Shadowdark Session 0: Meet Bloggah

I found this file on my tablet. Not sure where it came from, so giving the unknown author the benefit of the doubt and assuming it's genuine: 

***

Yo. I found this odd magical tablet where I poke at it and I can spell out words.

A magical miracle! Wait until I tell Rig-Rot! He'll think it's the rat's balls!

Oh, hello. I'm Bloggah. Goblin, if you care. I recently joined an encampment of my kin northeast of Hound's Head. There's Rig-Rot. I share a tent with him. Cass-Crow. She's pretty handy. Zern the Wist. He doesn't like anyone who's not a goblin, collects skulls. Ergo-En, Har-Hok, Wort-Wig, and the rest. We're just trying to make our way. Rig-Rot found an old collapsed fort. Some of the walls are still up. Good enough to block the wind from our tents and hovels, maybe help keep the wolves out. Or whatever wanders out of the deeper Komor forest. Plus winter's coming. We need to stock up and get some roofs up.

So I was coming back from woodcutting, when I head voices. Dwarves. I don't speak their tongue, but most of them harmless, keep to themselves since all that stuff that happened back in the Before Times. Just two, one dragging a handcart of tools. So I waved them down. 

Said their names were Ulfgar and Alric. Brothers looking for metal veins to mine to the northwest. They'd heard we were down here, so wanted to make our acquaintances on the way to Hound's Head. Sure, come on down. I'll let the crew know you're here. 

Got most of the gang to say hi (except Zern, of course). The dwarves want to be good guests, so pull out a cask of ale, pass out some cups to share. Cups have the Great Imbiber carved on them. Not our god, but most of Their followers seem happy folk. 

The dwarves want to introduce themselves, possible trade. They're waiting for their kin to come and make a settlement up north, see if the play turns out to be worth it. 

Asked them about what they'd found, if they had a place to overwinter yet. Nope- probably need to build some cabins. Only 'cave' they'd found was an old crypt. Don't know why they weren't interested in setting up camp in it. After all, its occupants wouldn't make any noise. Probably.

Dwarves headed to Hound's Head. Left us the remains of the cask and the cups. Right neighborly.

Few of us gathered and chatted after. Old crypt? Might have Northman treasures. Maybe even hard silver. All good to trade to the folks in Hound's Head. I'm keen to check it out. So's Cass-Crow. Ergo-En wants to come along, but everyone knows he's a bit feeble. But at least he could pray over us before we took off.

Found the place. Stone skulls bracketing a stone archway. Very chic. I have no idea why the dwarves didn't have any interest in it. I lit a torch and Cass and I crept in. I had my poking stick, just in case.

Entryway had four old jars. After a judicious amount of poking, we found a rotted torch making kit, some arrowheads (including a few in hard silver), a small box with a vial of something, and a bent fork. I am so turning that fork into a wand.

A bit more poking, and we found a pressure plate. Dart trap sprung safely. Course, ya clear one hazard, you get another. Clattering skeletons. It's fine... Cass shot at one. I imagined the funny patterns, and a purple bolt shot from my hand, knocking off a few chips of bone. Better imagine harder next time.

Damned things started ganging up on us. One poked Cass, another swiped me. And I'm not that sturdy.

Another bolt, another arrow. Got one. Sometime in this fight my mind pattern gets hazy and I can't do the bolt thing. And that's my special trick! Course, then I get knocked flat. I have visions of fiery horses chasing ghostly cattle. Come to with Cass slapping me. Get to it! Fine. Imagine a different pattern. A cone of flame makes it dead-dead. Skeleton number three knocks me down again. Visions of a couple of nice young men in pressed white shirts asking to talk to me about Moron, or something. Cass drags me back to consciousness, again. Bash the last skeleton. I sweep up some ashes of grave dust. Might be useful.

We limp forward. 

Big ol room of sparkly columns and a stone sarcophagus. The sparkly is crystals that make my torch seem brighter. We collect some for later. The stone sarcophagus definitely wants whatever is inside to stay inside. Lid's bound down with iron spikes. Cass finds a bit of a puzzle on one end, but neither of us can suss it out. 

We leave it be. But there is some good grave goods. Find a hard silver short sword for Cass, and a handful of hard silver Northman coins. Some are stull strung on a cord, so I wear it as bling.

We check out a side corridor we passed earlier. Something's glowing back there. I'm sure nothing to worry about.

Looks like a glowing skeleton wandering back and forth. It seems to ignore us. I check out a rotted tapestry in an alcove. I sweep up a few copper tapestry-rings in the dust. Oops, skeleton noticed us. Time to boogie. We back down the corridor. I make the flaming hands pattern, but it fades. Dammit. Cass shoots it. It's on us, and I see its making the same flaming hands thing. How dare it use my trick! 

This time I'm watching two giant dogs play tug of war with souls. I really need to figure this stuff out.

More slapping and swearing. Fine. I'm back. And smoldering. The skeleton collapses and we take our bleeding, singed bodies out of there. 

I gotta heal up, look at that book of pretty patterns to remember my tricks again. Maybe Zern will want to come back with me and crack that sarcophagus. Maybe it has a skull for his collection.

***

A brief session report from my Session 0 Shadowdark adventure with Tim Shorts. Yeah, Bloggah, goblin mage, went to 0hp THREE times. But somehow was resuscitated each time. I already have backup character in the pipe. Death visions via D66 Afterlife Experiences, of course.  

I rolled the character randomly on shadowdarklings.net/, other than picking the race/class. Because I thought a goblin mage who doesn't understand how magic works would be funny. Tim's running the crew through Session 0s. I think we've already had one death, so someone is finding their backup character... So it goes. The "hard silver" referenced above is an in-game metal that may be used to craft weapons or other items, and can be useful against undead, demons, and their ilk. Of which there are plenty haunting the dark woods of Komor.