productions
• Troll Lord Games
• Wayward Rogues Publishing

...and I bet more to come! Go check it out, this store is very, very neat!

Other Places To Buy From D-oom Products

In addition to Tabletop Library (PDFs), you can buy my stuff from RPGNow (PDFs and PODs). I also have my own store which carries dice, music and all kinds of other cool stuff in addition to roleplaying games material hosted at HOLVI (PDFs, PODs, dice, merchandise and more). And if you like what I create, you can support me via Patreon.

Luminyrkki 2016 report

Luminyrkki is a gamer's event in Pori, Finland. I was invited there as D-oom Products to check it out and sell my stuff at a booth. I am a conclave and event newbie, this was only third I've ever attended. First was Otamocon 2015 I had at my yard and house, second was Tracon Hitpoint which also was first Tracon focused on roleplaying games.

Even though Luminyrkki is gamer's event, it has almost nothing focusing on roleplaying games. That's where D-oom Products stepped in!

PREPARATIONS

Easy part was to print lots of material I have published. I already had print pod copies of titles like Temple Of Greed and Mead & Mayhem, so D-oom Products was well stocked.

One big thing, what I am so glad happened, was to get Finnish beginner friendly boxed sets of Myrsky Sankarit to the table! Big thanks to +Mike Pohjola and Finnish mainstream games and toys publisher Tactic. It was absolutely fantastic to get one bigger name to represent there.

As you already might know, the stuff I publish are adventures, zines, sourcebooks and things like that. I thought I need some core rules, as I was only seller carrying roleplaying games. Well, Myrskyn Sankarit was one of the best things that could happen being not only a boxed set including everything to start roleplaying, but also it is a Finnish product.

I ordered a bunch of Basic Fantasy 3rd edition books, but they didn't arrive before the event (they arrived two days later, bummer!). I wanted to have core OSR rules, easy to understand and versatile, but also inexpensive. Basic Fantasy would have been a perfect pick, but damned be living in Finland! Everything takes so long to arrive here! I sent +Chris Gonnerman message explaining that I'll order some Basic Fantasies to sell for above reasons, so he was informed. Now I got Basic Fantasies, and it am not sure how stupid and silly it would be sell them via my webstore. You know, because of Lulu and at cost price. Maybe I'll keep them until next event or con... Bummer.

I also ordered some dice sets (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20 and d%) but they haven't arrived as I write this. Luckily I had some bulk dice, but it would have been awesome to sell these rpg dice sets. Dice are something which always sell. People like dice, yo! Luckily these dice sets are an article I can and will sell at my webstore.

SETTING UP

The location, youth center, was very good, next to downtown. Easy to go to. Ground floor was for video games and basement was for board- and wargames. Basement was actually a disco so there was plenty of space. It was great, as all wargaming happened on a lowered dancefloor and sales tables were above it. People had to walk past us to get to the dancefloor, and I had a great view to where all the interesting action happened. At the same level where sales tables were, there were tables to play boardgames and whatnot.

This is my table. Not only rpg material and dice, theres also music cds, stickers (It's Wizard Time! because Finland needs gonzome), and caps.

D-oom and his neighbor, Sotakone. First time I met Sotakone at Tracon Hitpoint. They are awesome, and as we already knew each other, it was easy to talk with him. The best.

Sitting behind my booth and enjoying the view. Later a bus load of christian youths arrived to get some gaming on.

Only few steps forward from my booth this view opened. X-Wing and Warmachine/Horde were very popular games. And there also was Malifaux demo going on.

The two times I've seen Sotakone at events, they're always well stocked!

HOW DID IT GO?

In my opinion the event was extremely well organized. I enjoyed it a lot. I wanted to play something, but naturally most of the time I was tied behind my desk. In the picture above of Sotakone's table you can clearly see all the Malifaux stuff. And damn was I sold to it! Sotakone was really professional and enthusiastic explaining me the game and understanding what I want from a miniatures game at the moment. I went to see the demo a couple of times, but always I saw a customer at my table at those times, so I didn't have a change to observe the demo gaming. But I already knew, that is a game I want!

