Beneath The Battered Dwarf Tavern - A Swords & Wizardry Light Starter Adventure - Part 5 - Laughter in the Darkness

Part 1,  Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 as well as the ideas behind it all.

Laughter in the darkness, just at the edge of your hearing. Was it real or just your imagination?

Room 7 is the location of a Krimple. You'll need to read up on this new monster, but here is the part you really need to wrap your head around:

Krimples can open and close locks, set traps, raise undead, sour milk, spoil wine, beer and the like, make food rot and other assorted nuisances at will. As a GM, be creative. They can also turn Invisible once per day, as per the spell. Duration is 1 Hr.

Use this to your advantage in keeping the party on the edge. If they attack the giant rats in room 5 and are having little difficulty, they'll hear the loud click of a lock and the creak of a gate from the south as the Cave Badger charges in. Same will happen if they bypass room 6 to explore the hallway to the east (it should occur right as they are standing before room 7) . Should a party member fall, they will hear laughing.

The Krinkle will follow the party invisibly when he can. Remember, room #3 has bags of flour. An enterprising party will use it to their advantage once they realize they are being followed.

The door to room 7 is a secret door. If the party suspects something or someone is behind the wall, they can look for the mechanism. Should they prod the floor or wall with a wooden poll adjacent to the door to room 7, the pole will rot and break and giggling will be heard.

The Krinkle is not a fighter and would rather make deals than engage in combat and risk being exiled to his usual plane for 30 days or a year. He will offer to lead the party to treasure, and he will, but will make light of any potential damage should they inquire.

Room 8 - The Tomb and Treasures Await - The door to this room is also secret but the outline is faintly visible to any that take the time to look at the wall. Otherwise, the Krinkle (if alive) will lead the party here with promises of treasure.

"Treasure awaits, yes it does! Danger? What value is treasure without danger, and what value is danger without treasure?"

The room is full of stone and wooden coffins. There are 3 skeletons, 2 zombies and a ghoul in the room. There are 7 open coffins and 3 closed coffins.

If the undead are successfully turned they will flee to the partially collapsed stairs leading up and cower.

There IS treasure within. A quick search will reveal 200 SP, 15 GP and a slivered dagger. A longer search (10 minutes or more) will find a gold brooch, valued at 175 GP.

The stairs can not be climbed.

Room 9 - Demon Cult Temple - The door to this room is covered with old and flaking paint. Little can be made out aside from a generous amount of red paint.

Upon opening the door and entering the room, it will be obvious that this was once a place of worship. Much of the paint has flaked here too, but the images that remain might be enough for a cleric to glean an idea of its history (I had the cleric roll his Wisdom or less on a d20 to see if he recognized anything during the playtest).

This was once the place of worship for a long forgotten cult that worshipped demons as gods.

If the Krimple is with the party and had previously suffered any wounds, he will start healing before the party's eyes.

And that's it. Well, not really, but that's where my party is and I don't want to spoil any surprises. I do know where this goes next...

Beneath the Battered Dwarf Tavern - Playtest Recap - Are You Laughing at Me?!? (Part 2)

So, Saturday night we got the old group back together, more or less, and kicked off the new Swords & Wizardry Light campaign with a playtest of Beneath the Battered Dwarf Tavern, a SWL Introductory Adventure. I also allowed the use of any of the classes currently written for the SWL expansion, but everyone initially stuck to the four core races.

This is part Two of the playtest recap. Part One is here.

Where were we? Oh yes, we were here:

The sound of a creaking gate from behind them alerted them to the charge of a Cave Otter as the party's thief swore he heard laughing coming from nearby...

The party was just north of the secret door at Room 7. The Cave Otter was charging from Room 6. The party's cleric still had the key to the gate in his pocket. Someone, somewhere was laughing.

Blows were exchanged and finally the party fought off the Cave Otter and it retreated downstream of room 6. Deciding to grab the ale while they were where the ale was, the party again locked the gate upon leaving.

Returning to Room 3, they decide to confront whatever is left of the Giant Rats in Room 3. Five emaciated Giant Rats swarm the party. A good fight is fought but the magic-user falls under the onslaught. He doesn't have much worth looting, but the party does fine a silver chain in the rats nest.

