In which I looked at the One Page Dungeon Contest 2012 and chose the Monastery at Dor Amon, winner of 2012’s Best Library award.

This is an Into the Oddish game (chargen houserules here). Jeb the footpad, Taki and Tabouli and Gus are now the adventuring party – Psychic Tiger Fodder.

Quotes of the night:

This hand has seen some shit.

It is a monastery. Of course I brought a goat.

Then they shouldn’t have been evil.

What more or less happened:

Jeb got the hang of his cybernetic eye and hand, fell gifts of the Wizard-God.

Gus and Taki worked out a deal with a book-eating devil.

Richter burned the first monk guards with Mage Fire, then used Quietlands Legion to raise their dead bodies and set them after the monks remaining.

I got better at not going to the dice when someone wanted to know something but asking follow-up questions, “What kind of thing are you looking for here? How are you looking? etc.” and then telling them some strange shit that would make the adventure more meaningful because these odd places are better the more strange tidbits these adventuring thieves know about them.

This is an Into the Oddish game (chargen houserules here) using DNGN as the adventure. Jeb the footpad, Taki and Tabouli are now the adventuring party – Psychic Tiger Fodder (t-shirts available, all artist’s proceeds go to the World Wildlife Fund).

Psychic Tiger Fodder dragged a Space Wizard cultist’s corpse out of the dungeon. Tabouli’s ability to talk to ghosts paid off again. Plex was killed when he tried to leave the dungeon. Jeb the Cutpurse cut the cybernetics off Plex’s corpse once they dragged him out of the dungeon into the fresh spring air. The dungeon’s entrance opened onto an impact crater that the forest had grown over.

When the Space Wizard God tried to take Plex’s soul, the group jumped into action. Richter threw the ghost his elf rope (mental note, elf rope can be grabbed by ghosts…cool) and Taki blessed the endeavor. Tabouli prayed to his dragon-god, who took Plex’s soul from the Space Wizard. Good stuff.

An elder hireling was waiting for them with 3 mules. With the fresh air, the Psychic Tiger’s effects were wearing off. And, because I know Anthony loves airships, an airship was waiting for them, Eberron-style, called the Icarian Delight.

The thief died in his sleep, and so the Icarian Delight belonged to Psychic Tiger Fodder made dock at a nearby city.

Mucus joked abounded because I spend my Thursdays gaming with my friends and my dear friends are total monsters. I told them that to the NORTH is the Weeping Ice, to the SOUTH are the Jungle Highways, to the EAST is the 1000 Dukes’ War and the WEST is the Crystal Frontier.

Jeb got his hand taken off by a trusted bone-setter in the city so that the Mummy Rot wouldn’t spread up his arm. He plans to use Plex’s cybernetics, Richter wants nothing to do with the Space Wizard’s influence that might come with the arcane tech.

Jeb’s elf-dagger got nabbed by a metal statue’s magnetic pull, sticking to the statue’s body. When Jeb tried to get the dagger back, the statue animated and knocked him unconscious and when he tried again, under cover of Roddy the Shieldbearer’s shield, it broke Roddy’s ribs. Reluctantly, Jeb left the dagger there. There was no talk at all of taking the statue on to get the dagger back. Would it have gone differently if more STRENGTH checks had been failed and more weapons were stuck to the statue? We will never know.

Now what? We have to take next week off. Before the next game I’ll toss out some more ideas. We might run with this one a bit but we’re also at a good stopping point. We’ll see.

This is an Into the Oddish game (chargen houserules here) using DNGN as the adventure. Jeb the Cutpurse, Gus, Richter, Taki and Tabouli are now the adventuring party – Psychic Tiger Fodder (t-shirts available, all artist’s proceeds go to the World Wildlife Fund).

Two new players joined the game and so the room they were trying to get into last game had Gus (Augustus Tiberius Primus) and Richter, both wizard’s apprentices with no spells to speak of. We wrote off not remembering their existence to Psychic Tiger psionic damage.

There was a ghost in the room and Tabouli sought to put the soul to rest. I asked for a Will roll as he used the prayer of the Dragon-God he knew and with a success, he sent the soul to the Dragon God’s soul hoard, taking it from the Star God. Tabouli suddenly felt the very real feeling that he was playing in a game far above his paygrade.

A flame in one of the lamps in the room gave Tabouli a warning, “They are coming.” They used one of their domesticated mimics to brick over the door and so the Star God worshippers who were looking for the heretics did not find the party. I narrated a goofy conversation as they continued past where they had been sure there was a door but now there was none.

One of the moments of the game was when they looted a dead body and I mentioned it seemed to have a surgical scar on its chest. Jeb the Footpad decided the corpse must have a gem heart. To the disgust of his comrades, he cut open the body and found, not a gem heart but an expensive silver heart.

Richter: Are you okay with this, Conrad?

Conrad (the concussed Thief, the only survivor from the original adventuring party): One day I will call that young man Guildmaster and I’ll be proud to do so.

