 |
| Pont Valentré |
Centuries later, Lemuria still dutifully mans his post. He really enjoys being a tollman. So much so that he wasn't bothered when his employers stopped paying him. Or that they're all dead.
How does the saying go? Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
A half-empty section of a parking garage. JFK International Airport. Early January, 2025.
The three members of T-Cell stood around a rental car.
TULLY, being Cell Leader, relayed the briefing she'd received from A-Cell a day prior.
A team of American archaeologists dug up an old Roman estate in Tuscany, Italy. They shipped the artefacts to the Museum of Natural History for an exhibition. All their finds were digitally categorised prior to transport. Our people intercepted their communications and flagged several items as being potentially hazardous.
Broken pottery with furry toad-gods on them, papyri making reference to hypergeometric formulas, old glassware covered in exotic chemicals, the list goes on.
Homeland Security already has a man on scene, Special Agent Hassam Abdullah, due to reports of artefacts going missing. Some of the papyri scrolls and a fancy glass cup. This whole situation reeks of trouble. Get yourselves involved. Get us answers.
I did prepare music for this dungeon, but by the fourth session I couldn't be bothered to be the game's live DJ. Since Discord nuked all the music bots to comply with Youtube's TOS, I've been using Watch2Gether - a website for playing synced videos that other people can listen along to. But you have to remake your playlists every time you want to use it, unless you cough up the subscription money for a permanent room.
Put simply, it was a pain in the ass.
I ended up just posting Youtube links for my players to listen to at their own discretion, which seemed to work alright for everyone involved. I've been informed that there are a few good music bots still knocking around, so maybe I'll use one of those for the next game I run.
Either way, here's the soundtracks I used. It's a mixture of dungeonsynth (that isn't AI slop), OSTs from my favourite video games and some songs suggested by my players (thanks Doubloon!).
The four adventurers stood outside the cave entrance for the last time. After weeks of exploring, they were ready to root out the undead snakes and their Dwarven allies. Once more, from the top:
Accompanying them were two retainers, both in the employ of Godwin:
Rounding out the party's equipment was a comical amount of holy water (purchased in-bulk from the Church of Fat Sun) and a pair of lichhounds. These small but vicious dogs had a bark so fierce that, once per day, it could turn the undead. After Heiwae Mann trained them to bark on command, Godwin packed them into a padded pouch for ease of transport.
Heiwae Mann kicked his feet from the edge of a large bathtub, his legs too short to touch the ground. A half-naked bathhouse worker stared at him incredulously as he told her to put her clothes back on. The thief wasn't here for sex - he wanted information.
Softwaters Bathhouse was a staple of Fallowfields, purveying the world's oldest profession under the guise of public sanitation. It had previously been on the colony's eastern side, but the brothel's pimp, Gangolf, had transplanted it to the (once polluted) northern river.
It was a savvy business move - the fungal blight had dropped property prices and the newly blessed river did wonders for the "constitution" of his customers.
 |
| Roman de Mélusine |
After a few weeks of well-earned downtime in Fallowfields, three adventurers mounted their freshly purchased horses and set course for the underground temple.
With Haisam busy, the party needed a spellcaster to operate the Staff of Opening. Godwin contracted a magically-inclined retainer, a theological litigator from the Tree of Life.
 |
| AD&D Dungeon Explorers |
Deep underground, five adventurers debated whether to continue dungeoneering. Godwin and Heiwae Mann, demoralised and injured, called it quits and went back to base camp.
The remaining three, eager for more glory and gold, chose to stick it out.
The party, with their flask of snake ambrosia, cured the Leper-Chaun. He introduced himself as Wanamingo and sheepishly revealed the bear trap hiding beneath the pile of illusory treasure. As payment for their help, the fairy gave the adventurers valuable intel - the spores were a weapon employed by a dwarven clan of necromancers and slavers.
The dwarves were clever, preferring technology over magic to control their undead. With hypersonic whistles and bizarre talismans, whose geometries reflected their zombie's echolocation, they trained friend-foe recognition into their reanimated slaves.
In the common tongue, their name was "The Deadlifters". A killteam of the halfmen was in the dungeon, spraying bioweapons and dispatching fungal revenants to flush the fairy out.
 |
| The Weekly Roll |
With bodies rested and bellies filled with sheep's cheese and hardtack, five adventurers journeyed back to the ancient temple.
The rope they'd secured up the rapids was still in position, untampered with since their last delve. The party climbed into the dungeon's flooded central chamber, unspiked the waiting room door and dispatched Heiwae Mann to scout ahead.
The colony of Fallowfields has suffered a sudden blight. Crops wither and animals die. Some of the dead livestock rise from the grave as fungal monstrosities.
A group of shepherds, braver than most, have tracked the sickness to a fouled river. Its source is a mountain-side cave three days walk from the settlement. They say they found something inside the grotto - a pair of ancient bronze doors, embossed with decorations of strange men with the bodies of serpents.
The colony's financial backers have posted a reward of 2,000 gold pieces for whoever stops the blight. The merchants won't pay anymore, make the reward bigger and it'd be cheaper to just abandon the affected farmland. Thankfully, there's always the "graverobber's fee" - first spoils on any treasure found within.
