The Lamia's Labyrinth: Solo Test Game Part 1

 I decided I could run myself through my planned next game (which may be a ways off for the Fantasy Trip group as they are even more paranoid than we are about getting sick. Both our families have immuno-compromised spouses and we need to be careful). So, first thing is start grabbing tiles and set up room #1. After putting together a close enough approximation, I realize without walls it is a bit harder to imagine this as a room. Of course, that may be because I am anticipating some walls to show up at some point from a Kickstarter, Ramparts. And while I have some fantasy doors (which you can barely see in this picture I think) I have no fantasy floors yet, so it is more of a grate to be able to hold that door. Of course, I also have doors showing up that will better match. But I digress. 

So the party is dropping into room number one, a 20 foot drop from the shifting sands above. The room is described as:

The entrance is through a hole in the ceiling, dropping down about 20 feet to the sand covered floor below. The 6 sided room has a closed door to the south and an open door to the east. Sand is piled up under the hole and you can see footprints in the sand going to the east door. The room is cool and dusty, with the whispery sound of the air over the hole in the roof in the adventurers ears. The walls and ceiling have frescoes of human, animal and magical figures cavorting about. Remains of what appear to be kneeling benches are crumbled against one wall. Small alcoves on the northwest wall are empty except for one with a gold statue of a cockatrice. For statue, 4D/INT to notice trap, 2D with detect trap skill. Normal save roll against poison needles that will do 1d6 damage. For the frescoes, INT roll vs 4D, 2D if they have history or priest skills to recognize that these are from the local pantheon but are representing what looks to be gods and goddesses amongst regular beings. Amongst them is a animal goddess.

In reading part of this out loud, I think I need to make the room a bit more spooky (of course I am writing this on Halloween, the power just flickered [fortunately I my computer system is on battery backup so no disruption there!] so perhaps some of that is creeping in!). I need a short but better way of the initial impression of the room. Something more like:

You drop to the sand-covered floor, faint moonlight shining against the pile of sand beneath the hole in the ceiling 20' above. The air is cooler and you hear the whisper of the desert winds above you.  Your torches give frescoes on the walls the appearance of life as the shadows flicker across paintings of humans, animals and magical creatures cavorting about. Against the walls are the rotting remains of benches, and you can see the glint of what appears to be a small gold statue in a niche on the wall.

That does seems a bit better maybe. The room otherwise is pretty barren, just the one trap, and nothing to signify any connection to anything other than those frescoes. I am also going to use a picture from one of the artists I patronize on Patreon, CCJ Ellis. She does Welsh mythical art among other things, and has some really cool stuff. I think this image is another good way of looking at Tona, the Goddess of Lesser Creatures.

I also grabbed 4 random character cards from the Fantasy Trip Deck, and paired them with 4 cards that expand on the basic character to something approaching an actual player character.

Which does help, especially if I go through the Death Test again! But other than that 1 trap next to the gold cockatrice statue, there is nothing much going on in this room. Should there be more? A random treasure? I'll probably leave this as is as other rooms do have a lot more, and this room has been open for a bit at least to the desert above. However, I think there does need to be a more active encounter, more of one of those nuisance creatures. So maybe a small number of scorpions or spiders. Nothing to hurt anyone with armor, but an active enemy to get things warmed up.

So our master thief eyes the gold statue, and manages to do well on her roll to avoid the trap. So she now has one gold statue. I probably need to establish a cost, but when I play this, unless the character has assess value, they will only know that it is a small gold statue.

And that is as far as I really got: took longer for the set up and finding doodads for scatter terrain. In fact, I forgot my cheap rocks and may add them as well. Hopefully tomorrow I can go through more rooms.

Anyway, this adventure is pulling things in from a few Kickstarter zines, a couple of my Patreon feeds, and my own imagination as well as all the Fantasy Trip stuff I managed accumulate. I am going to rewrite that 1st paragraph as above though. The revised version seems more evocative.

