GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Session 177, Brotherhood Complex 1 - Tricks, Traps, and Triger

We played a session in a new area today, a couple of days from Felltower but perhaps ultimately connected.

Just a note on numbering - one of my readers noticed I'd missed putting a pair of sessions on the DF Campaign page, and it seems like I overlapped my session numbering for at least one session. So I think this is actually session 177 . . . and numbered it as such.

Date: 12/18/2022
Game Date: 12/18/2022 left Stericksburg, delved on 12/20/2022, returned to Stericksburg 12/22/2022.

Characters:
Ambassador Durinn, dwarf cleric (250 points)
Desmond MacDougall, human wizard (278 points)
Kaylee, half-elf knight (250 points)
Lenjamin Gundry of Cornwood, human knight (250 points)

The PCs gathered in Stericksburg. I gave the players the following background, which amusingly is based on Galen's player's listing of his downtime activities:

Years ago, there was a rumor.

"There are supposedly a pair of unopenable doors way out to the West. They say they connect to Felltower somehow."

Galen's been lurking on the fringes of the unsettled territory north of the Silver River - claimed by the kingdom, but wilderness for most purposes. Sometimes, though, his travels take him near the roads, doing some work to keep himself amused.

On one of those trips, after disposing of some pesky goblins that were annoying local farmers, he spotted something interesting - a covered wagon of goods headed west. Nothing special, except he briefly saw a cone-hatted man poke his head out of the back to order the porters around.

Galen decided to follow and see what was up. It's not legal to kill men in the borders of the kingdom without cause, so he figured maybe he'd track them outside of the borders.

Eventually, he followed them to a small valley. In the small valley was a cave - the wagon headed to the cave, where many cone-hatted cultists came out to receive the goods. Once that was done, they coerced the teamsters into the cave, broke up the wagon and took the entire thing inside.

After dark, Galen snuck in. In the cave was a tunnel, narrow and winding and dark. At the very end of the tunnel was a room with a pair of giant doors lacking a handle, keyhole, hinges, or latches of any kind. They showed signs of attempted forcing in the light of Galen's torch, but no guards or anything. Traffic clearly had been coming and going - and it seemed it was both booted feet of men, and clawed feet . . . probably gnolls.

Galen spied out the land for a few days and saw that very occasionally cone-hatted cultists would come out to harvest berries and gather fruit and catch some rabbits and other game. He realized he could pick a few off but couldn't besiege the place, so he went to find some people who could go in . . .

***

Meanwhile, Desmond had come across an interesting passage in a book at the guild. It said that the Black Brotherhood had created a "hidden fastness" off "in the West" to just prior to the siege of their Felltower-top fortress. In it they supposedly hid treasure and learning of their dark cult. But it notably said that it had unopenable doors . . . which would only open for "a properly proclaimed brother."

And then along came Galen with his doors.

So Desmond gathered up Red, Blue, and new guy Grey (he can't remember names) and told them he knew the password past the door.

They bought a week's worth of rations and hiked a couple of days West and a bit north of the roads to find the valley Galen told him about. They reached it around noon on the third day.

They headed into the cave after debating waiting it out. They followed a very windy and narrow (2 yards by 2 yards) tunnel up and down stairs to a tall-ceilinged room with a pair of metal doors. The doors were almost 18' tall and 6 feet wide each. They - and the ground and walls around them - showed signs of attempted forced entry. The walls were scorched on the walls facing the doors, as well. But they had no hinges, keyholes, locks, or handles. It had taken a while to get there - they'd mapped as best they could along the way, with Durinn doing the mapping on his shield lecturn.

Desmond looked for a black hand print but there was none. So he said, "I am of the Brotherhood. By the Brotherhood, let me pass."

The doors slid silently open.

Beyond was a T-shaped room with a staircase down to the right. Shortly after the doors silently closed. They looked around and Durinn used See Secrets and saw nothing. The stairs to the right led to a dusty room with cobwebbed corners and dust floating around in the air. It was oddly dry. On either side wall of a square room was a metal-bound oak door, and in the center far wall was a rotatable statue. It was of a robed, cone-hatted figure with slanted eyes and its faced covered, pointing a six-fingered left hand languidly forwad.

Durinn checked the statue closely and saw it could rotate to face either door. He touched it and got zapped by black fire for 1 HP injury and 5 FP drain.

So they surmised this was like the puzzle rooms they'd read about being in Felltower. So they proceeded to try to force the doors. Zap. 3 HP injury and a lot of FP drain (Kaylee once lost 15 FP). They turned the statues to face the doors and opened them. Nope, wouldn't budge. They turned it to face the other door and forced it. Nope. Zap, zap, zap. They'd do a few, rest and heal, and do a few more. They tried using the passphrase in a few combinations. Nope. Zap, zap, zap. They tried the passphrase in the entry room - the doors opened, but that was it.

Finally, Durinn decided to tap the walls of the first room, because if there was an illusionary wall, See Secrets wouldn't have revealed it. And sure enough, opposite the stairs to the statue room was another identical staircase, behind an illusionary wall. It had been a few hours of game time including rests.

They headed down those stairs, a bit battered but okay.

At the bottom was an open, wide corridor with a hole in the wall. They moved carefully over to the hole in the wall, taking the time to map. They got close, and began to hear a caterwauling roar from three throats. So they kept moving close to the hole in the wall, Kaylee in the lead, taking their time to ready weapons, put the map away, etc. The roars kept coming.

