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Monday, September 25, 2023

#ReaperCon #Dungeon23 Session Reports 1+2

Games played the evenings of 8/30 to 9/3

Players and Characters - Not all players/characters played each night
Smart Goblin - Notknot Focust, Magic User
Thes - Ethanol the Cleric (aka 80085)
Aaron - Ivermectin the Dwarf
Haldir - Balfasak the Buzzed (aka The Aborted) the dwarf
JeepNewbie - Gorbeliead the fighter
Merrick - Charles Notchuck the fighter
Kyle - Ankou the fighter
Matt - Whooo the lover (not a fighter)
Thorne - Lethe the elf
Andy - Sarin
Natalie - Urethra
Brad Arm Candy - Mojito the 1st
Cranky - Maypole the Fudge Bringer, Prophet of Core
Ariel - Tila the Thief
Arthur - North The Elf
Evil Halfling - Mojito the 2nd (& 3rd) Cleric
Jeff/Dilvish - Uri
Dragoneye - House Red
Watermelon, NPC Torchbearer (12 year old boy or adult halfling, unclear, in platemail with no shoes and shoe polish blackened feet)
Lefty & Righty, NPC meatshields

Over the course of 5 nights I ran a rotating group of players through the first month’s worth of my #Dungeon23. These were all late night sessions (usually starting after 9:30pm) in which almost everyone had consumed various adult beverages. At any given time, there were usually about 8 players at the table.

DM’s notes, as written, will be indicated with **. These notes may or may not have anything to do with what's happening in the game, and may or may not make any sense… even to me.


Introduction

The world ended. Fire burned the sky, and demons poured forth from the mountains to sweep across the face of the world, destroying the monuments and empires of mankind. But nothing lasts forever, not even the end of the world.

Everything was changed from that point on. New peoples with ancient empires appeared where once there was open farmland, and old nations fractured and split as what once was common became impossible to repair. Creatures of myth now walk, swim, and fly across the face of the world.

In the town of Dragon's Maw, so named for the ever steaming rocky gorge the town sits next to, the town's main well has gone dry. Workers were sent down to investigate and repair it. They didn't return. The townsfolk are nervous, and old wives tales about "The Demon Core" that lurks below seem a little more real. With nerves running high, and water supplies running low, a call has gone out for some would-be heroes to face whatever danger lurks below the town.

**I gave this intro every session, and sometimes multiple times if new players showed up.

 

Photo from DM's view of players at reapercon table in convention center hallway. My hamster plush sits prominently in the middle of the table next to my beer and notebook

Session 1

Too stupid to step back when the town council calls for volunteers, a half dozen unlucky souls are geared up to find out what happened to the workers and solve the problem if they can. Heading down the well, the strongest being lowered down first, they drop down into a long and somewhat narrow cavern with an underground stream running through it, and quickly discover that the cause of the problem is that a wall has collapsed, pushing the stream away from the well opening. More interesting is that the collapsed wall has opened an entrance into… somewhere else. Somewhere with a flickering blueish light.

As the fighters poke around, the nearly naked wizard, with bandoliers of flaming oil, loses his grip on the rope near the bottom, and falls. Lucky for him, he only suffers a bit of rope burn, a badly bumped noggin (no big loss) and a couple broken vials of oil. He then uses the oil to rub his nearly naked self down

**everyone is drunk, both in and out of game

**roll Tiddy dice for decisions

The party doesn’t see any sign of the workers in the cave, and so heads up toward the light. Once through the broken wall, they find themselves in a clearly man-made passage, with ancient flickering light panels set into the ceiling. Picking a random direction, they explore the hallway, ignoring the door near the break in the wall, and going directly away from it, ignoring the door at the turn of the corridor and looking further along, they see a group of four 6’ tall cockroaches, attempting to open a door further down the hall. 2 of them drop down onto all sixes, while the one at the door, and the one furthest back remain upright. They click and chitter amongst each other, then at the party.

Notknot, in his glistening glory, carefully approaches the roaches. They’re cautious, but let him approach, backing away from the door. He reaches for the door handle, turns it, and pushes in, and is immediately trampled by 4 more Roachkin busting out of the room. The Roachkin collectively scurry away down the hall, mostly on the floor, a couple using the wall until they round the corner down the far end. After a moment one sticks his head back around the corner and waves an arm before disappearing down the hall.

The party rushes up to Notknot, picks him up, and then they check out the open doorway. Beyond is a large open cubicle farm. The fabric walls are torn and moldy, and thick dust covers the inoperable machines within.

Returning to the previous door, they find a large plush office that once must have been for the boss, but was now just as ruined as the cubicle farm. Ivermectin does his best to fix the throne-like chair behind the desk, but the plastic wheels are beyond his skill and drunkenness level.

 

Session 2

The party continues exploring the underground facility, coming next to a store room, which was largely empty and the few remaining items were ancient and not in very good shape. Urethra offered someone a drink, and was weirdly turned down. Can’t imagine why… 

Among the various dusty artifacts is a weird four legged thing, about the size of a dog, but made out of metal and some other hard materials. A box, semi-attached to the bottom was the only bit that the party could shift with any ease. They pushed it one way, then another, and it clicked, and the dog thing stood up. While it didn't have a head, there was the impression that it was looking around. On unsteady legs it began to move, and then got more steady. They watched it for a bit, and it kept making a circuit of the room.  

**Resting Serious Face

The door across the hall was way more interesting, but stinky. Full of trash and lots of unidentifiable material, several more large Roachkin as well as an uncountable number of Roachkin nymphs, scurry in panic at the light coming in through the open door. Lots of clicking, chittering, and hissing can be heard.

**I’m smart enough to have an extra language, can I speak Roachkin? Sure!

Notknot clicks and chitters in return..

**We interrupt this session report for the sounds of Bohemian Rhapsody echoing down the hall, being played for Sophie Says in the main ballroom. None of my players heard it, and were apparently confused as to why I leapt up and ran into the ballroom to sing along

Conversation with the Roachkin continued for a bit, and the party agreed to not harass any of the roaches they might see in the facility.

**into a box

Leaving the Roachkin nest, they continue down the hall and into a decent sized room with 4 overly swollen zombies in torn radiation suits. Lefty and Righty charge in with the party fighters while Watermelon pees himself.

**Whooo’s toddling Watermelon (tutoring)

The zombies are tough, tougher than expected, and every time they get poked, a nasty gush of fluids squirts out toward the person poking them. Lefty and Righty both get a blast of the noxious fluids right in the face, and neither survives the experience. In a terrifying move, the wizard Sarin grabs the head of the nearest fallen zombie and chucks it at one of the last standing ones, killing it.

**That’ll do Canadian

After the fight is over Balfasak takes the intact heads of 3 of the zombies, and pulls the flesh off of them by hand, keeping them to throw later. He gets a minor case of radiation sickness.

**It might be small, but it’s neat and tidy... Really beautiful.

Opening the 3 doors to the room at the same time, the party finds a long hallway to the south, stairs going up and down to the north, and a shorter hallway to the east that leads to a room. 


Sessions 3-5 next post

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