I ran Jewels of the Carnifex (a DCCRPG from Goodman Games) for a couple of friends last month, before all the chaos. The module was completed in two sessions. Each player used two characters, playing my Uncommon Dungeons traditional style ruleset. This post will include a variation on the play report I sent the dudes, then thoughts on the module and on my constantly evolving rules.
Play Report
The motley crew of cleric, barbarian, monk, and wizard were fresh off the boat in Redgate, newly rebuilt outpost of the Middle Empire, in search of gold and glory in the newly thawed out lands of the Heartstone Valley. They were soon hired by a mysterious patron, Zanzibar the Magnificat, who desired to find lost books of the elder empires from before the the Great Glacier swallowed the north. He knew of a hidden temple of an ancient god hidden beneath the old town, a place of ancient lurking magic, where he hoped the tome known in the ancient writings as the Grimoire Nex might be found. To facilitate entry, the magician ensorcelled the surface guardians into unnatural slumber so that his hirelings might descend the crumbling spiral stair.
The stairwell itself was the first obstacle. Only judicious and decisive use of a levitation spell kept the masonry from collapsing. Within, shadowy manifestations of pure evil reached out to sap their, strength, but the explorers did not tarry long. The cleric raised his holy symbol high, holding back the darkness. Further, 3 doors were discovered and explored. Demon toads, ghosts and a crazed hermit were dealt with in divers manner, but eventually the inner temple was discovered, as were the mutated, ageless guardians, who seemed to regard themselves as servants of Light and Law, but were quite obviously corrupted by Chaos.
In the aftermath of the battle with the misguided and mutated guardians of the under temple all was quiet and still but for the drip drop of water, the squelch of fungal growth underfoot. The cloying warmth and hothouse stench of the place remained.
Azazail the Scion of Light disintegrated (or ascended to heaven) under the blows of Dirk the Witcher. The bodies of the “Pious” melted away as time has caught up with them. All that remained was the huge black bladed claymore called “Executioner’s Wand”. The barbarian hefted in appreciatively.
Over the vestal vault still loomed the massive rat-like idol of roots and bright green moss.
Natural looking flowstone stairs lead down into grotto below. Some careful thievery and brutal smashing later, the jewels were destroyed, the demonic presence beneath the Red Keep consigned to another millennia of captivity. After much thorough search, many treasures were found, including the grimdark Grimoire Nex, apparently a codex of demonology.
The under temple of the Old Chaos gods caused a great debate amongst the delvers who rid it of its corrupted defenders, posing more questions than it answered. If a scion of Law can be corrupted without knowing it, retaining their power, then how do they know if they truly do the work of the Lords of Light?
With heavy hearts and great misgivings, the five returned to the Blind Knight Inn, laden with treasures magic and mundane. The elfish cleric agonized over the conflicts of righteousness and doctrine, the wizard worried they were setting dark powers loose upon the land.
The party did not trust their patron, Zanzibar the Magnificat and perhaps he did not trust them, for he was in their private chamber when they awoke from slumber. Dirk the Demonhunter cast his steely gaze upon the inscrutable wizard. He was neither a creature of Chaos, nor a servant of Law. What were his motives? He would not say, only that the recession of the ice fields from the Heartstone Valley uncovered many lost and best forgotten secrets. It would be best if "the wise" would acquire such things. He paid for his book, the Grimoire Nex, still triple locked within its cumdach. On his way out he told of a tower he hoped to procure as his new base of operations as well as a "drifting island in the sky" where he hoped to find yet more scholarly works for his library.
In the weeks that followed, some of the party spent their gold irresponsibly while others spent their time researching and tithing.
The thief earned a mighty hangover.
Both wizard cleric and witcher crossed paths with the Paladins of the Crimson Cross, the religious order and knightly host who serve as the hand and fist of Duke Wolverhampton the Wanderer. The Middle Empire reclaimed these lands a generation ago, but in recent years the Duke and his paladins have sought to tighten their grip on the marches beyond the keep and the riverlands, with uneven success.
Next stop, the Drifting Dungeon of Highfell.
Module Rumination
I always enjoy the art, the maps and short & sweet nature of Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg modules. They tend to be memorable and finished in a session or two. I have wanted to run Jewels of the Carnifex for a few years mostly because I love the green Mullen cover.
It went well. The handout map was useful. The players were intrigued. They spent some time back tracking and discussing before they finally discovered the Grimoire. Only the backstory was fairly confusing both to myself and the players. Of course that wasn't helped by my attempts to shoehorn the thing into my new campaign world.
