I ran another game of Esoteric Enterprises for the latest Good Friends of Jackson Elias Virtual Convention.
I used the same pitch as last time. I got two players, both last minute signups
- James - Occultist with a sword-cane
- Rick - Lockpicking drug addict
- I've got a line to a collector who wants art from the underground gallery to the North.
- Druid drugs are always a hot commodity. They've got a secret grove somewhere under the West side.
- Guy in the underground frontier pays good money for "dungeon meat". What's dungeon meat? Anything, once you kill it.
- Neighborhood Association isn't too happy about the abattoir re-opening. They'd pay big money to shut it down
The players decided to look for the dungeon druids. They could steal their stash and sell it, or just smoke it all. A win, either way. They went into the backroom of the Love Shack and descended into the dungeon.
The players headed Northwest from the Love Shack basement, through a rough tunnel laid with duckboards and into the underground frontier. The tunnels were flooded up to waist level, forcing them to wade through the stagnant water to get anywhere. The first room of interest was filled with stakes and meat hooks, on which were dangled the butchered carcasses of various underworld creatures. There was a storefront facing the massacre sight, with a bright shining window into a small restaurant.
Inside the cafeteria, the players were greeted by Lester, dungeon butcher and chef. The enormous frycook explained his bounty arrangement to the adventurers: he'd pay them 50 dollars per hit die of dungeon creatures brought in as meat. He'd pay five times that rate for anyone on his "bounty board"
- A giant olm from the occult gallery to the North (because it looked delicious)
- A spider-person from the buried mansion to the East (because he mistreated Lester's customers)
- A meat-boss from the abattoir to the South (because she ripped off Lester's recipes)
- A giant cave bear from the botanic gardens to the West (because he just didn't like her)
Rick sweet talked Lester into a couple freebies: two bags of Moe's Special Blend, a soup that cured bleeding. They decided to kill the bear, if they ran into her on their quest to steal dungeon drugs from the druids. When they left, there was a huge boa constrictor trying to eat the cave hyena skewered on one of the stakes in the cave outside the restaurant. It dropped to the ground and slithered away rather than fight the players, and they didn't chase it.
The caves ahead presented a few challenges. One room was filled with water, which was filled with eels. Thankfully, none of the slippery fish bothered to attack the players (they kept getting good reaction rolls from dungeon creatures). The next room was more of a challenge, filled with enormous black fungi that rose to the ceiling of the chamber, glowing a soft pink. Beneath the fruiting bodies, amid a tangle of fungal hyphae, was a corpse. James went to get a look at the stalk, inhaled a lungful of spores and began coughing. Rick wisely pulled on his gas mask. The duo got out of the room quickly. (I included gas masks in the suggested equipment for my fast play character creation rules, but the guy playing James used his own copy of the rules to make his character, so he never saw the recommendation).
The adventurers pushed Northwest. Instead of an underground garden, they found a tunnel of vaulted brickwork. James wasn't feeling great - his skin was swelling up and glowing pale pink, and his was having trouble remembering things. (The lambent corpse spores he inhaled previously were dealing progressive Wisdom damage. He miraculously passed enough Saves vs Poison to fight off the infection before it killed him). They entered the Reliquary.
The tunnel led to a prayer hall, with a tome on a lectern. The adventurers grabbed it and continued to explore the crypt. They had to unlock a few doors and haul heavy portcullises out of the way, but nothing scary or dangerous showed up to challenge them, despite the screeching of the metal on stone. They found an ornate wheel lock pistol and some expensive priestly vestments. It was the room with the holy water fountain where they got into serious trouble. A shadow glided out of the darkness and across James' body, sapping life energy and tearing away his strength. Enfeebled, he cast a spell to freeze the air around him into a protective shell of ice, while Rick searched the room for the monster. The shadow shied away from the light reflecting off the ice barrier, so James shined it at the top of the cylinder, reflecting the beam throughout the room. The shadow fled the chamber, James broke open the ice shell, and the adventurers continued exploring, much worse for wear.
