The crystal ball room has been used a number of times in DF Felltower. A quick search shows it being used in at least these sessions.
DF Session 45
DF Session 114
DF Session 188
DF Session 213
I'm sure having linked them all I'll now need to field a lot of clarification questions. But it comes down a few things:
- Crystalmancy will help, but it's not necessary.
- Some areas of the dungeon just cannot be scryed with this device.
- Some areas of the dungeon can be scryed easily with this device, even if you aren't that familiar with them.
- Some areas of the dungeon can be scryed with difficulty if you are familiar with them.
- The surface area around the dungeon is probably in the second or third category.
- It's location-dependent and cannot effectively be used for finding things. Think of it more like a series of cameras on a facility and less like a magic ball of answers and you'll do better with it - and the use in the sessions above will bear that out. There is one exception to that in there . . . but was that a true vision or someone messing up badly and misunderstanding what they saw? It's unclear . . . divination is like that.
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Sunday, September 21, 2025
GURPS DF Session 213, Felltower 137 - Looking for Evil Temples in All the Wrong Places
Date: 9/21/2025
Weather: Cool, dry.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Almaric (125 points)
4 guards (62 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (318 points)
We started off in town. The PCs gathered rumors, and then set off to Felltower.
The plan to follow up on a rumor they'd heard:
"The dark cult to the demon god on the second level of Felltower has made a return, but made some new secret temple to worship at."
They'd decided this meant they needed to search the upper levels for the temple.
Long story short . . . they didn't find it. But they did find some adventure.
The PCs started to search the second level, hoping to find a restarted evil temple. So they first checked the old demonic temple long ago cleared. They found it wasn't being used, so they worked their way around to the stairs down to the burial areas for the Brotherhood and the draugr. The goal was to find "edge" areas that could have seen expansion out from the levels as they are, where a new temple could be built.
As they did, they used Seek Earth to find gold and then another to find silver. They found both a short distance away, with a vision showing a loose wall stone with coins and some gold behind it. They decided to use Seek Earth to triangulate on the gold. This time it revealed a massive hoard - a room carpeted with coins, speckled heavily with gold coins. It was some distance off the map.
So they searched the whole of the burial areas - the central draugr laid as well as the two side areas where the Brothers had been buried. Long story short, the niches of the higher-ranked guys had been totally looted and destroyed. Those of the lesser brothers - who had only 1 cp as a passage coin - hadn't. They didn't bother to despoil them, either, since they're looking at 2500 cp or so max for many hours of work. They settled for 1 cp and Vlad touching a red hand - which zapped him, of course.
But they kept after the big source of gold. No path they took got them much closer, and it was clear on the far side of the draugr crypt. They couldn't find a way to get there - no secret doors, no tunnels, nothing.
Next up they went to scrying room on "level 3." It is accessed by a button that does Deathtouch on the person pressing it, so Hannari suggested Vlad shoot it with a blunt arrow to "push" it. That worked.
In they went, and Duncan began to scry. He kept trying to scry by term - "look for the Lord of Spite" and "show me the room behind the door on the GFS" and so on - which kept failing. What did succeed was checking some local areas, including a nearby former temple. When he tried a 9th time to scry and went to look at the room where the Doomchildren had spawned back in the day. Duncan got immediately dizzy, threw up on the crystal ball mount, and was nauseous for a while.
They checked the room themselves, unspiking the shut downs and searching it. They found nothing.
Next they checked the cliff where ropers had been fought, and the cliff itself - nope, nothing.
Next they went to the flooded prison, and Vlad flew around looking for Big John the troll and other things. They found nothing - Big John was gone, all the boats were gone, and so on. Vlad did spot a "gem" on the floor and shot it when he saw holes in the floor - he suspected a trap. He hit it and it shattered, setting off a spiked trap.
They moved on, and decided to search pretty much every room they'd stumbled on in the long past. Eventually, in one of them, they found a loose stone with a sack beyond it. It was trapped with (what turned out to be) a sleep grenade, but Vlad caught it on the way down. They found 935 sp, a gold-silver-and-ivory decorated horn, 6 glow vials, and a set of dwarven lockpicks.
