One Page Dungeon Contest 2017

I have sent my submission for this year's One Page Dungeon Contest. It is called 'Crypt of the Lost Hymns' and it's inspired on the +Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad DCC game, set in the World of Ore. I want to thank the Metal Gods crew for the inspiration and +Jarrett Crader for the suggested edits.

“In the vast windswept plains North of Ur-Hadad, the First City of Men, a lonely barrow is the only landmark for many miles around.”

You can click on the Downloads button above to get it.

Site Update

What happened since our last post back in September? Here goes a well deserved update.

Wednesday nights games (OSR):

- Resumed a D&D 5e campaign, run by me, set in Greyhawk (Yeomanry-Hool Marshes-Hold of the Sea Princes area) that we started before GenCon. A mysterious figure is seeking asylum in the Yeomanry from the Hold of the Sea Princes. The party has to meet her at the border and escort her to the city. Meanwhile the Scarlet Brotherhood will try to thwart their plans.

- Then switched to White Sands, an ongoing ACKS game run by +Jason Hobbs, in which we  explore the Badlands of Shaidar legend in the Eye of Opjamar.

- After that we started Griffin Mountain an awesome Runequest campaign run by +Adam Muszkiewicz. A group of initiates passes the tribe's rite to adulthood and become hunters. As the seasons go by their nomad tribe travels Balazar, breaks old alliances and forges new ones, everything amidst an internal struggle for power.

- Now we have returned to the D&D 5e campaign mentioned above. The party is helping to recover a magical mask from a reptilian civilization buried in an ancient tomb deep in the marshes. So far they've bested the swamp's perils and found a ziggurat full of traps!

Thursday nights games (DCC with the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad) :

- Finished a short arc run by +Doug Kovacs that started right after GenCon in which, after exploring the "The Tomb Of Ulla Gandur", what was left of Sybian the Whoreforged humanity got transferred, by the goddess of Nature, into a human body affixed to a suit of full plate armor adorned with an intricate filigree of vines.

- "Un-death & Taxes" run by +Edgar Johnson. An escort mission in which the group must protect the Imperial tax assessor as he makes his rounds of various far-flung hamlets and villages.

- "Into the Lair of the Feculent Swine" run by +Adam Muszkiewicz. Employed by Master Guang-Yuan Jo to retrieve the feathers of the slumbering feculent swine, Jerkal the Blazin', Scorpion Boy and Nimue of Cthulhu from the Divine Order of the Purple Tentacle, along with some fresh faces, have set off for the mountains that separate the Satrapy of Kuth from the Duchy of Karel

Received gorgeous +Drink Spin Run - An RPG Talk Show Podcast and +Wayne Snyder's "Secret of the Serpent Moon" t-shirts. Also received an awesome poster of Metamorphosis Alpha Warden deck cross-section by +Doug Kovacs, and issue #3 of  the +Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad zine. Can't complain about our postal service so far.

Contributed with an article about Healing Spelburn to the DCC Mega Zine.

EDIT: Also received in the mail "The Art of Dragon Magazine"!

EDIT2: And started to play Conspiracy X in a F2F group every 2 weeks.

Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad Zine Issue #1 Now Available!

Congratulation to my fellows +Adam Muszkiewicz, +Edgar Johnson and +Wayne Snyder for making this real. I hope this is the first of many more.

Get Issue #1 in print now! 

Also remember that, as Adam said in his blog, "half of the proceeds from the sale of the pdf [soon available from the usual sites] will go to support StandUp For Kids, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that works to fight teenage homelessness".

Well done guys!

DCC with Doug Kovacs

On Thursday 12th I showed up, after some missed sessions, to our Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad game. To my surprise, the session was to be directed by +Doug Kovacs!

After some technical problems on my side, I finally joined the hangout and enjoyed an awesome and crazy session. Thanks Doug! As always, I took notes for future reference when I write the session recap.