The next room had a safe. Rick opened it and found some old coins. The room after that had a relic of a saint - a skull in a glass case. James opened it, avoided a poorly designed spike trap, and grabbed the treasure. That was all well and good, but the next room was trickier. A pile of gold, four thousand dollars worth. Rick cautiously picked up a piece, stuffed it in his bag, and was cursed with weakness (reduced STR, CON and DEX). Both adventurers were so weak that they could barely carry the treasure they'd accumulated. They decided to head for the surface.
Miraculously, despite their slow pace and heavy loads of clattering treasure nothing attacked them on the way out of the dungeon. They made it back to the Love Shack stairs without being ambushed by dungeon creatures, and went searching for a place to pawn the load. The antique store where they tried to sell their treasure was having none of their shit. The owner informed them in no uncertain terms that the gold they'd recovered was cursed. He wasn't buying it, and they needed to put it back where they found it. They didn't want to give up four thousand dollars, so they went to the Ramen Boss all night noodle shack to meet a guy who could help them (Rick aced his contacts roll). There, an elderly surf bum accepted a thousand dollars in exchange for casting a remove curse spell, restoring Rick's lost physical stats and rendering the gold safe to trade.
The players had accumulated enough treasure to advance dramatically in power. James reached Level 4, while Rick reached Level 5. According to my rules for advancement, this also entitled them to establish hustles and choose NPC crewmembers. Normally I wouldn't do this for a convention game with brand new players, but both of them said they wanted to start a fight and try out the combat system. So I gave them an abbreviated version of the process. I skipped ahead a few weeks, after the characters used their money to establish criminal enterprises. James opened an antique store that sold forged occult books to gullible tourists, while Rick set up a lab to make experimental drugs. For their crews, they chose a Death Knight, a Lich (they're only HD 6, so a Level 5 character with even a single point in Contacts can hire one) and a Professional Doctor.
With several experience levels and some tough NPCs backing them up, the players decided to pick a fight with the dungeon druids. Rather than enter the underworld and travel the long way, they paid off one of their underworld contacts at the dock for the location of the druids' secret entrance: the big tree in the park at the Salt Cliffs resort. The players bought a day at the resort, treated themselves to the spa, then climbed into the tree and descended into the underworld when nobody was looking.
The chamber below the secret tree entrance was filled with roots, and softly lit by stone faces on the ceiling that shone like the moon. The players heard the sound of conversation from a passage to the Northwest. Whoever was talking heard the clatter of the Death Knight's armor, and shut up fast. The players forged boldly ahead, entering the druidic den. They found a number of stone dolmens serving as snug druidic nests, and a freshly lit blunt smoldering on the cavern floor. Whoever lit it had hidden in a hurry.
James and Rick boldly entered the room and called the druids out. The archdruid emerged from her hiding place among the undergrowth to take their measure. The players suggested they could enter a profitable business relationship trading druid drugs. Then they decided they didn't want to trade, they wanted to fight. They ordered the Death Knight to grab the archdruid as a hostage. The archdruid turned into a cave bear, and battle was joined.
The Death Knight stepped forward and engaged the cave bear in hand to hand combat. Rick's pet Lich quickly cast Spell Immunity on James, protecting him from the barrage of magic that was about to hit the team. James and Rick opened fire with their pistols, which did no damage to the bear - by fighting the Death Knight, she became immune to outside attacks until the conclusion of the duel. The four druids hiding in the dolmens popped up and all cast Flay on the Lich. He was peeled apart and killed - he'd resurrect later from his phylactery, but he was out of the fight.
The players eventually realized (after being told multiple times by the Death Knight) that attacking the bear was pointless, so they shifted their focus to the druids. The nature worshipers recognized James as a caster and tried to Flay him, but their spells bounced off the protective field the Lich cast on him. He leapt forward with his sword cane and attacked the druids hand-to-hand. James and the Doctor shifted their frantic pistol fire to the druids, but didn't deal enough damage to reduce the torrent of dangerous spells incoming. The Doctor miraculously avoided death, when a successful attempt to Flay him did minimum damage. James cast a Bleeding Curse on one of the druids, opening serious wounds that would prove lethal if not treated. Then the bear tore the Death Knight in half. The players decided it was time to leave.
James successfully outran the pursuing druids, but Rick fell behind. The cave bear was gaining on him, but James froze the air behind him in a wall, delaying the ferocious creature and allowing the team to escape back up the tree.
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