They hear distant laughing.

The party thief decides to open a sack of flower and spread its contents along the souther end of Room number 3. If there is something watching them, perhaps invisibly, he wants proof. He also fills a small sack with flour to take with him.

The ale is brought up, along with the nibbled on body of their deceased brethren. They tell the barkeep that there is some kind of poltergeist in his basement. He demands they put an end to it. They demand a part ownership of the tavern. They haggle a bit, a deal is struck and the young dwarf receives the angry ire of his uncle.

A bard joins the party (maybe 5 minutes to create the character) and they rest overnight.

Returning to the basement the party finds tracks in the flour laid out on the floor. Vaguely humanoid tracks. They follow the tracks south of Room # 3, turn east, past Room # 6 before the tracks literally stop in the corridor - well, in the south wall - just north of Room # 7. Suspecting they have found a secret door, they search for the mechanism - they find it and open the door.

There is a small room, unoccupied, which can't be right. The thief throws in the flour, and sure enough, there is a short, humanoid creature hiding in the corner, After a short fight, it surrenders.

"I just having fun! No, your friend dying was not fun, but watching the fight was! Watching you scare of that creature was great fun! It was great fun watching your dinner the other night!"

Not sure what they have (and with the party's fighter eager to kill it) they tie it up tightly and try to elicit more information from it.

"Treasure I know! Yes, treasure. Take you I can, great fun!"

He leads the party to Room # 8. He reveals the secret door and tells them that great treasures await behind the door. When asked about any danger, the response is "What is treasure without danger? One brings value to the other. Great fun!"

Opening the door reveals a room full of wooden and stone coffins as well as a half dozen undead. The cleric turns them successfully, and they try to flee up the stairs, but that entrance had collapsed year ago. They do a quick search, find some valuables and close the door behind them.

"See! Treasure as I said!" the creature tells the party proudly. "Not great fun, but treasure, yes? I bring you more treasure?"

The passageway turned mostly south and the party follows it until they encounter a door on the west wall. The door had been painted at some time in the past, but now most of the paint had flaked off.

The party opens the door and enters Room # 9. It has many doors and appears to have been a place of worship in years in the past. The cleric racks his brain, trying to determine if he knows anything about this religion (I ask him to roll under or equal to his Wisdom - he does) He's not sure the name of the cult, but they worshipped demons as if they were gods. Its at this point that the party notices that their captive's wounds are healing before their eyes. The decide to quickly back out of the room and discuss their options.

Thus ended the playtest of Beneath The Battered Dwarf Tavern.

Beneath the Battered Dwarf Tavern - Playtest Recap - Stop Ghouling Around! (Part 1)

So, last night we got the old group back together, more or less, and kicked of the new Swords & Wizardry Light campaign with a playtest of Beneath the Battered Dwarf Tavern, a SWL Introductory Adventure. I also allowed the use of any of the classes currently written for the SWL expansion, but everyone initially stuck to the four core races.

Roll20 was our VTT of choice. Its a smooth as silk interface AS LONG AS YOU DON'T USE THE INTEGRATED VOICE AND VIDEO! Holy shit, what a fucking nightmare. Normally we would have used Google Hangouts and opened the Roll20 app from within, but no, Google had to fuck up a good thing and make that impossible to do these days with their new Hangout interface. After nearly half an hour of trying to get video and chat to sync for the five of use (best we got was 4 out of 5 working fine but there was ALWAYS someone who couldn't hear someone else) we threw in the towel and opened up Hangouts for voice and chat and Roll20 on its own. Not the perfect solution but it worked.

Character generation was a breeze. 3d6 arrange as you see fit. If you don't have at least one score at 15 or higher you could re-roll. Max HP at first level. Magic-user starts with 2 random spells. It went quickly. No shopping list, just choose your weapon combination and your starting gear pack. Not having to track XP was seen as a good thing.

We had a PC of each of the four core classes, including a halfling thief. A balanced party, go figure. Heh.

