This was a scenario I wrote in 1983 to accompany a boxed set of metal miniatures that were based on the lesser demons from my "Dealing with Demons" series of articles in White Dwarf. The articles and the scenario used RuneQuest 2 rules. When Lee Barklam put "The Best Laid Plans" on the Cobwebbed Forest site (a storehouse of fabulous treasures, by the way; go take a look), he converted it to Dragon Warriors, but just in case you're an obsessive completist like me, here is the RQ version too.
A SPECIAL RUNEQUEST SCENARIO
SETTING UP
This adventure is really intended to give players a crash course in how to deal with the Questworld demons. It should be fairly light-hearted, but that doesn't mean that survival chances are high. Players are recommended to roll up special characters for this adventure only, unless they particularly want to use suitable regular characters.
Characters generated for the adventure will have two skills at 55% including natural bonuses, two at 45% including natural bonuses, three at 40% including natural bonuses, and three at 30% plus natural bonuses. They can be any skills the player wants. All characters with POW below 14 get it increased to 14. Characters can trade POW for one-use Rune spells if they wish. Each character also has 6000L to spend on spells and equipment.
Basically, the scenario involves N characters in a fight with N+2 demons. If there are fewer than four players in the group, each should take two characters, If there is a surplus of players, get some of them to help run the demons.
PLAYERS’ INTRO
You are seasoned adventurers who have come from all over the known world (i.e. the mapped territories of Theelar) to the Tower Built of Night, having heard that the great demonologist Master Hajpool the Supreme is hiring men at very good rates of pay. You stand in one of the chambers of the Tower and listen to Master Hajpool explain the deal:
“Attend, and I will simplify matters for your meagre intellects to comprehend. Tonight I summon the Lord Kastyrion, overseer of Gambits, Demon of Risk. Not in five centuries has terrible Kastyrion been evoked, for he is mightily feared, having extraordinary power and a predisposition to summarily slay any summoner who does not please him greatly. But I have determined that, since Kastyrion above all things values a gamble, by the very act of summoning him I take considerable risk and thus ensure his goodwill towards me. So the ‘gamble’ is really a dead certainty.” Hajpool titters slightly, a curious sound from one so powerful. He continues, “When he appears he will doubtless expect same sort of competition with me. | intend to suggest pitting you against some enchanted beasts of Kastyrion's, and then the demon-lord and I can bet on the outcome. You needn't worry too much about the danger, because the battle will have to be evenly matched or even slightly in your favour to gratify Kastyrion’s desire to gamble. Payment will be 8000L each plus a free healing 6 for any— I mean everyone who survives. All of you who are interested, come to the topmost chamber before midnight tonight.”
So it is that you find yourself standing armed and armoured in a chamber at the top of the Tower Built of Night, shivering against the wind howling through the open windows and watching Master Hajpool as he waits for the light of the full moon to throw the proper patterns on the stone floor. It’s alarming that you should be outside the pentacle he's drawn for himself, but perhaps that's the proper summoning etiquette?
Hajpool begins his gestures and intonations as the moment arrives. Much of the ritual seems dubious or even totally comical, and as the minutes drag on you find it more and more difficult to accept that anything is going to happen. Then, quite suddenly, Hajpool claps his hands together and stands perfectly still. The lines of the pentacle brighten with a reddish glow. The wind drops momentarily and then starts to build up, rapidly becoming an icy gale which screeches through the chamber like a thing alive. Hajpool starts to smile, then throws open two chests beside him. One is full of blood and the other is full of gold dust. The contents of each chest seems to stir and then rise up, mingling and forming a single scarlet and-gold stream, a flux which passes out through the window and up towards the stars.
Hajpool watches the offerings from the chests flow to the demon-lord's realms for a few moments, Something seems to distract him , because he swallows hard a couple of times, then cranes his back and gingerly fingers his throat. A moment later his head explodes, scattering an unmentionable gore over the ceiling of the chamber.
There follows a moment of preternatural calm. Hands seem to reach almost lazily for sword hilts. Each of you watches the demonologist’s headless form begin to crumple within the pentacle. Then, with a noise like a dozen thunderclaps, the topmost chamber of the impregnable Tower Built of Night bursts apart.
A moment of complete disorientation. You feel the rushing wind and realise you are falling. Not far off, the thread of blood and gold flows up into the crystal night. Then you see the lights of Deliverance far below, and the moonlight shimmering on the Issaries river, and with sudden panic you realise that you are now thousands of feet above the ground, plummeting to your doom.
Each of you hears a voice in your mind, a voice like the rustling of leaves in the breeze: “Unlucky Hajpool. I despise someone who tries to fix the odds. Now, through your greed, you miserable creatures have come into my clutches and it seems I must get my entertainment from you.”
You fall into a light cloud, and for a moment the ground rushing up to meet you is obscured. As the veil of cloud parts, you are aware that you are falling much slower now. You land with a jarring thud on a floor of polished black marble. You are in a large, vaulted chamber. It seems to be about thirty metres across, and each of you is lying in one of the alcoves around the wall.
Kastyrion’s challenge echoes around the room: “Welcome to my combat arena. Thirty of your seconds from now I shall introduce you to my gladiators, who will seek to slay you. If any of you are still alive after one hour, I will return them to your own plane. Remuneration is also offered, for the survivors to divide amongst themselves: a magical crystal for each gladiator slain.” As you step from your alcoves, a reddish glow appears within each. “These alcoves fare havens from the battle to come. You will find that they protect you from my gladiators if you need to retire for healing purposes. Be warned that the protective energies are of strictly limited duration.”
