The Black Hack + Roll20 + The Overrun Mines

I and +Kookko Jaskinen  continued the game we started in public at eat-all-you-can pizzeria Rax via Roll20. One major change was, that we ditched Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox and decided to use The Black Hack instead. Converting the character was easy, because all that matters is attributes.

Mad real time mapping skills, looks exactly like the original map!

We continued the adventure of Jarod, who gained epithet "Unlucky" because he did not only lose a finger, but also half of his face in Temple Of Greed. After this Fighter's master died at the temple, Jarod had no future in the religious order. So he started traveling and ended up to this remote mining town. Drinking was what he started to do...

There he met new party members, Thurnsted the Rogue, who made home of this towns tavern avoiding the law for a reason he called "a misunderstanding". The second addition to the party was Ivan Slick, the Cleric, who was sent to a pilgrimage, where he was supposed to see a holy sign that would grand him his praying ability (read: second level). That never happened and he got frustrated ending to the very same mining town drinking.

They had jolly time drinking and eating and sleeping, but the day came when they ran out of money. Lucky for them, the mines had some trouble. I rolled random rumors from The Overrun Mines adventure and got:

• "Here have been cave-ins, something rustles the stone in the deep and I barely escaped with my life."
• "There is a dungeon holding cell deep within the mine; I have no idea what it was used for."
• "The mine used to be a goblin hideout, we cleared it of those foul creatures years ago."

They left Thurnsted to the tavern, because his Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma were low, so he wouldn't say anything stupid or haggle like an idiot, and went to meet minemaster. They got the mission to go check these rumors so employees would get back to work. From 100 SP (I use silver standard) reward they managed to haggle to 200 SP! Great! That's plenty of money to continue easy life!

In a fantasy setting full of monsters, who of a right mind would work in a
place like this?!

Inside the dungeon in the common room where ore is loaded and supplies unpacked they took some pick axes and rope with them and continued deeper. Ivan the Cleric scouted the first intersection a little and they decided to go forward where seemed to be a big cave.

The cave is where the ore is dug. In the middle of this large cave was a cave in, and deep down a wounded grey worm. They figured out, maybe this grey worm was the reason for cave-ins and rustling noises, and decided to kill it. They started pushing rocks down trying to squash it!

Thurnsted is a weak fellow, so I decided every rock they drop (dealing 3d6 damage) on the work, Thurnsted should roll STR starting from advantage, then normal, and the rest disadvantages. If he failed, he would refuse to push down any more rocks because he has hurt himself. The second rock down and whining starts! The worm had 9 HP left and Thurnsted tried to deal more damage with his crossbow, but didn't deal near enough to kill it. They were thinking, they must kill it to claim it their work so no one can deny their reward.

I ruled, that Thurnsted could try to roll one extra rock with a disadvantageous STR roll, but if he failed, he'd suffer 1d3 damage for hurting his muscles more. Luckily there was a melting oven with liquid hot iron in it. They poured it in the cave-in killing the worm. When it's skin bursted and boiled, it made exactly the same noises as cheese sausage on a grill. Shizzle shizzle crack pop. The worm was dead.

Dead gray worm. It was 30 meters long!

The opening to the south-east had many killed miners and they figured out the worm came that way and managed to grab and kill few. As the miners flew around the cave-in the blind worm fell in following them. There must be more of these worms, maybe, but they didn't care. One was dead and that's enough! But there's still those three other rumors to take care of...

They follow the passage and take the intersection north, where there is a barred door. Thurnsted opens the door and jumps back like a coward and Ivan steps in like a hero. Nothing inside, except remains of a fire and blackened goblin bones, which naturally reanimate and attack. The combat was not tough, but they decided to spend a hour fixing their armor after it (to restore their Armor Points).

There is no random encounters table in The Overrun Mines, so I decided to use Underworld Day Rules table. Once a day underground you roll it to see the effect on the party. I wanted to use it, because this party wouldn't be underground for a day (necessarily). Die tells, that Thurnsted the Rogue suffers 1 (5%) penalty to every action until he gets some fresh air. He starts to get frustrated because there are no treasures, goblin bones where empty.