About sales, I am happy. I knew there will be all kinds of gamers, and they are there to focus on boardgames, wargames and (beat 'em up) videogames. I knew maybe there is not that much interest in roleplaying games, but my advantage was to be only company carrying roleplaying games stuff. I had a personal goal, and I beat it 150%! So I was more than happy! It wasn't great, but enough and more. I did set up a goal when beat I'd buy Malifaux Starter Set, but I didn't beat that goal. That goal was quite high as I wanted to carry some money back to home. I was only 60€ short from that goal! So close!

But you cannot attend a con or an event buying nothing, right? So I bought myself miniature paints starter set.

HOW MANY PARTICIPANTS?

200 who bought ticets + staff members and VIPs. There was also my Dungeon Master for a fifth edition D&D game we are about to start. He is not only a Dungeon Master, but also a rapper! I already knew him from Facebook (and one failed project, not his fault, though). Later I found out that this Facebook buddy was not only a musician but also a gamer. We had met over Skype, so Luminyrkki was a perfect place to meet face to face!

Jaakko "Kookko Jaskinen" Koskinen fount D&D Starter Set at swap meet. Inside the box is some sweet OSR from D-oom's table. And he's wearing OSR tag-cap he bought. Go Kookko yo!

This is me! Thanks to my Lamentations Of The Flame Princess T-shirt,
I got some questions about the game. Free promo, +James Raggi!

Thank you Timo Hohkala and Petteri Palomaki for an invite!

Gaming report: Liberation Of The Demon Slayer

Adventure used: Liberation Of The Demon Slayer by Kort'halis Publishing, +Venger Satanis
Rules system: Swords & Wizardry Core with the following house rules:

• Death & Dismemberment table by +kirin robinson (at negative hitpoints roll 2d6 minus negative damage, smaller result is worse)
• Wild spell casting: Magic-Users and Clerics might cast any spell they know ex-tempore. Doing so they must roll d20 + modifiers (level/2 + INT/WIS (M-U/C) bonus minus spell level. Higher result is better, from catastrophe to epic success. This formula can be found in LotDS adventure house-rules section.
• Advantages and disadvantages. From 5th edition of D&D. Roll twice and keep better or worse result. As there are no skills, your character's class can give you an advantage if your class is supposed to know how to do it. Roll under attribute as skill tests.
• Basic/Expert style Attribute bonuses, from -3 to +3 instead of -1 to +1 which is in S&W.
• Exploding damage. Highest result in damage die allows you to roll damage die again and add.

Characters: Pre-generated. No class restrictions for races. Humans get +1 to every Attribute. Start at second level, max hp at first. Characters were Halfling Magic-User, Human Cleric and Dwarf Thief.

Setting: Homebrew, remote island with remote little island where this all happened.

Background story: All these characters have traveled to this adventure location, because they have had unsettling dreams of demons landing the Realm and starting havoc.

They all arrive to this remote small island, where they follow their auspice. They soon find out, that within this island is a small remote village, where this dungeon lies. They start their travel to the dungeon in carts, that head to the village. Before some rumors were gathered and local church was visited. Donation was made and one vial of holy water received.

In final part of the trip they encounter six cheerful cultists of Yogshothoth. The cultists know that the demons will soon arrive, and they have embraced the weird godcreature of chaos. "Only Yogshothoth the Chaos can save us", they celebrate. The caravaners stop.

Human Cleric of righteous god hating infidels and heathens attacks without question. A combat starts, where two cultists engage this zealot. Remaining four cultists don't want to interfere in violence. Soon Magic-Using halfling has charmed a cultists in back row to engage his comrades. And some Magic-Missiles happen, too.