Only now I had time to write it, and I was almost done with the session recap, when I remembered something. There was really no session ending, since Doug was something like "...well guys, this is all I've got now...", and stuff like that, and then everyone thanked him heartily and then we all left.

So there I was, looking at what I've just written, about to hit the "Publish" button, when I realized, "Shit, were we play testing something and I'm about fuck things up? I need to ask someone!"

Luck check made, I found +Edgar Johnson online, who was getting ready to go to his daughter's band concert. He kindly gave me a minute and, when asked, confirmed my fears. The orginal post got deleted right away and I wrote this one instead.

Thanks to the Metal Gods!

Impulse buying

My RPG wish list has gone down one item, because I've just bought The Dungeon Alphabet (Expanded Third Printing) from Goodman Games. I'm going to have to wait 2 or 3 weeks until it reaches Uruguay, but it's worth the waiting. It was cheaper to have send it directly via USPS, than first to a P.O. box in Miami and then here by a courier.

I guess it was because of the adrenaline still kicking after an awesome DCC session (we're through Jewels of the Carnifex), in which my level 2 wizard, Formerly Ian, spellburned his Strength and Stamina down to 1, and his Agility down to 2. It was a near death situation where he burned 5 points to cast a Sleep, then 10 more points for another Sleep (both with meager results), and finally 1 point to cast Invoke Patron, asking the Metal Gods to smite the enemy leader (some kind of undead demi-god). Like all the corruption he already has was not enough: no hair whatsoever (it grows back naturally and 1 inch with each Sleep spell cast), yellow eyes, shriveled and folded back ears, cloven hooves instead of feet, his Patron God mark in his forehead (Judas Priest cross), and a self-inflicted carving on his right cheek (Derek Riggs logo).

This last spell had him metal spikes grown all over his body and gave each member of the party a +5 bonus on their next action. We didn't die so far, so we might have a chance to make it alive after all.

Let's see if I make another purchase after the next session!

Dealing with disapproval

After the Divine Order of the Purple Tentacle defeated a tentacled monstrosity, summoned by the Bloody Successors on their onslaught to the neighborhood, Nimue knew what she had to do. During the battle, she called upon the favor of the Elder One and failed. Now she will have to appease them. So, before leaving, she ordered her urchin followers to cut a couple of tentacles.

Kormaki, cleric of the Metal God of Thunder and fellow member of the Order, had the Captain of the Gate somewhat healed. The poor bastard lost his sanity when the creature attacked, and spend the battle crouching and whimpering on the doorsteps of a nearby house. She decided he'd make a good offering and sent an urchin on some errands.

That night, dressed in her best silks, and followed by a couple of her urchins who carried between them a coffer of black wood and inlaid with silver, she went to find the Captain. She found him at "The Rare Cauldron" tavern drinking with other officers of House Wazi. While she crossed the main room, the urchins went upstairs, left the coffer in a previously rented room and waited in the corridor. 

Everyone stopped drinking, eating, laughing and speaking as she graciously approached the Captain's table. She leaned over to him, whispered something in his ear and turned away. Such was the power of her mellow voice, that he stood and followed her, without finishing his drink, saluting his comrades or donning his rogatywka.

Once upstairs in the gloomy room, and after a couple of honeyed words, the Captain found himself laying naked on the bed, and before he could ask anything, a gentle touch from Nimue left him paralyzed. What promised to be an exciting night, was soon to become a nightmare. With her back to him, she let her silks fall to the floor as she opened the lid of the ebony coffer and begun muttering a litany. 

When she straddled naked over him, he saw, to his horror, that her arms have been transformed into tentacles which she sensually wriggled all over him. Sheer waves of pleasure swept over him, as she contorted and repeatedly called, in a strange language, for He who awaits asleep in the depths...

ya Nimue mnahn' Cthulhunyth stell'bsna ee ngfhayak hlirgh orr'e

Candlelight flickered and extinguished as an unfelt gust passed over it. The Captain silently screamed in terror, as he felt his soul sucked into a void of utter darkness by hundreds of hungry tiny tendrils, taking away the deceitful moment of elation. Tears of joy ran down Nimue's cheeks as she realized that her offering has been accepted.