Forward they venture and take a junction to the left to barracks. No treasures, just junk. Player Jaakko wanted to roll again the Underworld Day Rules table, because he thought that Thurnsted got more frustrated for the lack of  treasures and it effects the whole group. Everyone's morale suffers and they lose 2 permanent HP until they get out.

Back and forward to an ancient goblin throne room. On the throne there is a shackled, very living dead goblin king. On the floor four goblin skeletons lay. What makes Thurnsted run to the room yelling "FINALLY TREASURE", was a partially open fake wall.

Image from http://3drt.com

And the goblin king breaks it's straps and the skeletons reanimate. Combat started quite well, but soon turned into murder - of adventurers. Ivan was first to be KO'd and Jarod decided to both hit a skeleton and chuck some healing potion in his system (second level Fighter has two attacks, I ruled he can attack with a disadvantage and use a potion on his friend). Ivan is back in game, but suffering broken bones and -2 to physical attributes.

Thrunsted, even though he is weak and a dick, was lucky both in hitting and avoiding to be hit. Their second level Warrior, Jarod was soon downed and not too long, and Ivan followed him to oblivion. Thurnsted managed to kill the undead goblin king with cunning (running and shooting) and force (stabbing like mad). With the band's last potion of health, he revived Jarod. They decided to flee, but Jarod insisted they take the corpse of Ivan Slick with them to find someone to resurrect him - or at least offer him proper funeral.

They also decided they should tell they have dealt with the problems, get the reward and get outta there as soon as possible, before they figure out that not all problems are dealt with. Good luck with that! Next time... A new dungeon to explore and to die in!

DM notes, NPC stats and info, initiative counter, combat tracker. All well organized. I didn't actually use Death & Dismemberment table, because The Black Hack's Out of Action (OofA) works fine! That red d20 on the picture was a bomb! It gave crits for adventurers (natural 1) and crits for enemies (natural 20)!

Big thanks for Jaakko for a fun game, and for helping me out writing the final combat. There was lots of things going all with one-shot-kill goblin skeletons, and falling party members.

Jaakko is also a great player for 1-on-1 games, because he is Dungeon Master in his own games. It's fun to create some scenes and details together. I can throw him a ball for a moment to ask him for some details on something, and it is fun! Also the background story for this adventure (basically downtime between Temple Of Greed and The Overrun Mines) we developed together, which was great fun! I really enjoy gaming 1-on-1 with Jaakko, we are good together... arrright now it starts to sound inappropriate!

Well, until next time!

And hey, if you want to, you can suggest a dungeon for one level characters. Preferably one you can run in one session (two dungeons down and like 1/4 explored in both!!!) IF you don't have any greater ideas, they will travel to... No Country For Weak Men by +Anders Hedenbjörk Lager. And when the party (or anyone) hits 3rd level, there will be an extra episode of The Flayed King by +Tim Shorts where a new character of a new character class will be introduced to the game... well, only if he survives!

Gaming in public: Swords & Wizardry and Fantasy AGE

I live 45 or so kilometers away from next decent sized town. I haven't visited it that much earlier, because I haven't needed to. But now that I have gaming buddies there, I've been there more often. Me and +Kookko Jaskinen (Jaakko) decided we should do some gaming because he has a summer vacation. So we did!

ROUND 1: Swords & Wizardry at Rax

My long time dream has been to play roleplaying games at all-what-you-can-eat pizza joint Rax, because that's what we did when we were younger gamers and it was a blast! Gaming, pizza, infinite amount of soda... that's fantastic! I wanted to run my dungeon Temple Of Greed (available HERE) and chose Swords & Wizardry so Jaakko could try out some old-school rules based on '74 Dungeons & Dragons.

We created two characters for him. Brother Colt, the Cleric and Jared, his Fighter guard. Backstory was simple. This religion of one-and-only-truth had discovered an ancient, forgotten temple. They wanted to loot it because religion is greedy. They sent Brother Colt to investigate and get all the treasures he could!

Spoilers of the temple ahead!

They got the key to the temple from their supervisors and ventured to the temple. Door opened easily, and inside they went. On the inner door there were pushable panels with letters V, R, C, A, A, E and I and plate reading:

To enter, one must know greed.