The combat is fierce. One charmed cultist murders his comrade, and soon another cultists is charmed. One cultist is turned into light with very successful and high damage roll. One is captured, one escapes. The horses halfling thief let loose didn't hit the cultists, but ran away.

Halfling wanted to interview the captured cultist, but went to help the caravanists to retrieve their horses let loose. Meanwhile Cleric murdered the cultist.

Caravanists were not pleased with this violent and hazardous encounter. With three cultists dead, one escaped and two charmed (as henchmen now), they get to the village.

They meet some villagers and rent an old warehouse they turn hastily into a base. And they head to the dungeon...

Next to the village a shiny and steep rock stands. On its surface, there is a portcullis blocking the way in. Above it, there is an evil rune. Magic-User studies the rune only to find out it will devastate everyone entering (if save is not made). Outside the dungeon entrance on a rock a little girl sits.

Cleric detects evil with quick prayer and finds out the girl is not evil. But as the god favored his prayer, he did feel how the dungeon reeked evil from the depths.

The little girl wanted to make sure these are the adventurers, who would (possibly) stop the demon invasion. Only they need to do is retrieve a sword, Demon Slayer, and slay the first demon descending in meteor rain from hell. Then she opened the portcullis and let adventurers in.

SPOILERS AHEAD, SO STOP READING IF YOU THINK YOU SHOULD NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ!

Not far from the dungeon entrance there is a sprung pit trap. In the bottom some corpses lie. Lots of planning and rope tricks later, they get to the other side. Cleric took some damage to leg while climbing up, when a monster lurking the bottom of the pit bit his leg. And rope mishap killed other charmed henchman cultist. The Cleric managed to get some clear quartz loot from the bottom, though. They continue the dungeon, one man down...

Only to find another sprung trap. Careful examination tells that there were poison darts shot from the wall that killed these two adventurers. Trap is harmless now, so they continue.

(I skipped the third sprung trap, to get going on). They find a cave room, where root like material covers the ceiling and walls, expanding as roots or tentacles on the floor. In the other end there is a pedestal where a globe rest. They decide not to risk it, as they think the room is dangerous, and leave the globe there advancing.

Next room is a laboratory, where Magic-User spends some time exploring and studying it finding instructions to summon a demon. He finds out the fiend's name, but doesn't know who this demon is. Might come in handy... Cleric wants to know what he learned, but the Magic-User keeps the information for himself knowing that the Cleric probably wouldn't like demon-summoning skills.

As they continue their exploration, the path forks. There Magic-User finds a ring. He commands his charmed cultist henchman to grab it. Nothing bad happens, so the Magic-User keeps it for himself. He knows the runes are demonic and can contact a demon. He doesn't know how and what will happen, if used, though.

They choose the second path and advance it, when a portcullis comes down crashing. Saves are rolled to avoid getting hit by it! Thief has an advantage because it is a trap, and he successes very well pulling Magic-User back with him. Charmed cultist makes his save and jumps back. Cleric fails, gets some damage from the falling portcullis, but luckily jumps back, too. The party is not separated.

Cleric says quick prayer trying to heal his wound with godly power, but his god didn't like this quick prayer and instead damaged him! Cleric refuses to continue before he has prayed his god (for more spells). Others refuse to wait, so they advance to the other fork leaving the Cleric to pray on his own.

Magic-User, Thief and charmed cultist henchman advance to find a skull fountain. Charmed cultist is commanded to manipulate it and blood starts to flow. Magic-User takes a sample.

Meanwhile a (random encounter) cultist walks from behind the portcullis trap and confronts the praying Cleric. "Who are you", he demands, but the praying Cleric ignores him. Waving his dagger for a short time, the cultist withdraws back to the depths of the dungeon.

Magic-User wants to go to the previous laboratory they found to study the blood. They go there grabbing the Cleric back with them. While studying the blood Cleric prays. Some rolls were made and god thought the Cleric can have his spells back (that was a long rest there... no random encounters).