In the opening scene the ghoul burst forth from the storeroom during dinner and chaos ensues. The bartender gives his impassioned speech to save his ale - oh, and his wife's nephew. It was on and the players engaged their adversary. Magic Missile for 1 point of damage. Two Handed Sword for 7 points and the danger was dealt with, or at least the immediate danger.

The party investigated the ghoul's remains and noticed that the arm it had been chewing on was long dead, so it was not the dwarf lad's arm.

Encouraged to go below and save the boy - and retrieve the ale - the PCs entered the storeroom and lowered themselves via a series of metal rungs to the basement below. They immediately found and assumed possession of the Torch of Continual Light, which was wise.

The short corridor lest to a room with three doors - north, east and south. North door had recent claw marks, east door had a plank across it that read "Keep Out!" and the south door was ajar.

The party quickly decided the south door was the direction the ghoul had come from and quick spike the door shut. The clawed door to the north indicated there was possibly someone or something behind the door and was a likely place to find the young dwarf.

Sure enough, the door to the north wasn't locked, but did appear to have something blocking it from opening. Calling out, they asked if the dwarven lad was inside and lo and behold, he was. He moved the crates and barrels away from the door and asked the party to return him to The Tavern. The party asked him about the door to the east and he explained that a month ago, giant rats had found their way into the storeroom. Unable to safely engage the vermin, the bartender ordered the door remain closed and they would wait out the rats. Sooner or later, they would simply die of starvation.

The players retuned the young lad to his uncle, who promptly set him to work cleaning up the ghoulish remains in the tavern's dining section. The bartender then asked the PCs to retrieve his ale, because a tavern without ale is a tavern without customers.

Returning to the basement, the party headed through the south door. A corridor in front of them quickly turned east. Shortly after turning, there were a series of bars replacing the south wall for a 10' stretch along with an iron gate with a key sitting in its lock. Beyond, the party could see the barrels of ale sitting in the cold spring water. Not wanting to leave an unexplored corridor to their east, they locked the gate, took the key and investigated further east.

The sound of a creaking gate from behind them alerted them to the charge of a Cave Otter as the party's thief swore he heard laughing coming from nearby...

More to come

Tonight We Playtest "Beneath the Battered Dwarf Tavern" for Swords & Wizardry Light

Map by +Dyson Logos 

I've been releasing parts of Beneath the Battered Dwarf Tavern, an introductory adventure for Swords & Wizardry Light in pieces here at The Tavern. You can read what's been released so far here.

Most of it is written up in the manner it has been posted on the blog but some only exists in outline form. We will see how far the party gets tonight.

We'll be playtesting the additional rules proposed for Swords & Wizardry Expert Light. Can't find out what's broken without breaking things - meaning both the adventure and the rules ;)

We'll be using:

- Roll 20 for the Virtual Table Top with Fog of War enabled and some portraits for the new creatures the party may encounter

- Swords & Wizardry Light (obviously)

- Swords & Wizardry Expert Light (new classes and leveling to Level 7 - only the additional classes will possibly come into play right now)

- Voice & Video - because sometimes you just make more sense when you can be seen

After I get the full adventure posted at The Tavern I'll put it in a quick and dirty PDF for my Patreons and any that may be looking to run it at a con (just email me at tenkarsDOTtavern at that gmail thing with "SWL Con" in the title if you need it for a Con) Later on we'll put out a more professional version for release at RPGNow as PWYW. It will be the same for the Creature Collectanea - quick and dirty PDF for the backers once we get enough creatures, than PWYW at RPGNow after we pretty-fi it ;)

Beneath The Battered Dwarf Tavern - A Swords & Wizardry Light Starter Adventure - Part 4 - Splish Splash!

Part 1,  Part 2, Part 3 as well as the ideas behind it all.

The south door of Room #3 is slightly ajar. Upon opening the door the party will see a passageway, 5' wide, heading south before turning east. 

After turning the corner the party will notice that the south wall has bars across it as well as an iron barred door on the western most part of the opening. There is a key already in the lock, waiting to be turned.

There is a room of sorts to the south behind the bars (Room #6). An underground stream enters from the west wall and fills a 5' wide canal of sorts that flows south. There are five barrels sitting in the water of the canal, almost up against the bars. At least one barrel is is label "ALE".

