ANGUISHEDWIRES - Session Two

I ran a second game of the legendary fortress ANGUISHEDWIRES using my system Begone, FOE. In real life, a couple months have passed since the first game, but I set the game a day after the last run.

Two parties of adventurers and a maniple of the Brazenkragg City Watch have disappeared into the excavation at the base of the old tower. Rumor says that a single survivor returned alive, carrying fabulous riches and telling stories of the treasure that awaits in the legendary dwarven fortress ANGUISHEDWIRES.

I had two returning players, both of whom brought new characters since their previous ones had died. In attendance:

• Jack Fatherd, Neutral Thief and brother of the deceased Thomas Fatherd
• Olga Benedek, Lawful Cleric of the Grain Goddess

I decided they had been briefed by the only survivor from the previous expedition, so that the players wouldn't have to pretend to "discover" a bunch of stuff they already knew out-of-character, and could proceed to exploring the areas that hadn't already been mapped and looted.

Like last game, I elided the trip across the river, and let the players begin outside the dungeon entrance.

The players knew that Level 1 had already been looted, and didn't spend much time there. They descended the stairs down to Level 2 right away. They paused in the checkpoint, Olga listening at the door to the staircase while Jack searched the room for hidden compartments. Their caution was rewarded by the patter of tiny feet, coming up from the staircase to Level 3. They hid in the space behind the door, and waited quietly as three ratmen came into the checkpoint. They decided an ambush was in order, and sprang into action.

They quickly killed the first two rat-people before they could draw their hand-crossbows. The third fired, missed, and ran out of the room. Jack felled him with a sling bullet, but didn't kill him. Olga moved to finish the job, but the rat man spoke intelligibly in common, asking them what they were doing and why they were killing him. Olga insisted that rat people ate crops, which he vehemently denied. He broke his hand-crossbow into useless pieces as they argued. The rat offered to lead the adventurers to a map of the fortress, in exchange for being left alive. The players agreed. He took them down the stairs to the Fortress Planning office on Level 3, and true to his word, there was a wax tablet there with maps of Levels 1 through 4.

They let the rat guy go, with a stern warning from Olga not to eat any more crops. She was really convinced the guy was after the crops.

ANGUISHEDWIRES - Session One, Part Two

 (Continued from part one)

THE SECOND DAY
The next day, Monty caught the morning ferry across the river, and hiked out to the tower again. He moved carefully enough to get the drop on a trio of thugs going in the same direction. The three goons were obviously hung over, and obviously headed for the tower. Monty followed them stealthily. The bandits rolled up on Kamilla and Thomas. They were looking for the same group of adventurers as the militia were, but for a different reason: they owed Trade Warden Jan Estoc a cut of whatever they found on the expedition, and the goons were here to remind them of the obligation.

Thomas and Kamilla hadn’t seen any adventurers around. They were just here to pick up a few silver pieces themselves. That was alright with the thugs, but since the whole place belonged to the Trade Wardens, there was the little matter of the tax they owed. Just hand over whatever they were carrying, and the debt would be paid.

Monty struck from surprise with his rapier, but flubbed the attack. The bandits sprang into action, with one striking back with his falchion while the other two pelted Thomas and Kamilla with arrows. Kamilla cast her freshly prepared Sleep spell, but all three thugs made their saves. One of the thugs took Monty’s arm off with a lucky swing, before Thomas got stuck in with his two handed maul. Monty and Thomas killed two of the bandits in retaliation. The third ran away as fast as possible, vocally rescinding his request for their hard earned treasure. Thomas caught up with him and bludgeoned him to death, to ensure he couldn’t tell anyone the party had killed two of the Trade Warden’s goons. The team took a few silver pieces off the bodies, stripped and dumped them in the woods for the owlbears to scavenge.

ANGUISHEDWIRES - Session One, Part One

A couple months ago, I ran a session of ANGUISHEDWIRES, a dungeon I created while doing a FATAL and Friends readthrough of How to Host a Dungeon. Dungeon is a solo game by Tony Dowler. ANGUISHEDWIRES was an experiment, to see how much work it took to convert a map from that game into something playable in an RPG. The answer was “a lot!”

I used my own system for the playtest. It’s my attempt to preserve the stuff I like about old school dungeon crawling, while stripping out the parts I find tedious. In addition to playtesting the dungeon, this was also an opportunity to playtest the rules.

The playtest game had three players

• Thomas Fatherd the Mercenary
• Monty the Loveable Thief
• Kamilla the Witch

The setting was the colony city of Brazenkragg, on the frontier of the Commonwealth.

The job was simple:

Sam Sump, one of the Trade Wardens of Brazenkragg, meets you on the balcony of his cafe in the upper shambles. Sam is an old school criminal, utterly ruthless but honest. He is considered a safe person to take jobs from, provided you plan on completing them.

“Look, it’s simple. Some people went digging on the West side of the river, by the old tower. Southwest of the logger camp. Then a couple days later I get a courier with a shopping list and a down payment on some items. So I need you to take the stuff back across the river and deliver it to them, then bring back the rest of the payment. Delivery goes in, 1,000 silver pieces come out. Then I give you 100 of those pieces and we’re square. Maybe more work waiting when you come back.”

I elided the journey through the wilderness, other than telling the players a little about the route they took (a ferry to the logger camp, then a two hour hike through the forest to the tower). The game began as they reached the adventurer camp by the base of the tower.

The camp was abandoned. All the valuables were gone, but the tents were still up, and there weren’t any signs of violence. The biggest tent had a six foot diameter hole in the ground, perfectly circular, which descended into a smooth tunnel. Monty and Kamilla recognized this as the work of a shamir - a magic worm that burrowed on command. The adventurers had obviously dug this. With no other prospect of finding their meal ticket, the players descended into the dungeon.

Esoteric Enterprises - Angels

Have you ever taken something that didn't belong to you? Have you eaten while someone else starved? Have you broken your word? Have you killed another person? The Angels know what you did. They’re going to hurt you as an example to other people.

Bayonetta by Platinum Games

In a world of occult criminals, Angels are the ultimate cops. Except they can’t be bought off, or convinced to let you off with a warning. The only way out is to pay what you owe. And everyone owes something.