They weighted the puzzle for a good amount of time, and Brother Colt tried to push them to form a pseudo ancient word of greed. C-R-A-E... you got the point. But there were two buttons left that didn't stick to the bottom when pushed, so he ordered Jared to push them. Bad for him, as Jared pushed the last plate down, he lost two fingers to a razor sharp blade, and the buttons reseted. Oh the pain and DEX lost! But they were on a mission, so they had to try to open the door to not to return empty handed!

Here I helped a bit. The right answer is "avarice", synonym of "greed". Neither of us are native English speakers, so I asked Jaakko has he got any ideas what the answer would be and I let him roll INT checks for both of the characacters. They succeeded to solve the puzzle.

Inside was a room with two doors, one on the right wall, other to the left wall. On northern wall there was a plate:

Greed is everything. Greed is RIGHT. Greed is a DOOR to success. Greed we worship. Greed saves.

HA, this is obvious thought Brother Colt but was quite certain this was a trick of some sort. Too obvious. He ordered Jared to the right door, the obvious answer and went to the left door himself. On a "go!" they opened the doors simultaneously. Jared discovered a hallway, Borther Colt poison and death.

Jared ran to his master's corpse only to find an old skeleton next it. He took adventuring equipment from his deceased partner and looted the skeleton for some gold, a ring and golden teeth. Onwards.

The corridors behind the door joined together in the end, behind the north wall of the previous room. There was a door, from which another hallway opened - to the left, and to the right. He went right discovering a room and a dead end with a door with some plates. Jared had bad memories of plates, so he checked the room first.

Inside the room there was an empty altar room, except of the altar with a plate:

He who gives everything for the gold-lusty god of greed shall receive.

Okay, he did nothing but went to observe the door. He took a risk and started to push the door panels. When a right panel was pushed, it made a mechanical noise behind the door and stayed pushed. But if you pushed a wrong tile after it, all reseted. It took some time he took pushing the tiles and finding the right order (disclaimer: you can discover the right order... somewhere) and got into a small room with a squirrel statue and a peek hole on the other wall. The squirrel statue was holding a stone nut.

Jared took the nut, nothing happens. Put it right back, nothing happens. Tried replace it with sling stones - nothing. Tried to stick the nut into a peek hole and put stones on the squirrel's palms. Nothing. Hmmm. Then he gave the ring he looted from the skeleton for the squirrel statue, and something happened somewhere within the dungeon. Then he went back and took the other hallway.

Walking down the hallway he discovered a secret door. Inside was an altar and lots of gold pieces (1,300 in total). He made some calculations and bagged everything and dragged them back to the door that led to this hallway. He was lucky to take everything at once... He returned and continued the hallway to discover a statue. And he immediately knew what to do with it! But there was a problem. To get to the statue you had to walk down a short hallway where obviously was a wall wide pressure plate! He grinned and jumped and discovered later, that the pressure plate on the floor was a diversion. The real trap was a scythe that cut him bad when he jumped the pressure plate! He started with 1 HP, and lost it. Also he lost 25% of permanent HD. And two points of CHA for missing half of his face! Bleeding, almost dead (at 0 HP I decided he is barely alive and could only crawl and not take any kind of actions) he crawled back where he left the gold sacks he bagged earlier.

Hugging the treasure he found he fainted only hoping someone would find him before he bled to death...

If he survives he will be called Jared The Unlucky. It would be fun to run this 1 HP Fighter with Dexterity penalty and Charisma lost to charring and -25% to HD through all kinds of death trap dungeons! But for now his time was over. Temple Of Greed won, no treasure was dragged outside.

ROUND 2: FANTASY AGE AT FLGS

Belly full of pizza and one adventure done we headed to our FLGS (Porin Pelikauppa). We met there earlier before we ventured to Rax. There was only this new Star Wars RPG and four WH40k roleplaying game supplements available. No other roleplaying games and their dice variation sucked too. They are focused on video games, Warhammer, Magic: the Gathering and other tabletop and board games. Good thing is they have tables there you can use for gaming! We were lucky to get a table because there also was a X-Wing tournament starting!