If anyone in the party listens closely they will hear splashing coming from further down the water tunnel. A thief that makes a Hear Noise roll will recognize it as feet of some sorts splashing in the water.

Note: the small stream that fills the canal runs fast but very shallow - about 4 inches deep. The canal itself is about 2 feet deep and the water is slow moving but very cold.

The splashing is from a Cave Otter (described in a previous post) This is a young Cave Otter. It has 11 HP. The statistical write up is below for your convenience. 

Cave Otter
AC: 5[14]    HD: 4   Attacks: bite (1d6+2)   Move: 9 (18 in water)
Special: On a roll of 19 or 20, inflicts double damage with tusk impale

If the Cave Otter receives 6 or more HP of damage, it will attempt to flee downstream. It has no treasure.

The canal returns to underground stream width 15' south of the southernmost part of the canal indicated on the map. The party is too tall to follow the stream 

The ale is exactly what the bartender ordered.

Next, go East young adventurers...

Beneath The Battered Dwarf Tavern - A Swords & Wizardry Light Starter Adventure - Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2 as well as the ideas behind it all.

When the party drops from the storeroom (room #2) to the hallway below, they will find the hallway lit by a magical glowing torch. The torch can be removed from the sconce it is held by. As stated in the previous post, treat as a light spell that does not cease unless dispelled.

The short hallway leads to Room #3. It is 15" wide by 25" tall. The part enters from the west wall, south end. Each of the other walls has a door made of wood. There are crates along the west and east walls, labeled with various goods: potatoes, carrots, onions, flour and the like. the temperature is a steady 55 degrees F which helps keep the long term perishables fresh.

The door to Room #4 has claw marks in the wood and appears to be stuck. Repeated tries to push the door in will make it apparent that something or somethings have been piled against the door to prevent entry. This was done by the bartender's nephew when he saw the ghoul enter from the south door of room #3, causing the lad to flee to Room #4. If he is called out to, the young dwarf will remove the barrels of wine and vinegar and allow entry into the room. He will explain what happened and ask to be returned to his uncle.

The door to Room #5 has a single wooden board nailed across it with "Keep Out!" written in red paint. If the dwarf from Room #4 is present, he will explain that the storage room beyond was infested with giant rats and the door hasn't been opened in nearly a month. Anyone listening to the door hears vague squeaking. A thief that makes a successful hear noise roll will hear the squeaking of approximately six distinct creatures. If the party decides to open the door, it opens into Room 5 without effort. The wooden board is nailed into the door frame, not the door itself. Inside the room  5 very hungry Giant Rats charge to attack!

Rat, Giant AC 7[12]  HD 1-1  Attack Bite (1d6)

Note: HD 1-1 means roll a 1d6 -1 for the HP of each creature, treating "0"s as "1"s. For this, we rolled: 6, 5, 3, 2 and 1. After adjustments, the HP of the 5 Giant Rats are: 5, 4, 2, 1 and 1.

After the Giant Rats are defeated the PCs may want to search room 5. It is full of rat feces and has a horrible smell. Any goods stored here have been ruined. The rats have, however, found a sliver chain valued at 10 GP and buried it in their nest in the north east corner. Anyone prodding with a 10' pole (preferable) or their hands (less preferable) will find it. There is nothing else of value in this room.

Onward to the door in the South Wall...

Beneath The Battered Dwarf Tavern - A Swords & Wizardry Light Starter Adventure - Part 2

I realize in retrospect that we didn't discuss Turning Undead in the previous post. If the Ghoul is successfully turned (requiring a roll of 13 or better on 3d6 by a 1st level Cleric) it will attempt to flee. In this case, it will attempt to flee whence it came, which is the trap door via room 2. In this case it will drop itself the 15' or so to the floor beneath, and will avoid using the metal runged ladder it used to climb from the cellar to the tavern's ground floor.