And as Kaylee got to the narrowest bit, a triger pounced on her, biting her. She managed to slice up two of its mouths, but the third latched on with a critical hit, holding on to her leg.

They rushed it as she dropped her sword and fished out a large knife. Lenny threw a hatchet at it and nearly lopped off a back leg. Durinn healed Kaylee with Major Healing and Desmond put Armor 4 on her.

Kaylee sliced the triger and it kept gnawing on her, and then Lenny finished it off with a hammer blow, wounding it badly and causing it to collapse a monent later.

Just as that happened, though, down the adjacent hallway came eight men with crossbows, swords, and shields. They wore the black-and-burgundy split robes of cone-hatted cultists but lacked the hoods. They lined up and aimed crossbows from about 14-15 yards away.

Desmond threw a 1d Explosive Acid Ball and slightly wounded three of them. Lenny threw a hatchet but missed - range and darkness told.

The PCs advanced. Crossbow bolts rained in, missing Durinn (Missile Shield), blocked by Lenny, or hitting Kaylee - but with her 6 DR scale and 4 DR Armor spell she bounced all of their quarrels.

They reached the foe, but it took so long even at top speed that they'd dropped their crossbows, readied shields and swords, and were Waiting. So Desmond cast Terror on three of them. One picked up a new quirk (mild fear of wizards, FWIW), one was stunned, and a third began to retch and dry heave. Kaylee slashed at another. The guards swarmed around their left flank and surrounded Lenny and Kaylee, who went back to back. The ones who came after Desmond and Durinn found Durinn ready to fight, and Desmond stunned one with a hefty Dehydrate spell. The guards landed a few blows, and fought hard, but weren't up to the task. They hit Kaylee a couple times but her DR stopped what her sword didn't. Lenny blocked most and was hurt a couple times, but managed to hammer a few arms, breaking them. Kaylee slashed one in the throat. That one stood another second before dropping - to quickly die on the floor.

One with a crippled arm fled. Others began to back off, but the PCs managed to quickly put them down. Lenny and Desmond took off after the fleeing one - and Desmond hit him in the back with an Acid Ball, but didn't quite wound him enough. He still had enough move - and willingness to run away in the dark - to evade them.

Meanwhile one had tossed his sword down and asked for quarter. Kaylee accepted it, even as Durinn beat a wounded and stunned one unconscious next to him. The retching one eventually was able to comply with orders to drop his weapon.

The fleeing one got away, but the other seven were dead or captured. They brought the living two to their guard room after one told them there were nine more guards and how to find them. He warned those guys were fanatics.

The PCs walked their prisoners to the room, taking their cash and weapons and helmets. They got them to accept being put in Suspended Animation. They dragged in the wounded and the one dead and tied up the wounded.

After discussing staying in the guard room until they'd recovered FP and healed up (call that another 20-30 minutes or more) they realized it wasn't worth the risk. They tried to force a nearby door to no avail, even after Destroy Water on the mildewed and damp door. They couldn't open it.

At this point they gave up. They woke up the wounded and the prisoners, and took them out with them, offering their lives for cooperation. This took a lot of discussion - a few minutes - before they settled on what to do. They left the triger because it's too heavy, they lack the skills to skin it, and they weren't sure it was dead and no one wanted to provoke it if it was recovering. They left.

Once outside the dungeon, they moved a mile or so away, and questioned their prisoners. Durinn treated them humanely and kindly, and healed where he could. One had a skull fracture from Kaylee cracking him in the skull during the fight, so he used Suspended Animation to keep him alive. They got some info (I'll post it tomorrow) and let the guards go. They seemed like riff-raff but clearly weren't fanatics.

They headed back to Stericksburg. No one wants to spend the holidays outside some cultist-occupied complex.

Notes:

- Good session today. I was amused at the trap working. What's even funnier to me is that Durinn's player noted that See Secrets wouldn't see an illusion, and that the room was dusty and cobwebbed but the rest of the entrance was not. Yet they persisted in a good 90 minutes of real time puzzling out the puzzle. Or should I say, getting trapped by the trap.

Some of that is play style . . . there is a strong tendency towards figuring out puzzles, clearing locations (nothing is done until it's all done), finishing a setpiece and then just resting, looting, and mending, and have a very mixed plan of action that depends heavily on pausing and debating. And some others. A truly old-school paranoia would probably have made them walk away from that room . . . and maybe avoid that hole in the wall instead of walking up to it to check it out. Not saying that this would have solved everything, but you can see how trying to maximize finds its way in.

- Use of ranged weapons! And fight-breaking spells! Craziness.

- I was going to use the mook rules for automatic KOs at negative HP, but the first guy made his HT roll by a lot. So I figured, maybe these guys are a bit tough. I'm glad I did - it made for a better fight and better results when guys fought hard and only folded when badly wounded. So why not?

- We have a second knight of Cornwood. The loyal knights of King Titanius Anglesmith I are always willing to delve into Felltower to widen the reknown of Cornwood!
Durinn's player quipped he's a robot.

- XP was 6 each - 4 xp for loot at threshold or above, 2 xp for exploration of a large number of significant areas. MVP was Durinn for finding the illusionary wall with some old-school wall tapping. They took home around $850 each in cash.

- Kaylee ended up with 10 points and spent them on Magery 1. She's got enough to start learning a few spells she's been after.