Tabouli tried to take some of the warm ice from the room but breaking it released a gas that did vicious damage to his lungs. Richter tried one of his grandma’s remedies and it worked (successful Will Save) to cure the Strength Damage that the gas had done to him.

Gus stared at the tapestries of ancient starship battles and nebulas and comets that several ghosts told Tabouli (he can see and talk to the dead) would likely drive their brain past reckoning. Gus passed his save and so I rolled and he got the spell, Clone, rattling around in his brain like a living, powerful thing. Gus’ player was looking for ways to use it creatively. Can’t wait to see what they do.

We don’t have spell descriptions but I defined the spell. “If you cast it on yourself you will create a perfect replica of yourself that will slumber unless disturbed. If you die and it stays sleeping, you will awaken in the clone. If the clone is awakened, it will try to kill you and take your place.”

Jeb checked the disgusting bug pool but found nothing, passing a save to keep from being really ill.

We hit 10 o’clock, our end-time, and are within a room or two from getting out of the dungeon. The characters who have been playing the whole time are Experts (2 level advancements). I told them that they realize that they have surpassed the adventurers they came in with.

Richter’s player mentioned that the rooms didn’t make much sense. It wasn’t a fortress or a prison. I gave my take on this dungeon, that it had made sense 10,000 years ago when it was first dropped into the earth but now it was a funhouse chaotic mess.

Based on the above poll from our gaming posse’s FB group the closest bit of civilization is an ancient city, ruled built by none who are remembered, only recently repopulated, ruled by a sorcerer-king. The whole thing is ancient and wicked. I dig it.

This is an Into the Oddish game (chargen houserules here) using DNGN as the adventure. Jeb the footpad, Taki and Tabouli are now the adventuring party – Psychic Tiger Fodder (t-shirts available, all artist’s proceeds go to the World Wildlife Fund).

The same trio could make it for our Thursday night game (a huge, for zoom, group that is usually made up of 6 + me). We continued with Psychic Tiger Fodder, hirelings stuck in the depths of a (mega)dungeon after the adventuring party that hired them were mauled by a psychic tiger. Jeb the Footpad, Taki and Tabouli along with Roddy the Shieldbearer and Gill the Wizard’s Apprentice. This time I remembered that Jeb has a domesticated mimic, a pet that he keeps as an extra enticing coin pouch on his belt. LINK: Previous session’s write up.

They went up a level this game and immediately levelled up without having to slow down the game (add d6 to hit points and roll d20 for each stat, +1 if you roll over). Easy-peasy. T asked if he’d eventually get Cleric powers from leveling, as his character was an Acolyte. I reckon we’ll get to level 3 (where Into the Odd tops out) and then figure out houserules for specialized training and the powers that might come with them.

They mugged the bandits on level 5 but let them keep their daggers and half their gold. All things considered (they had hit Taki with their Wand of Paralyzation and demanded everyone’s treasure be turned over before the tide of the encounter turned on them), that was pretty reasonable. When the bandits went down a level (the Psychic Tiger Fodder are trying to go UP and outta here) they heard blood-curdling screams from the stairwell down and ignored it – moving on.

They found a pile of detached thumbs with gold rings on them in a pile of bloody rags. The thumbs were fed to the domesticated mimic. Wait. WAIT! What is the pet mimic’s name? I must know. When they read off their list of treasures the gold rings are recited as, “The gold and wand we took from the bandits. And the gold rings we got off of those thumbs – probably cursed.”

NOTE: Sven is the pet mimic’s name. I messaged J, who plays Jeb the Footpad.

Jeb’s elf-dagger got nabbed by a metal statue’s magnetic pull, sticking to the statue’s body. When Jeb tried to get the dagger back, the statue animated and knocked him unconscious and when he tried again, under cover of Roddy the Shieldbearer’s shield, it broke Roddy’s ribs. Reluctantly, Jeb left the dagger there. There was no talk at all of taking the statue on to get the dagger back. Would it have gone differently if more STRENGTH checks had been failed and more weapons were stuck to the statue? We will never know.

Tabouli can see and talk to ghosts and so the dead gnome with a will-o-the-wisp eating its eye talked to him but didn’t take an immediately liking to him (failed WILL save). But when Tabouli asked if there was anything they could bring to the gnome ghost, Klambikurt (thank you, Fantasy Name Generator – Gnome Names), took a bit of a liking to him and told them that they weren’t 10 levels down but 3 levels down. Now they know how far they have to go.

We ended with Psychic Tiger Fodder bloodied but still standing after Jeb took a while to pick a lock with an arrow and skeletons with sharpened fingers but no thumbs wandered in and were dispatched. We know, from Tabouli talking to a half-elf ghost that there is some kind of art in the room to the north that drove him mad. We’ll start, there, in Room 3F, next time.

There is a kind of whimsy to it. It isn’t goofy but the situations and the things they run across bring a humor to it all, despite the fact that they are taking the premise seriously. I am going to have to think a bit about world building and what they are going to find if/when they get out of this dungeon.

Playing a game system that is dead simple with a dungeon zine that is SO EASY to read is a real pleasure. I’m really enjoying running this thing.