The Ruins of Ramat - 0-level funnel

[fireinthedust]

OOC: 1, 2, 11, 19, 9. Jeepers. If it's in the previous order, blurg. Xim is the 19.

[Max_The_Judge]

OOC: Seeing that the creature is effectively invulnerable, my characters decide to leave the room.

Ken Katcherman: "Let's get out of here!"

[Judge Perky]

OOC: Seeing that the creature is effectively invulnerable, my characters decide to leave the room.

Ken Katcherman: "Let's get out of here!"

Ok, but still need your Fort saves because your turn in initiative order is AFTER the beast's...

[Max_The_Judge]

OOC: I'm terribly sorry, I thought I gave those. Honest John 16 (15+1), Ned Starch 18, Ken Katcherman 9, and Red Robert gets a 15 (14+1)

[Judge Perky]

Nothing in your life thus far has prepared you for something like this.

The roar is an infernal thing, something out of nightmares... It reverberates off the stone walls of the chamber and turns your bowels to water.

This proves too much for Ken Katcherman, who suddenly clutches his chest and slumps to the ground, dead.

Squire Jon, Copromancer, Jenkins, Joseph, and Marvin start backing up in terror and then bolt back through the door like hares in a thunderstorm.

Xin thinks better of valor and retreats back out of the room in the direction of the others.

Lyanna, Ragged Rob, Honest John, Ned, Red Robert steel themselves and stand their ground for the moment, thinking about how small and impotent they feel clutching their meager implements in the shadow of this hellspawn.


OOC:

ROUND

Top of the order:

doddwaco: What do Lyanna and Ragged Rob do now?

Max_The_Judge: How about Honest John, Ned and Red Robert?

[fireinthedust]

OOC: None of those are my characters. Did we lose someone?

The frightened band flee towards the first room, hoping to climb out and escape. Xim, seemingly less terrified, follows along, thinking of how he'll deactivate the gas trap if it goes off again, as his fellows are out of their minds.

[Judge Perky]

OOC: None of those are my characters. Did we lose someone?

The frightened band flee towards the first room, hoping to climb out and escape. Xim, seemingly less terrified, follows along, thinking of how he'll deactivate the gas trap if it goes off again, as his fellows are out of their minds.

Whoops, fixed to Max_The_Judge, sorry.

As for YOUR characters, they are running in that direction, with Xim following, yes.

[doddwaco]

Lyanna curses at Squire Jon as he flees the battle. Certain that she is facing her own death, she prepares to do so while stabbing something and attacks the hellspawn with her pitchfork.
Ragged Rob moves to the doorway of the room before loosing another stone at the creature. He seems less committed to dying in general, but he won't leave Lyanna until it is absolutely necessary.

[OOC: Lyanna-pitchfork (hit 14/dmg 6)]
Ragged Rob-sling (hit 2/dmg x)]

[Max_The_Judge]

OOC: Honest John, Ned Starch, and Red Robert leave the room and return to the hallway.

[Judge Perky]

Ok.

Lyanna, with an incredible burst of courage, leaps forward and jabs the tines of her pitchfork into the beasts' midsection! It's body seems dense to her, so that the thrust doesn't seem to plunge as deep as she expected it to. Nevertheless, a foul ichor issues forth and sizzles onto the floor... and the creature howls.

Ragged Rob's stone ranges wide, to his chagrin... then he gasps in alarm as he witnesses Lyanna crushed bodily by the overhand strike of two savage tentacles and lie broken and bleeding on the floor... Making eye contact with Rob, she tries to speak, but all that comes out is a gurgling, bloody wheeze and her eyes go dark.

Squire Jon, Copromancer, Jenkins, Joseph, and Marvin, followed by Xim, finally gather their wits and pull up gasping for breath. They find themselves back in the first room with the spider at the base of the entry stairs.

And Honest John, Ned Starch, and Red Robert stand in the hallway, wondering what to do next!

ROUND

[doddwaco]

"Bugger this!" Ragged Rob screams as he runs out of the room.

[fireinthedust]

OOC: can we act normally now? The spider's dead still, I hope. Can we climb out of the dungeon, dust off, and see if we can't find better weapons in town?


Marvin the Tax Collector Hrmphs. "The poor girl's dog doesn't concern me so much as the fact that we woke up the slime beast of the ruins, and now it's after us. Clearly throwing torches is not working. If these weapons are all we can muster, we need to seal up this well before that creature gets out. Restock, find some real weapons and armor, and defend ourselves. Blasted ruins!"

Jenkins looks frantically for a way to climb out, wringing his hands. "Just so long as we don't break our necks getting out of here, like that guy did climbing in!"

OOC: btw: do we see the body of our cohort who died on the way in? Or has it mysteriously... vanished!

[Judge Perky]

Yes, the spider's dead, still. And poor Farmer Karl's body is still where you left it.