Overall, I'd highly recommend this adventure, but it's really worth outlining (maybe a set of bullet points) what the final villain says and does. Any time you are trying to run a battle and drop backstory it gets a little confusing for my DM brain.
Rules Ruminations
We played my evolving personal ruleset, Uncommon Dungeons. I've been using this for a couple of years now and I am more and more comfortable with it. It move quickly, each character type stands out and players are limited by resources (HP, ability scores, rations, torches, time etc) to a degree that we are finding fun and engaging as I have built in ways to "push" each of these limits. Basically, the game has been calibrated to my taste and I'm having a great time. Getting closer to making a semi-settled printing.
Good Times in Town
There are still a couple things to fiddle with: Spending money between sessions! Carousing and the like. This is where a lot of great roleplaying can happen as well, and when I am most enthusiastic about collaborative world building. An optional roll to gain some more experience points, and a Haven Doom Die roll. This time it was Peace and Contentment, but other times the setting may change due to shortages, disasters, or discoveries.
I'm still fiddling with the numbers. I want to encourage Carousing but I don't want it to to be absolutely necessary to keep up xp. Angelo made a good point that one could easily save up and do it all at once. I've no problem with that. 1xp per 3gp ratio is a little silly in terms of math, but maybe that's ok. 1/2? The others 1/4?
Combat
The one piece that still hasn't stuck for me is combat phases. I have written and am trying to use B/X style combat phases. The problem is that I keep forgetting to use it, so used to just saying "What do you do?" When we have used it, I find it very satisfying.
- Initiative: Throw Battle Die (d6)
- Movement & Archery: Each side moves or shoots with readied arrow & spear
- Melee: Each side resolves Hand to hand attacks in initiative order
- Spells & Volleys: Each side resolves Spells (if no movement) & 2nd Archery (if no melee)
I like that there are opportunities to move and run separate from fighting. It also allows for high rate of fire for arrows axes, slings and spears. I think spells taking effect at the end of all that is an important limiter, especially since my dangerous sorcery rules allow wizards and clerics to push far past their allotted spell points. Magic is powerful, but it is not instant.
Rules of Magic
One big development is that I recently
converted most the spell lists (haven't gotten to high Order cleric spells yet) to Uncommon rules, which helps settle things. The conversion mostly consisted of setting damage dice and Saving Throw ability as well as one or two sentence descriptions. Duration is probably the most significant change. Since I am using the "Hazard Dice" to track durations, all spells in Uncommon Dungeons are Rounds, Turns, Days, Weeks/Months, or Permanent. These correspond to the Battle, Doom, Wilderness and Haven dice. The spell ends when "Expiration" is rolled on the appropriate dice table.
Duration
Rounds may expire during Combat
Turns may expire during Exploration
Wilderness Turns consist one day
Haven Turns indicates weeks & months
Monsters
There is no need to convert monsters from DCC or any old D&D style rules. I mostly use Swords & Wizardry or AD&D stats if something isn't in a given module.
Heartstone Campaign considerations
For some of my players, it seems that the biggest question is about alignment and cosmology. I'll try to write up a bit about the Eternal Struggle between Law and Chaos. I am mostly inspired by Warhammer and Moorcock's eternal champion books. My thought is that there is a state Church of Orthodox Law, but within that faith are numerous cults of various saints such as Ygg the Righteous, Cuthbert the Stalwart, Sigmar the Hammer of Empire and the Queen of Swords. On the other side are the Ruinous Powers, Chaos Gods who seek to pervert and destroy civilizations, represented by Khorne Slaughter God, Nurgle the Pestilent, Orcus Lord of the Dead, Slaanesh the Decadent, Set the Dark Serpent etc. Law and Chaos are in a state of eternal cosmic war. Caught in between are most living creatures and various supernatural entities that are worshipped: such as the Green Man, the Cold Prince, Crom on His Mountain, Ttoth Keeper of Secrets, Mother Mitra of Peace and Contentment, but these are not recognized religions, though many folk of the north pay them homage. As in all war, it is those with the least interest in the outcome who suffer the most. Great are the atrocities of the hordes of Chaos, and disturbing are the purges of the Witch Hunters of the Queen of Swords.
All in all, there's been some great gaming going on through these troubled times. I'll try to write more about my burgeoning Highfell campaign as well as the TypeV D&D game I'm running for my students and friends kids.
I saw this post from the Dungeons & Possums blog and got inspired(Thanks!) to make it a little more like my Death & Dismemberment table (also stolen from various blogs).