REFEREE’S NOTES
The procedure for this arena combat follows Michael Cule's classic “Rumble at the Tin Inn” in White Dwarf #35. (Go listen to Michael and Roger Bell-West on the Improvised Radio Theatre - With Dice podcast every month.)
1. Each hex equals 1 metre. Every three hexes (or part of three) moved through costs one Strike Rank. A shift in facing by one or two hex-sides is equivalent to one metre's movement for purposes of determining SR.
2. During each Melee Round the four phases laid out in Runequest should be strictly and systematically adhered to. Characters make their Statements of Intent in inverse order of DEX and then conduct Movement of Non-Engaged Characters in order of DEX. A list of all the characters (including demons) in order of DEX will therefore be useful.
3. Back-steps cost the character one SR.
4. Each alcove contains red glow – a force field which activates whenever a character steps into the alcove, preventing anyone else from entering that alcove until the first character leaves It. After each alcove has been occupied for a total of four MR during the scenario its force field ceases to function, so keep track of how often each alcove is used. Demons cannot enter alcoves. Missiles cannot be shot into or out of an active (occupied) alcove, although spells can.
5. The natural lighting in the room is equivalent to twilight. There are three large iron braziers in the room. Once ignited (they are unlit at the start) these will burn for the duration of the scenario. To the left of each alcove there is a lit torch in a bracket. The braziers are immovable, but the torches can be taken down and carried.
6. The pool in the centre of the room is one metre deep. The water detects as strongly magical. A character standing in the pool will be at a height disadvantage if meleed by someone standing at the pool's edge, so their attacks will be at −10% and attacks made on them will be at +10%. However, the pool's magic protects them as long as they stand in it: they get +2 points of armour protection, +05% chance of resisting spells, and are not subject to critical hits. Demons can enter the pool if they wish; they are aware of its properties.
7. A group of N characters will be pitted against N demons plus the two gremlins. The demons involved are chosen by the referee. Lord Kastyrion stops the combat after 60 minutes (300 MR). Any character alive at that time will be returned to Questworld, materialising on the lawn beside Hajpool's tower just as the sun rises. The promised crystals(selected at random) lie on the ebony tables beside them.
THE DEMONS' STRATEGY
The demons will co-operate with one another as much as possible, but since they do not speak each other's languages there will not be much in the way of a coherent battle plan. One demon's healing spell will not work on another demon if they are of different species. Gremlin 1 can and will use his xenohealing on any of the demons that seem to need it. Gremlin 2 will cast his concealment on either the storm demon or the nightmare, and other demons might follow his lead and cast their defensive spells an one another.
The other point to remember is that the demons are unlikely to settle for convenient one-on-one melee. A character fighting the sraim could find in the next instant that they’ve been hit by a lightning bolt from the storm demon meleeing someone else and that the rult is teleporting in beside them to deliver a couple of claw attacks.
Special notes on the demons
B’krath: Within 2 hexes of a lit brazier, the b’krath’s Defence will be down to 25%. It will of course avoid such a situation if at all possible.
Porphyr: Torches could be used as clubs against the porphyr, the advantage being that any damage it takes from the fire cannot be regenerated in this combat. Any time the porphyr is struck by a burning torch its flowing robes might catch fire (roll POWx5 of less to avoid this) and it then takes 1d2 damage per MR until the fire is out. To put the fire out, the porphyr must disengage and then roll DEXx5 or less; this roll is attempted each MR until successful. Death Rune cultists may have other attacks to use against the porphyr.
Stalker: The stalker can make itself intangible to anything except metals and magical materials, but it is unlikely to find this power very useful during the combat because the arena walls and floor are magical. When the stalker wounds a character it makes a POW vs POW attack with a view to draining the character's STR by 2. Every fifth round it can hurl white energy bolts (85% accuracy; SR3; 1d20 damage; 10 hexes range).
Pazuru: Remember that a pazuzu can fly, cast image creation for no cost, and is immune to one-point battle magic. It can breathe flame up to 10 hexes.
Rult: The rult’s breath vapour has a range of 1 hex. Damage done by the vapour cannot be healed magically. When in a hex adjacent to a character, the rult has the power to teleport to any hex adjacent to any other character it has previously meleed, so keep track of who the rult fights.
Amorph: The amorph will stay towards the middle of the room if possible, so as to take on anyone who tries to make use of the pool.
Nightmare: The nightmare would actually be dispelled by the Yelmalio cult spelt sunbright, if anyone has it. When this demon wounds a character it makes an immediate POW vs POW attack which will discorporate the character if successful. The character's spirit remains active until the body ls killed (which the nightmare will try to do straight away).
Sraim: The sraim can spit its acidic venom up to 10 hexes. The venom does 5 points damage to the location it touches; armour will protect until eaten away. Remember to add the venom damage if the sraim bites an opponent. It usually prefers to stand off from melee and spit, however.
Storm Demon: The storm demon can hurl lightning up to 20 hexes. A victim takes four 1d8 wounds from the lightning, with armour providing only half normal protection. It prefers to grapple for heatshock (like a fire elemental). It will not cross the copper rods fencing off the north part of the room as to do so would cost it 4d6 hit points. Lightning bolts discharged across the rods are halved in accuracy.
Gremlins: Gremlins have 85% camouflage. Once successfully camouflaged they don't have to reroll unless they move. Anyone within 8 hexes of a gremlin suffers bad luck in the form of a 5%-15% penalty (1d3x5%) to all rolls. This power applies to the other demons as well, so the gremlins will try to manoeuvre so as to bring bad luck only on the players; non-engaged spellcasters or missile-users are especially likely targets. Gremlins’ power is not cumulative, so the two together don't cause twice as much bad luck. Gremlins are immune to the bad luck power.
No comments:
Post a Comment