I ran a level 1 Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG for three friends the other night. I used the Free RPG Day dungeon, Portal Under the Stars. We had two warriors and an elf. I just bought the Vornheim City Kit, so I made use of that quite a bit as well as various random tables I have gleaned off the interwebs. Also, I have a fairly extensive houserule doc that I have been fiddling with a lot.The "Warlord" of the dungeon became the fabled Elven Barbarian King Ascarious, a terrible and tyranical ruler who fell to the advancing hordes of Danzig the Beastlord a millenia previous. The elf was vaguely familiar with the story. The heroes went directly into the pool room, with one getting blasted by flash of flame. In the pool room they had a weird moment with the strange crystal statues, but were about to leave peacefully when one of the warriors decided to drink from the pool of water. I rolled on a Magic Effects chart from Vornheim, and came up with a black toad vomiting forth. This toad managed to kill the other warrior and propagated itself twice before succumbing to the vagaries of failure.
The other warrior was played by a new player who was sanguine when he died but super stoked when I had him come back as a crystal statue, sharing mental space with a courtesan from long ago. Again, I rolled on some Vornheim charts and came up with Baroness Titania, who was cursed 1000 years ago for the crime of soiling the Holy Waters. Both souls now co-habitate the crystal body. I made the player reroll stats and gave a natural AC of 15 and of course deadly fists.
Finally, the group entered the room of the terracota army and were saved by one epic toss of a javelin across the room, direct hit on the warlord. The treasure room was discovered and the elf gained a patron, Azathoth the Devil's Bannerman.
The Elf made out like a bandit, scoring a mithril longsword, a crystal scrying ball, a patron, and spellbook containing "Burning Hands".
Then everybody caroused for XP. The warrior who was turned into a crystal statue ended up losing all his money but gaining custody of his red-headed stepchild, who speaks in prophecy.
The Warrior who threw the spear now has a Screaming Spear which draws wandering monsters but also does extra damage on a crit.
All in all a great game. I liked the module alot. Next I'm gonna bring the campaign into Vornheim, where I will pursue a long held goal to finally run the old Necromancer super module, The Grey Citadel, now set in Vornheim.