Did I mention hexes are 5'? Oops ;)

Room 2 is a storage room for less perishable items such as flour, dried meats and fruits, potatoes and other vegetables with a long shelf life, along with pickled cucumbers and wine. Ale is generally served chilled (at least when initially tapped) and is stored in the cellar. Hidden beneath bags of flour in the S/E corner of the room is the tavern owner's suit of chain mail (dwarven sized)

(f) indicates a pulley system that allows for the floor (5' square) to lower to the cellar and return with goods needed for the tavern. There is also a series of metal rungs on the north wall that can be accessed if the floor in question is lowered at least 5'. Currently the floor is lowered all 15' to the cellar below.

The hallway below is lit by a Continual Light spell cast on a metal rod, which serves as a removable torch. Treat as a Light spell that does not cease unless dispelled.

No roll is needed to descend using the metal rung ladder. PC's deciding to drop the 15' (10' or so if they lower themselves off the edge of the floor) must roll a Saving Throw or suffer 1d6 damage. A generous GM may decide to give them a bonus of + 2 to the Saving Throw as it is a controlled fall.

Into the Cellar...

My Goal With the Swords & Wizardry Light Starter Adventure - Assume Little and Explain Everything

Many of those running adventures with the Swords & Wizardry Light rules will fall into one or more of the following categories:

- Lapsed gamer / lapsed DM

- New gamer

- Current gamer / new to the OSR

- Simply a new DM

So, what I've set out to do is breakdown the processes required to run a session of Swords & Wizardry Light or most any OSR game (or even 5e) (as started with an earlier post today)

In the first encounter I explain how to roll initiative, what happens if the initiative rolls are tied, what happens if a PC is hit by the ghoul and fail their save and the like. In a way, its the exact opposite of the succinct presentation of the SWL rules themselves.

The rest of the adventure will be similar, explaining concepts as they occur.

I'll aim for a room a day (more or less) posted at The Tavern. A quick and dirty PDF will be put together when the adventure is complete and sent to Patreon backers and then a "professionally" laid out version will go up with some art as a PWYW release at RPGNow.

Thus is the purpose of Beneath The Battered Dwarf Tavern.

Swords & Wizardry Light Campaign Kickoff Adventure - Picking Up Where I Left Off

https://rpgcharacters.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/tavern-and-understructures.jpg

I really like this +Dyson Logos tavern and associated cellar. I had plans for this back in June of last year but events got in the way. Now to pick up where I left off while including some instructions to the new Swords & Wizardry Light GM.

A foul looking creature bursts forth from the storeroom of the Battered Dwarf Tavern. It holds a gnawed arm in its mouth as it surveys the dinner crowd. The arm drops to the floor with a thump as it softly slurs the word "buffet."

The bartender, an old and bearded dwarf, shouts to the assembled patrons.

"The facker! My wife's nephew was gettin' the next cask of me ale to be brought up. I'll pay the tab of any that dispatch this beast and then go down the basement and bring up me ale!  Oy, and the boy too I reckon, or whatever is left 'em. Heck, I'll go so far as offer room and board for a month - but yaz needs ta triple up in the room, mind ya. A dwarf's gotta make a profit still."

The creature is a Ghoul and has a chance to paralyze any foe it strikes. Have one of the players roll 1d6 for Initiative and you roll 1d6 for the Ghoul. The side with the highest roll attacks first. In case of a tie with the Initiative Roll, everyone on both sides of the combat rolls their attacks and, if applicable, their damage, but damage does not take effect until everyone has had a chance to attack and any failed saves are applied after damage is accounted for.

Ghoul - AC 6[13]  HD:2  HP:8  Attack 1d6 (if hit is successful, target must Save or be paralyzed for 3d6 turns - 30 to 180 minutes)

Note: If the dropped arm is examined, it is obviously from a long deceased and decomposing corpse and not that of a young dwarf.

One or more characters may be paralyzed for 3d6 turns if they were struck by the Ghoul and failed their save. Kuzder (the bartender) will patiently wait for any paralyzer characters to recover but will prod the party when all are capable again with phrases like: "Me poor wife's nephew! Ain't ye gonna rescue him?" and "We've got no ale to sell! How can ye run a tavern without ale!" and "Time is money! Without ale I'm losing money!"

Onward to the Storeroom...