Dwarf days

I first visited the White Dwarf offices in early 1980. I say “offices”, but it was a single room crammed with desks and a paste-up area, roughly ten metres by five metres at a generous guess. WD was strictly a sopra la bottega operation back then, with the Games Workshop store downstairs. No need to say more, as I expect it’s described in Jonathan Green’s Dice Men book -- though the chapter originally used for crowdfunding by the now-disgraced and defunct publisher Unbound was by Jamie Thomson, and you can read that here.

The thing is, I didn’t think of it as the White Dwarf office. It was also where Games Workshop put together their early boardgames and Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson ran the business. I was there to talk about a new roleplaying game that they wanted to call Adventure, which kept me busy for about a year until GW got the RuneQuest licence and Adventure was quietly binned.

Another year or so, and I met Jamie Thomson who told me he’d just landed an editorial job at White Dwarf. “I used to know those guys,” I said. “You should write for the magazine,” said Jamie.

The offices had moved from Hammersmith (grotty but right in the heart of things) to an industrial estate in Park Royal (big but impersonal). “Sorry about Adventure,” said Ian the first time I showed up with some copy. “We just weren’t set up for that kind of thing before, but now we are and we’d like you to do some work on Questworld.” As you will know, the UK Questworld never happened, but it did act as the catalyst to draw me into White Dwarf, primarily as a RuneQuest contributor.

White Dwarf was a very different magazine in those days, with the focus not on miniatures and tabletop games but on roleplaying. I think of it as the magazine’s golden age, but then I would. I can trace back professional partnerships, friendships, and creative influences to my time as a freelancer, often rolling up mid-morning with a half-bottle of vodka and a pack of menthol cigarettes (now outlawed, but then part of the atmosphere of the office) to pound out articles to fit whatever space Jamie needed to fill that month.

It's now almost half a century since the first issue of White Dwarf. Prior to my involvement with the magazine I didn’t often have a reason buy it, but I do remember coming home from a trip to London with the first issue and thinking the cover would have been more dramatic if it had showed the scene a split-second before the little chap slices the wizard’s head off. Ten years later I’d become a convert to unsubtlety. I remember a conversation with Marc Gascoigne just before the move to Nottingham:

Me: “This new Call of Cthulhu supplement you’ve got coming out. ‘Green Unpleasant Land’ would have been a much better title.”

Marco: “‘Green & Pleasant Land’ is ironic.”

Me: “Well, duh. But in-yer-face would have more impact. And it would be funnier.”

(When it came to withering remarks, in those days we were the irresistible force and the immoveable object. How our friends must have loved us.)

Other memories of back then:

Meeting Andy Slack and Albie Fiore. That was at the Dalling Road office. They immediately made an impression with their intelligence, enthusiasm, and total professionalism. Albie was an inspirational world-builder. He told me about a ruined city in the desert in his roleplaying game; it had been a thriving metropolis until a meteorite destroyed the aqueduct that brought water from the mountains. (Yes, don’t live in the middle of the desert and rely on aqueducts, but even so.) The same care is obvious in Albie’s WD scenarios, “The Halls of Tizun Thane” and “The Lichway”.

Playtesting Adventure with the GW staff. One evening I ran a game for Ian, Steve and the Dalling Road stalwarts. Steve gave me some valuable advice: never to bother with “he says” when giving NPC dialogue – “Just say it. Act it out. Accents help.” Ian was worried that Adventure might end up like Empire of the Petal Throne, which he knew I played. In a sense he was right, as I was devising a world with a detailed non-European culture populated by non-Caucasians, whereas GW really just wanted a British D&D.

Working with Oliver Dickinson was a pleasure not only because of his deep knowledge of RuneQuest and insightful discussions of its world, but also because Oliver is one of the most warm, civilized and decent people I’ve ever met. His delightful Griselda stories (a nod to Damon Runyon) were a highlight of WD. Because Oliver didn’t have access to a player group, he had to run RQ adventures solo – anticipating the mid-‘80s craze for gamebooks by a couple of years, and solo RPGs by even more.

Things I turned to first each month were Dave Langford’s book reviews and Mark Harrison’s The Travellers. Marcus L Rowland’s ideas were always interesting; I liked to read his scenarios even though I never used published scenarios in my own games. Phil Masters was another of the regular writers whose work I admired.

Hanging out at Sunbeam Road with Jamie, Gary Chalk, Ian Marsh and the others. One morning I was there spitballing a D&D scenario when Jamie took a call – “Yes, just by chance he is here. I’ll pass you over…” It was a reader who had picked up the latest issue and fallen foul of a trap in the first instalment of “The Castle of Lost Souls” solo adventure. “It says I’m dead. What am I supposed to do about that?” demanded an angry Scottish voice. I explained there was nothing he could do. “I just have to start again, is that it?” I doubt if he went on to become a big fan of gamebooks.

