Role-playing reviews

Reviews related to role-playing games, with a focus on Gods & Monsters, and a bit of superhero gaming.

Gods & Monsters Fantasy Role-Playing

Beyond here lie dragons

992 9 September 27, 8 AM

Jerry Stratton, April 16, 2016

Cuneiform planisphere: “Part of a circular clay tablet with depictions of constellations. Found in Kuyunjik, ancient Ninevah, in the so-called ‘Library of Ashurbanipal’. Neo-Assyrian period.”; cuneiform; Assyria

This cuneiform planisphere has nothing to do with this adventure. But if I’d seen it before reskinning the module, it would have.

Rather than rest in the demon room, they cut away the plaster. Riana used her claws and, after Riana did not get punished by the attentive ebon demon, Owen used his spare knife.

Eddie Lizard checked for traps, then opened the door. The other side was as Owen had described it—rubble everywhere, stalactites and stalagmites blocking the way. It went down eighty feet, turned left, and went down eighty feet again, whereupon it opened into a one hundred by two hundred foot room. There were tracks coming out of one of the side doors and leading towards the front of the room. Eddie examined them; probably some of the jackal-men. They came out of one door and went up to the altar; it looked like kneeling.

Eddie walked around the walls of the room; there were four doors on each side, many blocked by rubble and rock growths. Fallen plaster and dust was everywhere. At the far end of the room the wall was a semicircle. The half-circle was on raised stone; stairs led up to it, and within it was an altar and a podium. The curved wall was covered by the tattered rags of a faded tapestry.

Zah Eil went to look behind the tapestry, because there had to be, of course, a hidden door there. At his touch, the entire tapestry crumbled into dust on the floor. And there was indeed a door behind it—a pair of them.

They decided to hole up here. They’re worried about the tracks they’ve left in the dust betraying where they are, so Majelica cast dust wand and sucked all of the dust in the room into her wand simply by walking up the room and pointing her wand left and right. The rubble, fallen plaster, and ancient columns were now as clean as they had been when they were made. Or broken. Or whatever. But the party’s tracks are gone, because there is no dust for them to be in.

Next, they closed the door that had tracks coming out of it and Majelica cast bar passage. It will be barred for about five days. They then went back up the stairs toward the demon room, and at the landing where it turned left, they set up camp and watches. Owen prepared to create a lost corner if they hear anyone trying to open the barred door.

There were, however, no encounters that “night”. They rested twelve hours.

In the “morning”, Eddie searched for traps on the no-longer-hidden doors behind the altar; finding none, Eddie opened the doors. This led into an 80-foot square room very similar to the one they just left: plaster frescoes shattered on the floor, stalactites, stalagmites, and debris everywhere. There are doors on the left wall and doors on the wall straight ahead. They chose to go straight ahead.

They went down 40 feet, and then down stairs 20 feet, and then turned left to go about 200 feet. Whereupon they found a pair of doors, which Eddie checked for traps. Not finding any, Eddie opened the doors. Inside, shattered pottery covered the floor. Only a few urns remained intact inside the room. The walls of the 53rd precinct were bleeding. But here, they’re covered in dripping stone, like stalactites but against the walls. After some discussion, they went inside; it was like walking on bones. Crunch… crunch… crunch. Inside the four intact urns was only dust.

They saw nothing else in this “small” room (30 feet by 40 feet) and so exited back out to look at the other option back in the hidden room.

Eddie checked for traps. Didn’t find any. Opened the door… and a violet light poured out. Eddie closed the door.

They convinced Eddie to open it again. A huge, circular room, blue light coming from the sides, and an eight foot tall onyx statue facing away from them, wearing a crown set with large violet gems. Silence. Then they heard a gurgling noise from the far end of the room; then silence again. It was over a hundred feet to the other side of the room, and there were two pools on either side of a wide passage.

They stepped inside; Riana (who is now human rather than bear) walked over and tossed a stone in the pool. Nothing untoward happened. The pool was eight feet deep. Alvin took a drink from the pool. The rest of them looked at the front of the statue. Its eyes and mouth were glowing with an orange flame.

Every so often one of the pools gurgled, and a ripple spread across it. Owen was convinced there was some sort of a water spirit in it.

The exit between the pools was a hall with stairs leading upward. They were beginning to forget why they were here, and just want to get out.

Zah Eil said, “maybe we should go back to the urn room.”

In response to Caverns of Thracia session reports: I have been wanting to run Caverns of Thracia ever since I saw it—and probably ever since I heard of it, back in the day when Judges Guild was a producer of myth.

  1. <- Thracia session 2
  2. Thracia session 4 ->