More info on Tona here.

Corsairs - Another Character, and even more world expansion

Another interesting character has popped into my email:

Slevel McDicheal

Raised by nomads, learned to read at a young age but only to learn how to play music. Expert at foraging, fishing and exceptionally lucky. Poor to no fighting skills. 

And now we've added nomads to the world! I never even thought of that. I think the nomads will have a variety of ships for all sorts of things, but perhaps fly together as small armadas and family groups. They will have a variety of skills, much like migrant workers today roam from job to job. Training is varied and wide across all the needs: fishing, fish squeezing, herding, farming, carpentry, building, perhaps thievery, perhaps noble sacrifice in unjust battles. All the sky ships will be old and patched together, more ramshackle perhaps but well cared for (as we need to remember the knowledge to make new ships has been lost for centuries. Though apparently there are still plenty of them about).

Some nomads are more prone to the traditional Corsair life, robbing and pillaging. Others live a more carefree life and go where the winds take them. I've a feeling Slevel comes from the carefree nomads.

Some nomads have been known to try repellium gliding. Wearing a repellium belt and wings, they can manage flights untethered from ships. Of course, they do tend to be bite sized snacks for the occasional dragon.

Mentioned in the rule book are two additional characteristics characters can have, charmed ort cursed. This is usually by exceptionally good or bad equipment, injuries or something else happening in game.

Charmed sets the success to 3+ on a d6. Cursed lets the 1s explode. In the dice rolls, a 6 is exploded as long as you keep rolling a 6. So the potential for a really high draft is there. Cursed lets the 1's explode, so you could become very unlucky indeed! There are always rumors of those people who seem charmed or cursed, but no one has ever met a naturally charmed or cursed person. Just the rumors whispered after a few ales.

And finally, I think I've found the hero ship (still to be named). Apparently there is a Patreon account that does sky ships! I back 4 patreon accounts so really can't do more at the moment (I blame the pandemic) else I would pitch in a couple of bucks a month for a bit as we may end up using his art.

So any good names for the ship? Although not as pretty as some, it is basically a battle map anyway. Not that we're playing face to face with minis.

The Fantasy Trip - Puddlejumpers

As I named this area almost 40 years ago in college, I cannot recall what I was thinking for this. Most of the areas named on my various maps were created directly out of the minis I had just bought (buy some minis, make a map of where they are from. Good times!). 

In the current incarnation, the land of the Puddlejumpers is the junk-drawer of magic. Wild magic abounds, and it is a an area of low hills, fens, marshes, wetlands and interesting denizens that are fleeing to a place where they can just be themselves. There are roving bands of hunters of all sorts as well, and fell creatures that would as soon kill you as see you. Treasures are rumored to be in there, and magic users across the area often go there for those special ingredients that can grow or be found nowhere else.

Elementals are not uncommon, golems and other wizardly constructs are all over, and rumors of skeleton armies are less rumor and more fact. Fortunately a lot of those with various armies tend to fight each other rather than the conquest of other lands.

Pure power stones can sometimes be found, bypassing the cost and time of creating them. Old manses exist, falling apart like houses in the Bayeux here on Earth. Spanish moss, slime moss and fairy moss hang in huge garlands from the trees, Am Bushes and bloodtrees have entire groves to themselves, littered with skeletons that have not risen from a sorcerers' casting. Witches in huts with chicken legs are known to wander about.

I'll have to come up with a fun random encounter list here, and possibly include some things from the Deck of Silly Treasures and other PDFs. One of the people I give a bit to on Patreon produces a wide range of interesting monsters, mostly D&D stats but applicable to any game with a bit of work, so I'll go through those as well. For instance, JH Illos has the following creature that should be a fun encounter! While I don't give much, I think the Patreon idea is a good idea: you back people to let them try creative things they may not otherwise be able to do. And over the years I've "borrowed" a lot of images and things from the webs, so if I can help a few of those people even a little, it at least makes me feel better!