Greetings, weary travelers, we come across another party of randos who joined me for an evening oneshot. Although not totally random, as we had two Repeat Offenders(tm). The game, Shadowdark. The headgear, random as always.
Back for more abuse:
- Dakota (Halfling ranger, Long flowing hair)
- Claire (Elf priest, AMAZING curls)
Always there because My Shorter Half:
- Seana (Elf Knight of St. Ydris, Blank-faced helm)
New and enthusiastic:
- Declan (Half-orc thief, Brown, tasseled hat)
The venue: "Notebook Failure Dungeon," scene of one of my favorite early meetup games.
And off we go...
The PCs arrived at the entrance, short on coin and hoping for a bit of a boon. Some discussion on the wisdom of climbing into the entrance chasm or roping across somehow. Punctuated by the appearance of the carrion crawler. All safety across, crawler threatened with torch and dropped rocks.
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| got carrion? |
Entrance lock deftly defeated by thief. Party read goblin graffiti in the entrance foyer and added their own. As they negotiated the partially-collapsed walkway further in ("There are some serious code violations here."), they were set upon by the goblins from their secret watch-post. Goblins summarily defeated, although one escaped to tell the tale.
Following them into the guard-post, the party paused to look through gear ("Ooo, goblin fanny-pack!"). Which gave them time to hear the orcs coming up from deeper in. And lay a tripline across the door for them. The orcs' goblin mooks got tangled up in the tripline and were summarily shanked. As this was accomplished, the party was jumped by the orc guards and took some heavy damage, including felling the thief. The priest crit-failed her crossbow and replaced the string in a panic. The shaman big-bad then waded in, and failing his spells, chose to cast scimitar against the priest, skewering her through a chair she hid behind. The halfling ranger, after having little success, even with a holy weapon-blessed sword, finally stabbed the shaman dead.
Thief administered to in the nick of time, and a new PC not required. Party successfully healed and onward...
Venturing deeper into the complex corridors, the party adopted a "keep turning right" strategy, avoiding an obvious spider den. But finding another goblin strongpoint. The Knight kicked in the door, braining one goblin who was investigating the party noises. More close combat and goblin-slaying. More goblin pockets and fanny packs searched.
In this, among some scraps of bad goblin poetry ("I'll keep those for later reading.") was found some keys an a note to feed something in a locked room. Figuring this was a beast of some sort, dead goblins were bundled up (one thrown to distract the giant spider). Upon arriving at the locked door, the party heard something shuffling around inside. The thief unlocked the door and goblin corpse tossed in. Where it was brained by the captive dwarf priest, Kotrin Mountainspine.
She thanked the party for her rescue, explaining she had been captured while seeking a possible abandoned relic in the complex. The party followed her as she poked around in a former "Dwarf dormitory." She found a few psalters, and most interestingly, beads that were used to animate small servant statues employed by the dwarves. Intriguing.
More exploring of side chambers, and the thief found a room occupied by an ooze. Goblin corpse employed for distraction. Noting the chill in the room, there was something keeping it unnaturally cool. The thief had heard of this type of ooze from brethren in the thieves guild, and knew it was susceptible to fire. Everyone backed off and lobbed fire arrows at it (except the thief, who caught his crossbow on fire). The ooze lunged at them, but with limited effectiveness. The knight, tired of everyone standing back and shooting, waded in, sacrificing her morningstar, and spattered the ooze.
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| what passes for a morningstar in my game |
As the ooze disintegrated, a rime-covered coffer was found, and Kotrin opened it. Inside was the relic dwarven warhammer. In thanks, she promised the party hospitality if they were to arrive at any dwarven temple to the battle-saints.
DM Notes:
A fun session. Dakota and Claire previously played in a deathbringer one-shot, I believe, and are creative players who step into character. Declan also leaned into his character, although there was the questionable choice of allowing the priest to use his hat tassel as a light spell focus.
Speaking of which. I used the optional 30-minute light timer for the game. I think it works best for oneshots, especially with the theme of light management in the game. We also used it in our campaign, to good effect. As an added element, I brought a small battery powered lantern I picked up at the discount store. As the light timer ran out, I turned off the lantern.
Just a fun little prop.
We recently checked out a new-to-us brewery. Small craft place, specializing in Belgian and French style brews, so a nice departure from the usual IPA and pilsner crowd. So, this was our host venue for the night's session. I'm thinking of combining my one-shots with more local brewery/taproom explorations, to make "they met in a tavern" a bit of a combined mission...
Oh, and I finally noticed that the Shadowdarklings character creator allows you to advance the character to a selected level, which eased my creation of 2nd level pre-gens for the session. I also printed out a two-page game reference sheet with all of the bare-necessity mechanics for the game that will live in my Shadowdark game folder.
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