Manor of Montecruz - Session 2

Four adventurers stood in the Manor's hidden basement. There was no doubt that this place had become a den for smugglers. There was treasure to be had in retaking it.

Before they could push onwards, a nearby crate flew open and a filthy man tumbled out. Once bound with coarse ropes, he'd been freed by the gnawing of a trio of rats. Seeing the adventurers, the man introduced himself as "Vermin-Tongue", but hastily amended his title to "Vee" upon seeing their scornful reactions.

"The Lonely Rat Boy", from Dishonored

Vee explained he was a native of Restenburn, who'd snuck up here with his coterie of well-trained rats, discovered the smuggler den and tried to rob it. The heist hadn't gone great.

With need of a vaguely competent rogue, the party asked if he wanted join them. Vee happily agreed to assist fighting his would-be-captors.

Now five strong, the mercenaries arrayed themselves:

• Cornyx, Level 1 Warrior-Priest. 

• Dr. Holmen, Level 1 Chirurgeon.

• Malakai, Level 1 Templar.

• Vee, Level 1 Rat-Whisperer.

• Yvonne, Level 1 Illusionist.

A wet gurgle drew Dr. Holmen's attention. The smuggler that Cornyx and Malakai had clobbered was, impressively, still alive. Wanting intel, the doctor roused him from unconsciousness.

He explained the gang's grift - their leader used illusion magic to make the Manor look like a haunted house, thus keeping people away from the criminal's smuggling operations. Satisfied, the party tied him up alongside Ned and moved further into the dungeon.

The adventurers entered a series of sea caves and, by using Vee's rats to scout ahead, managed to ambush a trio of smugglers gambling around a lantern - slitting their throats in the dark. They continued their stealthy approach by bushwhacking more patrolling smugglers, before Vee whiffed a sneak attack against a pair of sentries.

With the hue-and-cry raised, Cornyx tried to bumrush the two criminals but was mortally wounded by a bullet to the chest and an axe to the jaw. Hearing the gunshot, the gang's sorcerous leader and his two Brugor minions burst out of a nearby door. 

Combat was joined. Holmen and Vee exchanged missile fire with the remaining smugglers. Malakai dragged Cornyx's ruined body behind friendly lines as bullets, slingstones and spells whizzed overhead. Yvonne unleashed her signature Colour Spray into the open doorway, stunning the Brugor but failing to incapacitate the rival illusionist. 

He promptly floored her and Malakai with the exact same spell.

Just as things seemed to turn against the party, Holmen took drastic action. Using his expertise in experimental medicine, he "saved" Cornyx's life by replacing his ruined jaw with the massive mandibles he'd harvested from the giant ant. The half-dead barbarian, veins suffused with healing magic and a Haste potion, launched himself into combat and masticated a smuggler to death.

TF2's "Meet The Medic"

Next, Holmen used his Neutral alignment language to calm the confused Brugor - Yvonne's Colour Spray having shaken them out of their Charm Person spell. The freed beastmen demonstrated their new allegiance by first dismembering their master and then helping the adventurers slaughter the surviving smugglers to a man.

With the battle over, the adventurers thanked the Brugor for their assistance. The hulking mutants expressed gratitude in Neutral, before leaving the dungeon to find their tribe in the surrounding hills. The party gathered an appreciable stockpile of smuggled valuables, whilst Cornyx cremated their dead foes - singing curses to burn their rotten souls in the afterlife. 

As the barbarian conducted his rites, Holmen discovered a shrine to Great Moon, the patron goddess of burglars, murderers and other nighttime ne'er-do-wells. Noticing an empty offering bowl, the doctor  placed an empty coin purse into it - reasoning that no worshipper of a thief-goddess would willingly give away hard-earned treasure. He heard an effeminate chuckle from the shrine, before it cracked open and released a mercurial liquid into the bowl. A quick test revealed it to be an invisibility potion, which the grinning surgeon quickly bottled up.

Ball Park Music

With the fighting done and the Manor of Montecruz retaken, the party split their loot, ransomed their captives and discussed what to do next. Yvonne and Cornyx chose to go their separate ways; the wizard staying to rebuild her family's ancestral manse whilst the priest went on a pilgrimage to digest his near-death experience. 

But Dr. Holmen, Malakai and Vee decided their adventuring days weren't over, not yet. Word of their exploits would no doubt spread, bringing grander adventurers to come. 

This was the final session of an abortive attempt at a broader campaign. Yvonne and Cornyx's players disliked the rules of Begone FOE!, and the OSR genre itself. Fortunately, although they decided to leave the game, my other three players were happy to continue playing.