As you may or may not recall, though you had originally taken the exit on the left from the spider room, there are two other exits to this room, straight ahead or to the right.

Characters in that room please give me a WIS check and let me know if you equal or beat a DC 15.

Honest John, Ned Starch, and Red Robert, the demonic creature does not appear to be following you out of the room; it seems to want to stay nearby to the circular pedestal with the small circular hole in the center for unknown reasons... However, you can not see what it is doing as the area all around there seems to be enveloped in some sort of utter (magical?) darkness at the moment.

Do you go back and rejoin your fellows or do something else?

[Max_The_Judge]

OOC: I think it's safer out in the hall for now.

Red Robert to everyone: "The creature seems bound to that central altar. Perhaps it is guarding it? Or is imprisoned by it? Either way, I think we're safe out here."

[fireinthedust]

Jester Jenkins wipes sweat from his brow. "Bound? Good! Then until we can smash that fearsome demon, we should stay away. That presents us with a problem: we aren't equipped to deal with demons like that, but we also don't have anything else in the village to use on it, and our torches bounced off its slippery hide. Maybe there's something in these ruins, like in those stories we've all heard about. If we can find it, we'll have a chance to slay whatever comes. Otherwise... well, that slime-thing isn't the only monster down here. We still haven't seen whatever grabbed that dog. I don't think boarding up the hole would hold it back. We need whatever we can find down here to fight it. To really have a chance."

Xim the halfling frowns. "Is this some kind of joke, Jester? We've lost lives already just climbing down here."

"That's not going to end just by leaving. Unless we do something, our short lives are going to be a whole lot shorter."

"Great, a short joke!"

"Not what I meant! But am I wrong?" Silence.


Jester Jenkins choses the right-most tunnel, and walks down it. ...after he and the others make fresh poop-torches with Copromancer.

[doddwaco]

Ragged Rob and Squire Jon follow down the tunnel.

[Judge Perky]

Ok, you head down the right corridor, which after 30' south turns 90 degrees east (to your left).

Ahead lies a long hallway with a number of openings alternating on each side. The first is 30' on the right side, the next on the left at 40', and so on as far as your light will illuminate.

Nothing moves in the corridor. All is silent...

[doddwaco]

"My grandfather told me that adventurers always go left," Ragged Rob whispers. "Of course, he was a turnip farmer and never left our village so I don't know if we want to listen to his advice."

[Max_The_Judge]

Ned Starch: "I'm a corn farmer and I've never left the village, either. I also say we go left. Left is the hand most people write with, right?"

[doddwaco]

Unable to take the tension, Squire Jon curses under his breath and heads down the hall. He passes the right passage and moves into the passage on the left.
Ragged Rob looks at the others and then follows Jon.

[Judge Perky]

Unable to take the tension, Squire Jon curses under his breath and heads down the hall. He passes the right passage and moves into the passage on the left.
Ragged Rob looks at the others and then follows Jon.

As you move down the hall, you see that these openings aren't passages at all... they are some kind of small chambers or cells about 10' x 10' square.

Any doors or other furniture has long since rotted away, and they lay empty, one 10' cell after 10' cell, alternating sides as the corridor goes on...

...but wait... up ahead something is different. You see that the next three cells on the right DO have doors. Remarkably preserved ones, in fact.

And the middle door of the three, well... the Lawfully-aligned among you can easily tell that is radiating what can only be described as a powerful aura of Law.

[fireinthedust]

OOC: Hmm... I'd say the characters I've got are mostly neutral, with maybe Lawful being Joseph or Copromancer (though he's kind of weeeeeird, so I don't know; I'd say he believes he's outside the rules of humanity, but in awe of the processes of reality; plus insane.
They're none of them interested in the universe spiralling out of control. Marvin would be a self-serving shire reeve/tax collector. Overall, they'd be good aligned, and would want the rule of good law.

How... lawful would the village be?

I'd say Joseph would be Lawful Good, and Marvin would be more Lawful-rich. Jenkins is more CG, Xim too, but not "forces of chaos" at all.

So.. Joseph would feel the law?

[Judge Perky]

So.. Joseph would feel the law?

Yes, remember, there is only Law, Chaos and Neutrality in DCC RPG.

Subtle concepts of morality such as Chaotic Good or Lawful Evil don't exist.

In DCC RPG, there is a real eternal struggle between supernatural beings of Law and Chaos, and you can either pick a side or be unaligned, but you can't straddle.

[Max_The_Judge]

OOC: This seems... deadly. Anyone else getting a distinct "this place is full of traps" vibe?

Ken Katcherman: "I've got a bad feeling about this. Does anyone have any rope? Or rocks? Or rocks tied together with ropes?"

[doddwaco]

OOC: Neither Squire Jon or Ragged Rob are Lawful.

Squire Jon creeps slowly across the hall to the first of the doors of the left and begins examining it.
(Is there a key hole to peer through? A gap between the floor and the door? Jon interested in trying to see into the space.)