Tonight we honored the DCC spirit

Tonight we had the most brutal DCC session since we started playing the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad campaign. After almost having not one, but two, TPKs in the same combat, four of the six characters walked out alive. Absalom the Elf, Aram the Cleric, Morfans the Dwarf and Formerly Ian the Wizard emerged from the Undercity of Ur-Hadad with the bodies of Jerkal the Wizard and Claive the Fighter, after fighting the Toothmen shaman and his guards.

Things started rolling downhill when Jerkal misfired a sleep spell, sending all his allies but Formerly Ian asleep. The standing wizard managed to wake up Claive and send several Toothmen, including their shaman, asleep, only to be brought down by the guard leader. Claive charged the brute, waking everyone up with a mighty deed. Aram healed Formerly Ian, who in his turn also misfired a sleep spell, sending all his allies asleep but Morfans. The dwarf managed to woke everyone up with the same mighty deed while charging the guard leader. The toothman attacked Formerly Ian bringing him down, again. 

By now the shaman was awake and cast a huge fireball on the party. Only Aram and Morfans saved. Now Aram, after healing Absalom, had the difficult task to chose, between Jerkal, Claive and Formerly Ian, which one will he save next. Meanwhile Morfans charged madly at the shaman almost killing him. Formerly Ian saw the light, while Jerkal and Claive met their maker. The survivors, fueled by the death of their companions, renewed their attacks on the toothmen, killing the shaman and the guard leader. The last two toothmen in their last stand managed to bring Formerly Ian down for the third time, after being hacked to pieces.

By killing the shaman toothman the group saved Vayne from the collar-bomb.

Claive, we'll always remember your attack sprees with the Spear of the Lizard King. Jerkal, we'll always remember your Flaming Glands. You'll both be missed.

The ritual

One by one the seven men arrived to the house. They were received by an grim looking warforged that gave them a key. They were ordered to get into a side room, remove every possessions from themselves, which could be locked into one of the seven chests available, and to return wearing only a black hooded robe. Not one of them dared to contradict Sybian, the pole-armed automaton.

Each was led through a set of double doors into a bigger room. A bed covered in black silk sheets stood enclosed by a circle of also black candles, all lit, but their light was not enough to reveal the whole room. Ten feet from the candles were seven mahogany and leather seats forming a circle. A stool with a silver goblet containing an unknown beverage stood next to each seat.

One by one, in silence, they took their places. All kept their hoods up. No one spoke. No one dared to to look around or taste what was in the goblets. When the seven men were seated, they heard the doors being closed... and locked. The air, sweetened by the candle's smoke, filled with expectation.

"Welcome...", said from the surrounding darkness the same mellow voice that asked them to come today. Nimue, clad in a translucent silky gown that left nothing to imagination, entered the circle of light and lay graciously on the bed. "Please drink...", she said with a vague gesture and they, with their eyes fixed on her, obeyed. She knelt and started to hum while contorting her almost perfect body. The light of the candles flickered as her gown fell, her humming and sinuous movements gaining tempo.

Then everything went dark.

Chairs screeched and fell. Stools tumbled. Goblets clattered through the floor. Cries, gasps, pleas, screams could be heard as the purple tentacle beer made effect and the ritual reached its climax. All the hidden fears, obscure desires and lowest urges crept from the deepest and darkest corners of the seven souls. The humming went on as the unnameables rose from murky blackness to claim the offerings.

Each time one of the seven were taken, a wave of absolute pleasure invaded Nimue's body raising the pitch of her humming. Surge after surge of delight and joy rippled through her body until all yelling, bawls and bellows subsided, and she lay gasping, sweaty and exhausted on the bed.

Then everything went silent.