When we played D&D 5E last time Jaakko showed me his copy of Fantasy AGE. It looked interesting. He had already played it but I wanted to try it too! Character creation was quite simple and quick with some fun options. I created a lizard-man Cleric (homebrew stuff) because it felt most interesting compared to your usual fighter-mage-dwarf-elf-human and so on D&D stuff. And I wanted to be an adventurer!

Gods were forgotten, and only us lizardmen had Clerics and religion. Well, there were few from other races that believed, but not that many. I was sent to find all kinds of ancient religious artifacts and other god-things to the big main continent-island. To the icy wastes my travel took me, where a tower acted weird. This tower was used to rapture style soul ascension in the old times, but now there was disturbance. The disturbance was zombies!

When traveling I found this ragged guy who led me to his camp. I discovered that the camp was actually a prison camp and he was a prisoner. The staff wanted to challenge me (enter combat rules test) and I had to fight this huge warrior! But with spells I could do it damaging him and eventually teleporting him to a cart full of zombie corpses. That'll show him!

I decided I need some backup to my journey to this tower and had the ragged guy, a warrior and an elf lady with me. Only because they thought I am someone else they were excepting! Well, nothing wrong with that, because I'd be long gone in frozen wastes when, and if, they discovered I am a wrong guy. We started our journey and found some zombies at a distance. I decided I want to kill them to try combat rules once more. Easy targets, eh? Thanks to my spells I could keep distance from them, but the others took some damage. Most damage suffered was that warrior I already had beaten. What a waste!

CONCLUSION

SWORDS & WIZARDRY: TEMPLE OF GREED

1. Temple Of Greed is a challenging module that can kill a campaign, because the casualties can get high. But hey, you don't have to go there. You don't have to be greedy!
2. I should use The Black Hack for one-shots. Even though I love Swords & Wizardry there was unnecessary things (attribute derived bonuses for example) that didn't improve gameplay.
3. I am looking forward to Jared The Unlucky's next adventure(s)!

FANTASY AGE

1. Quick character creation but variation in characters.
2. It felt old-schoolish even though the system uses 3d6.
3. We had a rules misunderstanding of how stunt dice trigger. I thought that the damage system was weak (roll vs ac and damage reduction. Most things did 1d6 damage and my weakling had over 20 hit points). The trick is, that even though basic damage against hit points is weak, stunts are when you hit hard and kill stuff!
4. Can't wait to check out the tower! Seriously, it's been a long time I've encountered zombies in a roleplaying game and I am currently watching Z Nation.

D&D 5e game night + birthday presents I gave

I got to play Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition with my friends for the first time face-to-face. It was also almost Dungeon Master Jaakko's birthday and my birthday was recently, so there was minor celebration going on, too!

I wanted to gift Jaakko something, so here's what I gave to him!

Custom "Ravenloft Bootleg" booklet I created using pictures from WotC Facebook stream.
Pamphlet 2: Dystopia, my latest publication. PWYW at RPGNow.
Ikiseutu, my one-page-dungeon contest entry, PWYW at RPGNow.
D30s from my store.

Here are pictures of Ravenloft Bootleg content. Not all pages are photo'd, only few samples:

The game we played was Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition and scenario was Lost Mines Of Phandelver. +Kookko Jaskinen (Jaakko) had actually started the campaign earlier and one of the players (Human Fighter) had played earlier. Two of us just stepped in. Jaakko has this idea of running a mega campaign, where different players can join at different times, but the story will go on.

The characters were:

• 3rd level Human Fighter with plate mail and big-ass fancy axe.
• 1st level Human Druid, forest hobo look. Ex thief (background) I figured out.
• 1st level Aarakocra Barbarian who looks like a turkey (my character).

My gaming equipment:
Dice and a dice cup (D-oom and other designs available at HOLVI).
Character sheets (found here).
Custom notebook for character.
D&D Basic Rules Lulu print with Petri Hiltunen's art.

In the beginning of session I (Aarakocra) and forest hobo druid had arrived to Phandelver where we went to a tavern (what else would we do, eh). Inside walked a warrior with freezing armor, who started to suggest that the forest hobo should leave, so he could have a word with this female fighter. I used my military background and officer rank to cool the situation down.