They took that, searched a bit more, and then headed home. No temple, no fights, no room carpeted with coins . . . but they did find some loot.
Notes:
- Seek Earth is annoying. Helpful to delvers, but annoying. And that you can use it over and over again to triangulate can also be annoying. I'm not that good at math so it's hard for me to calcuate the distance. Plus I need to keep checking all over the map and the room key to find out what's where.
- 2 xp for everyone for over 20% of their loot threshold. MVP was Hannari for suggesting shooting the secret door trigger with a blunt arrow.
Weather: Cool, dry.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Almaric (125 points)
4 guards (62 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (318 points)
We started off in town. The PCs gathered rumors, and then set off to Felltower.
The plan to follow up on a rumor they'd heard:
"The dark cult to the demon god on the second level of Felltower has made a return, but made some new secret temple to worship at."
They'd decided this meant they needed to search the upper levels for the temple.
Long story short . . . they didn't find it. But they did find some adventure.
The PCs started to search the second level, hoping to find a restarted evil temple. So they first checked the old demonic temple long ago cleared. They found it wasn't being used, so they worked their way around to the stairs down to the burial areas for the Brotherhood and the draugr. The goal was to find "edge" areas that could have seen expansion out from the levels as they are, where a new temple could be built.
As they did, they used Seek Earth to find gold and then another to find silver. They found both a short distance away, with a vision showing a loose wall stone with coins and some gold behind it. They decided to use Seek Earth to triangulate on the gold. This time it revealed a massive hoard - a room carpeted with coins, speckled heavily with gold coins. It was some distance off the map.
So they searched the whole of the burial areas - the central draugr laid as well as the two side areas where the Brothers had been buried. Long story short, the niches of the higher-ranked guys had been totally looted and destroyed. Those of the lesser brothers - who had only 1 cp as a passage coin - hadn't. They didn't bother to despoil them, either, since they're looking at 2500 cp or so max for many hours of work. They settled for 1 cp and Vlad touching a red hand - which zapped him, of course.
But they kept after the big source of gold. No path they took got them much closer, and it was clear on the far side of the draugr crypt. They couldn't find a way to get there - no secret doors, no tunnels, nothing.
Next up they went to scrying room on "level 3." It is accessed by a button that does Deathtouch on the person pressing it, so Hannari suggested Vlad shoot it with a blunt arrow to "push" it. That worked.
In they went, and Duncan began to scry. He kept trying to scry by term - "look for the Lord of Spite" and "show me the room behind the door on the GFS" and so on - which kept failing. What did succeed was checking some local areas, including a nearby former temple. When he tried a 9th time to scry and went to look at the room where the Doomchildren had spawned back in the day. Duncan got immediately dizzy, threw up on the crystal ball mount, and was nauseous for a while.
They checked the room themselves, unspiking the shut downs and searching it. They found nothing.
Next they checked the cliff where ropers had been fought, and the cliff itself - nope, nothing.
Next they went to the flooded prison, and Vlad flew around looking for Big John the troll and other things. They found nothing - Big John was gone, all the boats were gone, and so on. Vlad did spot a "gem" on the floor and shot it when he saw holes in the floor - he suspected a trap. He hit it and it shattered, setting off a spiked trap.
They moved on, and decided to search pretty much every room they'd stumbled on in the long past. Eventually, in one of them, they found a loose stone with a sack beyond it. It was trapped with (what turned out to be) a sleep grenade, but Vlad caught it on the way down. They found 935 sp, a gold-silver-and-ivory decorated horn, 6 glow vials, and a set of dwarven lockpicks.
They took that, searched a bit more, and then headed home. No temple, no fights, no room carpeted with coins . . . but they did find some loot.
Notes:
- Seek Earth is annoying. Helpful to delvers, but annoying. And that you can use it over and over again to triangulate can also be annoying. I'm not that good at math so it's hard for me to calcuate the distance. Plus I need to keep checking all over the map and the room key to find out what's where.
- 2 xp for everyone for over 20% of their loot threshold. MVP was Hannari for suggesting shooting the secret door trigger with a blunt arrow.
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