At this point lots of game time was used, and we knew we had to quit at some point. Players discussed and thought, that they could never explore the dungeon in the remaining time, and would only find new rooms with new content. So they decided they (as players) want to try to figure out how to get the globe instead, and try to leave the dungeon to continue later.

Before trying to figure out how to get the globe from a room of root tentacles, they start to think how they can secure a quick escape over the sprung pit trap. Lots of planning, how to do it, with ropes, or jumping or climbing... when they use a solution: from the laboratory take desk and bookshelves and whatnot and throw those in the bottom of the pit to use as a leverage. While carrying stuff around, a (random encounter) talking lion appears. He doesn't like the noise these adventurers are making in the cave! Adventurers more or less ignore the lion apologizing, and after a while the lion leaves them alone.

After they have thought they have secured their escape making it a bit more easier and a bit safer, they start to think about getting the globe. All kinds of lassoing it suggestions are made, but finally the charmed cultist is sent in. In the halfway to the other end of the room where the pedestal is, four tentacle roots from the ground attack the cultists capturing him. He yells in pain screaming! Magic-User uses his fireball scroll, rolling 20+ points of damage (with some exploding dice). The fireball scorches the room turning everything inside it to ashes, except the globe. As the damage was so high, it backfired from the dungeon on the corridors...

The Magic-User was safe from it, as was Thief surviving a save... but the Cleric wasn't that lucky. He suffered great deal of damage, and his left leg was burned off (Death & dismemberment table). From oven hot room Magic-User retrieved the globe pouring some drinking water on it to cool it.

Both cultists now dead and their Cleric's leg burned off they decide to call it a day and escape. But the dungeon is sealed, and the little girl who let them wont let them out without the Demon Slayer sword. They are trapped in! At this point they have made an observation, that they had two dead cultists, and there were already two dead cultists when they entered it. Also other dead corpses they found were a human, a halfling and a dwarf: exactly as their party!

Magic-User uses his new summon demon skill to summon a demon, which is trapped in the summoning circle. Cleric sprinkles holy water on it only annoying it more The demon tries everything for anyone of them to break the circle and let them loose: sell your souls to my master and I will open the dungeon entrance for you, sell your friends' soul and I'll let you out. Just break this circle and I'll let you out... But they wont.

They are trapped inside... And the game ends.

If the game had continued, we discussed three possible endings:

1. They let the demon free and hope that he unseals the dungeon so they could get out. It is uncertain what the consequences would be...
2. They would continue to explore the dungeon in hope of finding the Demon Slayer, so the little girl would let them out. Then they would start fighting the demon invasion.
3. They die. Starve to death, or the dungeon or monsters within would kill them.

Thoughts of the module:

It took five hours or so, and we only explored 7 areas of total 23 or so, and I skipped the third one entirely! Sure, pre-dungeon gaming took some time. The dungeon was quite random in content. I am not sure did I like it or not. Some of it didn't make lots of sense as why this is here and that there. Some did more.

Liberation Of The Demon Slayer's first floor is an interesting place to explore, for sure, but that is what it is. A place where you check out content and try to survive while searching for the sword. What I like is that you can run only the first level, but can expand to other levels as a mini setting and campaign. There is a lot of content, and NPCs to interact, too! Some day I'd like to explore this more (well, technically watch as it is explored).

I did make some changes for the background, not using default background of the module. I also made some changes to the content.

Did I like it? Players were great and entertaining. Sami is a veteran player and gamemaster and a scene activist. I've played with him few games. One player I had played with also, and the third player was new for me. I liked them a lot!

You can read my review of the module HERE with commentary by Venger himself!

Patreon 2016: Eye Spy On You

Eye Spy On You is a creature from beyond the stars. Even though his form is chaotic, his nature is intelligent and sophisticated. His eyes, horn, and tentacles have various powers.
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You can download the Patreon supported pdf HERE.
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