What catched my eye was an egg artifact the forest hobo was carrying. When I was just an egg, I fell through a rift from my home plane to Faerun, Icewind Dale. There barbarians raised me. I thought this artifact egg (druid's somekind of magic booster thingie) could be something related to my race. So I wanted to stick with him. Forest druid thought I am a bit weird wanting to follow him, but it was okay (motivation for my character to stick with another character achieved).

Outside we went to find out four red cloaked goons were toughing up people and stealing their money. When the fighter came out of the tavern, forest hobo charmed (spell) one of the goons and reassured him to give the money for him if the fighter who obviously had already done good deeds in the city wanted to search them. And the fighter went to interrogate the goons.

Aarakocra, as an ex soldier, decided to get near the fighter to possibly back her up if the situation would heaten. And it did, when the forest hobo decided to club one of the goons. And fight begun. Fighter's wolf companion did all her dirty work and I raged with great results!

After we fought the goons... it was late and we decided to call it a day. Getting characters together took a lot of time and there was lots of roleplaying, which was fun. And I think the simple fight versus few goons was great to let some steam out before ending the session.

Here are few pictures of the evening:

To the left where I sat Dungeon Master's The Black Hack screen, dice and starter set box.

Famous rapstar Kookko Jaskinen telling something neat about his brand new PHB.

Our to-be Druid forest hobo.

SNACKS!

From left to right: Human Fighter, Human Druid, Aarakocra Barbarian.

Dungeon Master doing his job.

CAKE!

Tower Of Tremors play report

Last Sunday I decided to run Tower Of Tremors for my girlfriend using The Black Hack rules. You can find Tower Of Tremors and lots of other material in Crypt Of Doom - A Compilation of Patreon Supported 2015 Material available both in pdf and print-on-demand.

This post has spoilers of the adventure, so proceed with your own risk.

My girlfriend rolled four characters.

• John Wayne the warrior
• Ragget The Wise the thief
• Several Snakes the Cleric
• Tittie the Conjurer

The band of four traveling adventurers arrived to a remote town, where they found out that tremors have started when a weird ancient metal tower activated one day. They were promised 500 GP if they can find out what is going on at the tower and stop the tremors. To the tower they ventured.

The tower is four storeys high and made of unknown metal. Next to the security door there is a buttoned panel with unknown alien symbols, and above the door is a crystal. Fell careful buttons pushed did nothing, so John Waybe decided to hit the crystal with his two-handed axe. He missed it few times, when Several Snakes jumped in and poked it with his 10 feet pole. "This is how you hit it", he instructed. John Wayne tried again and cracked the crystal into pieces. Nothing happened. Back to inspect the panel, which opens the security door after some button bashing. They enter the tower.

If the Warrior didn't break the crystal already, there would been a 50% change to get blasted by it when entering the tower. The effect would have been damage and system shock which results penalty to dexterity based actions.

The first room has no light except what comes from outside through the opened security door. Some metal panels on the ceiling are loose, and random electric wires spark. The frame of the tower is visible which you can pass. There are also two elevators; one going up, another going down. The Cleric lights a torch and they take the elevator down.

In the basement level there is the mounting of the tower's frame, and on the mounting there is a large crystal size of a pony. On the crystal different kinds of alien symbols scroll. They investigate the crystal ball, but only Tittie can understand, that when the alien symbol values reach the peak, then a tremor occurs, and the values go back down only to continue rising. John Wayne tries to destroy the crystal ball with his two-handed axe, but the crystal ball is too tough and thick so nothing happens. Back up they go and pass the frame to the other side of the room.



After the frame the room is lit with blinking red lights. There are two elevators, down and up. In the middle of the room there is a scorched skeleton and in the corner there is a turret. Tittie understands that the turret is some kind of a "lightning rod" that has shot the unfortunate adventure. At the end is a door. Carefully they pass the skeleton to the door, which is opened by several small bots.

These little bots have different operations in the tower. They say "beel plip bleep", but when attacking, they go "BRLOP BRLEEP BLROP".

