Four Against Darkness: Adventures of the Forgeshields Volume 2

 

Welcome to another installment of the Forgeshields Adventures! Last time, we saw a couple party members cut down before seeing level 2. Surprisingly, the halfling and elf both made it out alive leaving their guild mates rotting corpses in the dungeon...So it's time to roll up some new characters!

 

I randomly rolled for classes and got a barbarian (Enel) and wizard (Lindir). Now it's time to roll on the traits from Zealous Zouaves (ZZ). For the barbarian I got Murmadier...Great, a barbarian descended from fishmen! The wizard got Live Fast Die Young...Seems like a cocky wizard, too big for his britches.

Supplements used other than the core book:

Twisted Dungeons

Twisted Minions

ZZ

Monster Deck 2 (house rules as outlined here)

The original monsters from the core book!

 

First, I roll on the Twisted Dungeons table and get #72 Kingdom of the Zombies. It asks me to come up with a reason why this occured! A perfect time to use the Norindaal Oracle. I ask the oracle, why is this happening in this dungeon?! The story goes...

An old bedraggled necromancer cursed the dungeon thinking that there were legendary adventurers delving inside. As it turns out, only the inhabitants who had lived there for centuries before were inside. Now the soil rotting, seeped in and overtook much of the monsters who reside inside. Slowly killing them and turning them into shambling zombies, forever wandering the tunnels and ruins.

 So, with that happy image, let's get started!

 

Note: I do play with the "locked door" optional rule. Darkened doors are unlocked and I'll use the oracle to see how strong the doors are with the "skull" system. The skull system basically determines how strong something is, be it a monster, trap, etc. In this case, it's a door. The skull has a roman numeral beside it with I being weak, II being normal, and III being tough. You decide on how tough or weak you want it to be. I see that normal doors are lvl 3, so I simply use a method of +1/-1 for weak and strong doors. So a weak door is lvl 2 and a strong door is lvl 4.

Room 1: Reveals 9 skeletal rats! Unfortunately, the halfling had to sit out with his sling-o-matic, as skeletal rats cannot be targeted by ranged weapons. My barb and elf had to chop them up by themselves.

Room 2: Empty.

Room 3: Weird monster! A lvl 3 Iron Eater, the doom of many heavy armor wearing class. Being a hotdog wizard, he smashes the Iron Eater in the face with his staff for 1 damage. Then the real damage dealers take over and finish him off...Now, here's a house rule that I use. Weird monsters are 1/2 an exp roll and boss monsters are a full exp roll. However, I don't allow leveling up from minions and only two level ups can occur in each dungeon. Still experimenting with this and trying to come up with a way to slow down leveling too fast. Anyhow, no loot!

I did encounter two lvl 6 doors though, with no way to pick the lock. The only way forward, bash down the door! Since I'm using the oracle, I draw and see how hard it is, looking at the skull, a I. As I said before, a I is easy and is lvl 2. The barbarian easily crushes the door down into splinters!

Room 4: Empty. Do we want to search the room or not? Maybe on my way back out. Now, we have a door blocking the way and it's skull value of III, so it's lvl 4. I send in my "barbarteringram" and thud! It doesn't budge...It also attracts wondering monsters! Turns out, it's a boss too. A roll to see if its the final boss and, of course, I get a 6. I draw the "Chaos Lord" with no powers, phew. Still, he's got 5 life and 4 attacks and is lvl 6.

First round of attacks by the Chaos Lord damages everybody, save for the halfling. The wizard shoots a lightening bolt to no avail and the barb/elf combo whiffs. The second round sees everyone taking a wound but the wizard's last lightening bolt explodes and does twice the damage taking the Lord down to 1 wound. Surprisingly, it is the halfling's dagger who slits the throat of the Chaos Lord. What a guy! The bards will be singing his praises...Assuming they can make it out alive.

No loot but we do get a chance to level up. I chose my wizard and rolled a 4, he is now lvl 2 and I give him another lightening bolt spell. Since most everyone is pretty battered, I decide it's best to retreat. We did accomplish the mission though, slaying the final boss.

Room 1 (again): They nearly made it out without trouble but ran into a wandering weird monster! The Catoblepas, lvl 4. Right off the bat, the gaze attack hit the barb and wizard, who is now down to 1 life!  Mr. Wizard, being the hotshot that he is, explodes another lightening bolt leaving the pile of foul smelling goo that was once a Catoblepas. Well, that's two weird monsters, so another exp roll. This time the barb, who easily gains lvl 2.

Another butt cheek clenching adventure! No loot at all during this, again, short dungeon sequence. At least this time I was able to complete the basic mission.