Metal Gods of Ur-Haddad - Last Session

+Wayne Snyder summed up last night session pretty well:

"I was feeling pretty kick ass last night when I maxed out the rolls for Jerkal the Blazin's Flaming hands spell last night. Twice! Dude was a virtual walking flame thrower. Awesome. Only to be completely side lined later in the same turn when The Wizard Formerly Known As Ian cast Sleep and his mighty dice had him sleep every enemy in the room (5) who wasn't already asleep from his previous Sleep spells. The blood fueled sci-fi and sorcery birthing chamber of the hideous serpent men was looking like serpent man sorcerer sleep over party and we calmly walked through poking holes in the sleeping snake men like it was nothing. Ian is the sleep master. When it's good, it's so good, and when it's bad, he's in a magical coma for a week."

The Wizard Formerly Known As Ian cast 5 Sleep spells in a row, sending into a deep slumber between 2 and 4 serpent men each time. And grew five inches of hair too! That streak granted him the nickname of "The Sandman".

Having defeated the serpent men and destroyed their wicked breeding machine, the party, instead of leaving the place (Chuck and Jerkal were paralyzed, and Vayne badly wounded), decided to keep exploring for more treasure. That's when Wizard Formerly Known As Ian ran out of luck or lost the favour of the Metal Gods. He fumbled a Sleep spell and fell into a coma. With the serpent men closing in the group grabbed their out-of-action comrades and ran the hell out of the Mysterious Temple of the Serpent God. 

We sailed all the way back from Samsara to Ur-Haddad avoiding a huge storm. Upon arrival, we handed the Eyes of the Serpent to Amor Ba'Gish, the wizard who employed (and poisoned) us, along with the chest  full of platinum bars we were supposed to give Balas Forktongue (who we found dead, tortured and killed by the Serpent kin) as payment for the Eyes. After receiving the antidote and a succulent reward we headed to celebrate, with the promise of more jobs from the wizard.

Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad - Session 3

Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad is a campaign played every Thursday on G+ Hangouts by Edgar Johnson and Adam Muszkiewicz using Dungeon Crawl Classics. We played our third sessions and finished exploring the Crypt of the Lizard King.

From my four original 0-level characters, a corn farmer, a dwarven miner, an urchin and a minstrel, only the minstrel survived and advanced to be a 1st level wizard.. The urchin died on the first session killed fighting against some bandits, the corn farmer died on the second session killed by a trap, and the dwarven miner died on the last session.

Helm of The Lizard King

Type: Helmet; AL C; Powers: (see below).

• If someone puts on this helm, it will bond closely and permanently to the person's head. The helm may be removed by magical means, but no mundane means short of decapitation will do so. 

• Wearer gains a 3 point bonus to for any task involving influence, leadership, or persuasion. 

• Grants the wearer the ability to find his or her way while afloat on water, and to detect currents and hazards like rocks, reefs, whirlpools or storms. 

• Unless the wearer is of chaotic alignment, he or she will lose 1 hit point per day unless the helm is removed. 

He was killed after trying the Helm of the Lizard King on since he was of lawful alignment and had only 1 hp left. Death by treasure! That was a first one. :)

And that's how my chaotic minstrel now become wizard inherited all the belongings of the dead 0-level characters, including the Helm, he's now wearing.

Session 3 - http://revdoctoredj.blogspot.com/2012/11/session-3-recap-metal-gods-of-ur-hadad.html

Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad - Sessions 1 & 2

Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad is a campaign played every Thursday on G+ Hangouts by Edgar Johnson and Adam Muszkiewicz using Dungeon Crawl Classics. We played two sessions and so far it's been a blast!

This is my first time playing DCC and beginning with four 0-level characters is really fun, since the variety lets you do things that couldn't be done with only one character. It's a simple game system and the game fast-paced. I begun with a corn farmer, a dwarven miner, an urchin and a minstrel. The urchin died on the first session and the corn farmer on the second.

Session 1: http://revdoctoredj.blogspot.com/2012/10/metal-gods-of-ur-hadad-session-1.html

Session 2: http://revdoctoredj.blogspot.com/2012/11/metal-gods-of-ur-hadadcrypt-of-lizard.html