Behind the door the corridor splits and they take the right path. In the end of this short corridor is a room furnished with cozy sofas and seats and there are few tables, too. Dim blue light and music are sedative; all save for soothing effects, and Conjurer Tittie fails falling asleep. John Wayne slaps him, but Tittie remains asleep. They leave the room carrying Tittie out. When they get out, Tittie wakes. She wonders why her cheek is aching. They go to the other junction, only to find a storage room.

There are several metal closets illuminated by light blue light. All closets are closed, and there is a button panel with alien symbols on buttons with each of the closets. John Wayne tries random button bashing, but nothing happens. Each of them decide to start to investigate them, and smart Tittie discovers how to open them! Seven closets have random stuff in them (I should have randomly generate these rewards, but didn't as I started to run this scenario without any preparation. I'll use random roleplaying book's treasure generator for these goods, only redressing items as scifi).

After a nice haul of stuff and treasures they go back to the room where a skeleton is and take the elevator down to a basement level, where the other side of the tower's mount is. Twenty small bots operate it, maybe fixing or maintaining. They decide to leave these bots alone and go back up to take the elevator to higher level.

Only alive alien remaining
operating a control panel.

In this room there are four cryogenic freezing pods. Two remain closed and inside are one dead alien in each. Two pods are opened, next to the other lies dead alien and from the second opened pod wet footprints go to the other side of the room bypassing the frame. Thief Ragget The Wise sneaks to take a peek, but alien who operates a control panel notices him! The alien reaches his upper appendices to his forehead and focuses on mentally blasting the Thief! Thief loses temporarily 3 points of Wisdom and 3 points of Intelligence, but aliens suggestive commands don't affect him. Ragget shoots an arrow at the alien wounding him. John Wayne the Warrior plunges to attack the alien and Conjurer Tittie shoots it with magic missile, except he fails the spell. Alien operates his control panel and summons three bots which climb the tower frame from down below. Ragget shoots the alien again, but it doesn't die yet. John Wayne swings his two-handed axe at the little bots trying to hit two of them (Warriors can hit as many opponents per turn as their level, but as a first level character he can attack only one opponent. But the player wanted to hit two, so I let her do it with a disadvantage) bashing them into bits!

Alien, almost dead, uses his control panel to electrocute John Wayne (Youtube example) who falls flat paralyzed. Several Snakes the Cleric smashes alien's head and kills him. Tittie out of her spells smashes the last bot with her staff.

THE END OF PART 1.

My player was too tired to continue, but there is still interesting places left for the next time, like robot room, bot recharge and repairs and of course the top floor...

Actually, I'll generate the random treasure from the storage room right now for the next time. Just a second, I'll fetch a rulesbook.

And back! I decided to use Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, because I have never used it. I have barely read it! Table 84, page 133, gives treasure types letters. There are 17 letters for individual and small lair treasures, so I'll roll 1d20 (ignoring result 18+) to determine which treasure type I use for each closet.

The treasures in these seven closets are:

CLOSET 1:

• A scroll containing the following 7 spells: Wish (9), Fly (3), Reverse gravity (7),Forcecage (7), Invisibility, greater (4), Dimension door (4)  The spells can be copied on Conjurer's spell book. If the spell is read from the scroll, the scroll burns and all the spells written on the scroll are lost. (This helped a lot determining the random spells)
• A map of Carcosa
• Curse. When this scroll is read the reader is cursed. He suffers +1 to all Dexterity rolls until the curse is lifted.

CLOSET 2:

• 40 SP, 1 platinum

CLOSET 3:

• 400 GP

CLOSET 4:

• 8 potions: Clairaudience, Unknown (Delusion), Unknown (Poison), Oil of Air elemental invulnerability, Fire resistance, Super heroism (Warrior) x2, Levitation. 

CLOSET 5:

• 3 gems (1000 GP gem, 50 GP semi-precious, 100 GP fancy)
• 1 art object (10,000 GP)
• Magic sword +1 (xp 400)

CLOSET 6:

• 7 Platinum

CLOSET 7:

• Magic ring of Contrariness. Wearer is unable to agree with any idea, statement or action. Wearer's strength is 18.
• Robe of eyes. Can see in any direction, also invisible. Advantage to tracking. Light spell can blind the robe.

http://sharkinabox.deviantart.com/

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!