Darguk's Dungeon

My friend could not attend our Four Against Darkness session last Sunday so my brother and I pressed on by ourselves.

The Party

We played with our alternate characters, which meant that we had a small party. 

Here are the party members.

• Gerd - warrior
• Marlin - wizard

Because we had a small party, I halved the number of enemies.

The Quest

Go into the dungeon, kill stuff, and take their treasure.

I created a complex adventure but did not want to run it without my friend. Therefore, I decided to run a completely random adventure. I had no idea what the boss was.

The Adventure

Our heroes hear tales of a mysterious cave, No one has visited it and returned alive. Naturally, Gerd and Marlin decide to check it out.

Here is a map of the dungeon.

While exploring the cave, our heroes encounter:
1 - 4 skeletal rats

2 - 3 goblin swarmlings

3 - Armory. Marlin took a short sword and Gerd took a mace.

4 - Empty

5 - A catoblepas. They both saved vs. the monster's gaze. Gerd got in the first wound. Marlin then lightning bolted it and then smashed it with his staff.

6 - A minotaur. After one major monster, the heroes did not want to face another. RUN AWAY!

7 - A troll. Gerd kills it. Marlin remembered to slice it up so it would not regenerate.

4 - Wandering monster while backtracking - 2 orcs.

8 - 2 giant frogs.

9 - An orc brute named Darguk - Gerd wounds it then Marlin puts it to sleep.

At this point, the party reached a dead end and fought a boss, so I declared that they had explored the entire dungeon. I wanted a shorter dungeon anyway, so this was perfect.

I had my brother roll for wandering monsters on the way out. He rolled brilliantly; the party had no encounters!

Aftermath

Marlin had to use a bandage and was close to needing a heal. Gerd took some damage but was in no danger. They managed to save their healing potions.

Both characters got to roll to gain a level. They both succeeded and are now level 3. They also raked in around 150 gp each. So it was a profitable venture.

The Ogre Swamp

This was the second adventure of our ongoing Four Against Darkness campaign. Previously, we killed the orc brute that was leading raids in the area.

The Party

My friend joined us. Because he missed the first adventure, we allowed him to run 2 characters. My brother ran Groin the dwarf and I ran Haldor the cleric.

Here is our marching order.

• Groin - dwarf
• Haldor - cleric
• Marcus - marksman
• Aetal - wizard

The Quest

An ogre has kidnapped the daughter of one of the local village chiefs and absconded with her to his swamp lair. There is a 100 gold bounty for her safe return.

The Adventure

This is a wilderness adventure in a swamp, but I ran it like a dungeon. The "rooms" represent clearings.

Here are the party' encounters.

1. 8 giant rats

2. A will 'o wisp

3. An ooze

4. 5 mushroom men. Aetal tries to negotiate with them but they attack. Aetal manages to kill 2.

5. 4 lizardmen

4. Backtracking, the party runs into 2 oozes.

6. 5 goblin swarmlings.

7. 4 crocodiles. Aetal manages to put 3 to sleep. The party then crosses over a stream on the sleeping crocs' backs.

8. Party gets lost. They spend some time getting re-oriented. Fortunately, no wandering monsters appear.

9. 2 more crocodiles.

10. Quicksand. Groin gets sucked under and takes damage from asphyxiation before the party rescues him.

11. Treasure!

12. 10 mushroom men.

13. Swamp witch! Aetal kills her.

14. Marsh gas nearly overcomes the party.

13. Backtracking. 6 giant centipedes are feasting on the swamp witch's corpse but then they attack the party.

15. Giant spider. Aetal kills it.

16. THE OGRE. Haldor gets in the final blow. The party rescues the chief's daughter.

8. Heading out of the swamp. 6 mushroom men. Aetal is badly wounded so he teleports out of the swamp. The rest of the party has to escape on their own.

1. They almost get out but run into 2 trolls. They kill one but it returns to life. The party finally defeats them and escapes from the swamp.

Aftermath

The entire party makes it out, although most have taken wounds. Haldor healed himself at one point during the adventure and still was down by half his life.

Still, it was a prosperous venture. The party stocked up on healing potions and bandages. Haldor reached level 3. Some of the others also leveled, but I don't remember who.

Just When I Thought I Was Out...

The New Project

I just got rid of a bunch of miniatures, but now it appears that I have a new project.

Now that it's summer and too hot for LARP, my LARP buddy and I have decided to have a go at some miniature gaming. I narrowed the options down to 2 choices.

 

We settled on Song of Blades and Heroes because it will require fewer figures. We intend to use 28mm miniatures. So now it is time to build a warband.

Army Options

We decided to create warbands from our LARP fantasy world.

• I'm going to build a squad of Aurelian legionaries, using Late Roman figures.
• My friend wants a Scymatian warband. We based Scymatia on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth so his warband will have winged hussars and Tatars. In addition, there will be some Urkha (orc) levies. Hey, it's fantasy.
• I also want to do a "bad guy" army. Looking at the Dark Magi. Ghuuls led by a death knight and a necromancer.

We haven't decided on a source, although I'm leaning toward Irregular.

Quick Skirmish

No-lustee

For Memorial Day, I planned to run a patriotic scenario. Since Memorial Day emerged from Civil War commemorations, I thought about a Civil War battle. I looked through a listing of Battle Cry scenarios and found Olustee. It dawned on me that I never played an Olustee scenario before.

Olustee holds a special place in my heart. During the '90s, I was a Civil War reenactor. Living in South Florida, Olustee was the nearest battle to me. Naturally, I reenacted the battle many times.

As it turned out, there was no Olustee this year. I was too lazy to set it up.

Quick "Skirmish"

But in the evening I wanted to play something quick. I remembered experimenting with a set of skirmish rules called Age of Heroes. As I recalled, they played fast! This is because most figures could only take a single hit, although they had an armor save.

Anyway, I grabbed some counters for a skirmish. I used MicroBattle, but units were more brittle. If hit, a unit rolled a save, Fail and it was gone. Save and it took damage.

Here it is. I played the game in a box lid. Kislev vs. Empire.

At this point, each side lost 3 units. The Kislev heavy infantry charged the artillery but suffered casualties.

The end. The heavy infantry overruns the artillery while the Kislev general cuts down the Imperial general.

All told, the game took about 10 minutes!

Ideas

Back when I was experimenting with Age of Heroes I had the notion of a league for arena fights. The idea fizzled when I never got around to painting the miniatures.

Now I have the idea rattling in my head. But I'll use counters instead of miniatures. I just need to start building the teams.

Out for a Test Drive

I previously tossed out the idea of making counters that are more grand tactical, with more men per counter. Well, I finished them and took them out for a test.

A French army maneuvers to attack Austrians defending a series of hills.

Austrian infantry pushed off the first hill.

French pressing the Austrian artillery.

And that's where I stopped. I've been in the market for a new car and I got a call from the dealership offering a test drive. I dropped the game and headed out. I did not buy the car.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I like them after all. They look great on the computer but they don't really photograph all that well.

I am tempted to make some similar to these.

The side view is not as realistic looking as top-down, but it is colorful and very easy to distinguish troop types. I was previously put off by the facing issue. Which side is the unit's front? Well, for the above battle, I just decided that the top was the front (after flipping Red's facing). It worked out well enough.