So instead of continuing my planned campaign, I chose to run them through a self-contained scenario, inspired by Mellonbread's minidungeons. I'll be writing more play reports for that scenario, plus a proper masterpost for when we finish playtesting it.

I'm also considering creating a review for the "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" on this blog. The module's flaws outweighed its positives, creating a poor introduction to old-school gaming for my players. Either way, here's the custom maps I used for running it, as previously promised.

Ghost Town Gunfight

Fallout: New Vegas

Four federal agents stood on the eastern side of Rogers Dry Lake, shivering in the freezing cold of the Mojave night. Agent Smith doled out freshly milled bullets of nickel and iron, a crude imitation of the “sky metal” their quarry was weak to. Allegedly. 

Agent Deacon memorised the antiquated Japanese needed to summon the entity to their location, from wherever it was currently hunting hapless Californians. Meanwhile, Agent Thorn busied herself with a hastily assembled binding ritual, greedily hoping to establish control over whatever her coworker manifested from beyond the veil.

Finally, Agent Leon dug an entrenched position for the conspirators’ insurance policy - an M2 Browning he’d liberated from the base armory with bogus paperwork. As far as Edwards AFB knew, this was all just a live-fire exercise on the lakebed that they weren’t cleared for.

With all the pieces on the board, Deacon stubbed out his cheap cigarette and enunciated the summoning ritual. Nothing happened. He cleared his cancer-ridden throat nervously, unsure whether his learnt-by-rote phonetic pronunciation had been sufficient. Then there was a burst of Cherenkov radiation above a stretch of desert barely two dozen yards away.

The thing was huge; a slab of crimson flesh clutching a wooden bludgeon in clawed hands. And it was fast - faster than any of them. Its cinder-block feet crunched through dried earth, easily dodging fire from Leon’s machine gun, and was upon Deacon in an instant. The panicked G-man raised his shotgun, revealing a tree-branch-like symbol he’d affixed below the barrel. 

The ogre glanced at the sigil. It laughed.

Katsushika Hokusai

Deacon fired at it. His gun exploded. The poorly made nickel-iron slug had destroyed the barrel. He cursed Smith and his stupid fucking plan as the monster’s kanabō came down, sending a tangled mess of broken bones flying into a sandbank.

Thorn desperately shrieked out the lengthy binding ritual, but was barely through a tenth of it by the time Deacon was struck down. Ignoring its would-be-master, the oni charged down Agent Smith as the terrified ranger’s shots went wide. Before it had the chance to sunder his skull, Leon released another frantic burst of 50. BMG.

A spray of aerosolized blood and fleshy chunks filled the air. It wasn’t the demon’s - it was barely staggered by the bullets ricocheting off its skin. Agent Smith, hit by a stray round to the centre mass, had been torn in half. His bisected body thudded to the blood-soaked sand.

Leon couldn’t take it. The green-on-green incident cracked his already damaged mind, so he fired ineffectually until his barrel melted off and then fled screaming into the night.

Forgoing hypergeometry in favour of her rifle, Thorn abandoned the binding ritual and put a nickel-iron .308 round into the beast’s shoulder. The impact threw it off balance, giving her space to avoid the next swing of its terrifying war club. As the ranger attempted to cycle her weapon and fend off the ogre, Deacon struggled to his feet in spite of his shattered ribs.

Their greed had screwed them. Binding the murderous horror was no longer an option, it needed to go. Deacon staggered over to the ruined body of Smith, the mortally wounded agent seconds away from expiration. With a gurgled apology, Deacon drew a boot knife and hastened his end. Smearing the dead man’s blood into bizarre patterns, the half-mad FBI agent used his human sacrifice to fuel a brute-force banishment. What they should’ve done to begin with.

The oni roared in anger, but another slug of bootleg meteor from Thorn sent it staggering. Before it could regain its footing, it was grabbed by some unseen force and pulled through a pin-sized hole in reality. Deacon promptly collapsed comatose onto Smith’s ritually mutilated body.

He woke up hours later in the back seat of a Chevy Tahoe, lying in a mixture of sand, torn clothing and someone else's blood. Thorn was driving, but Leon was nowhere to be seen (he was busy being manhandled into a Edwards AFB police cruiser by a squad of blue berets). Deacon winced, but not because of his missing teammate or his three broken ribs. 

He’d lost his fucking smokes.

This is a partial after-action report of a N@TO game. I didn't run it, I was playing under #Misfit138. I just wanted to write up the finale of the session, as it was a great little clusterfuck. I was playing as Special Agent Deacon.