Leo Hartas showed up with his portfolio but it was press day and Jamie had forgotten he was coming in. Leo had to lay his artwork out on the floor and people were almost stepping over it. A drawing of a magic book that seemed to be three-dimensional made a particular impression, and when a publisher asked me who I wanted to illustrate my Golden Dragon books I got in touch with Leo, snaffling him up before White Dwarf had a chance to. Just as well I went into the Sunbeam Road offices that day, or we’d never have had Mirabilis, the Rathurbosk Bridge, and Fangleworth’s (well, we liked it), the Dark Lord books wouldn’t have been brought to life by Freya Hartas, nor would Jewelspider have benefited from the art of Inigo Hartas – both Freya and Inigo clearly carrying the imaginative genes of Leo and their maternal grandfather, the properly legendary John Vernon Lord.

It all came to an end when Ian and Steve retired (temporarily) to Spain on the earnings of Fighting Fantasy and White Dwarf was handed over to the power of the gods and devils of Nottingham, where it entered its chrysalis as a glorious content-rich butterfly and emerged as a sales catalogue maggot. We can’t blame Games Workshop. They’re a company and their aim is to make money for the shareholders, not bear the torch for roleplaying. I’m sad to see WD’s passing as I was saddened by the loss of Coven 13 and the Beatles and the Silver Age of Marvel comics. Still, nothing lasts forever, nor should it. As Ray Kurzweil said, “Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.”

"The Tower of Demons" (a Questworld scenario for RuneQuest and Dragon Warriors)

In the early 1980s, Oliver Johnson and I were hired to work on Games Workshop's Questworld book. This was to be a non-Gloranthan setting for Runequest. I'd originally been asked to design Adventure, an all-new RPG for Games Workshop, when they had just lost the UK publishing licence for D&D. Adventure fell by the wayside when GW got the British licence for Runequest, so the Questworld job was a sort of consolation prize. By the way, when I say "hired", there were no contracts or money changing hands or any of that modern malarkey. The lot of a writer back then may have inspired me to write "Dealing with Demons", which was obviously taking shape around the time we wrote this scenario.

It's an introductory 2nd edition Runequest scenario for 5-8 characters who have 25% to 35% in main weapons. There seems to be absolutely nothing to distinguish it -- no baroque fantasy elements, no plot twists, none of the flourishes that Oliver and I later injected into our RPG work. To judge by the absence of Ancients and habdigars and the lingering traces of standard Runequest (dwarves, Lunars, etc), at this stage we were just part of the Questworld writing team in the UK. Later we got the whole gig (still no contract, obviously) and, fuelled by Afghan Black and listening to Bowie and Brian Eno and Lou Reed, cooked up a different strain of fantasy -- but you'll find no evidence of that here, sad to say. If the adventure is of interest at all, it's purely as a historical curiosity. For example, that mention on the map of "Brimstone". Robert Dale had already written that memorable mini-campaign, and run it, and so it's nice to be able to report that Brymstone (sic) might eventually get published this decade.

Storyline

A month ago, a dwarf called Trazien went to the Alban village of Sanmarl. He sought treasure beneath an old tower, but the villagers feared that an undead sorcerer dwelt there, so no one would accompany him. Trazien did not return, and now his family are hiring adventurers to find out what has happened to him.

The undead sorcerer actually died about forty years ago. A man named Gallofess has recently occupied the tower - he uses a disguise to pass himself off as the old lich. He will try to dupe the characters (as he earlier duped Trazien) into bringing up treasure from the caverns under the tower.

The adventure is primarily combat-orientated, with some scope for developing other skills. The fight with the kaifeng guardians at the end will call for some tactical intelligence if the characters are to avoid heavy casualties.

HISTORY (for the Referee)

High up on the cliffs near the fishing village of Sanmarl there is an old tower, once part of the coastal defences. It had stood empty for close to a thousand years when the demonologist and necromancer Moldragor made his home there. That was three centuries ago, and Moldragor's sorcery enabled him to remain active long after his natural death. His undead existence finally came to an end some forty years ago, but most of the villagers are still in terror of him and will not go near the tower on any account.

Almost sixty years ago, before Moldragor died the true death, Lord Culgast of the powerful Cavilla family came from his northern province, bringing his son to be educated at the renowned Academy of Lord Stagira. Disgusted at the "decadence" he found, however, Lord Culgast changed his mind almost as soon as he arrived, and set off again to the north. As Culgast's ship approached the headland where Moldragor's tower stands, a storm came down out of the heavens without warning, driving the ship onto the rocks. There was only one survivor.

A month ago, a dwarf named Trazien came to Sanmarl in a fishing boat. He sought treasure, and tried to hire some of the young men in the village to accompany him. When he found no one was willing, he marched off to the tower alone. His boat is still in the harbour.

PLAYERS' INTRODUCTION

Trazien's relatives are rather anxious to know what's become of him. They will pay adventurers 10 L per day (each), with a reward of 5000 L if Trazien is brought back safely or 750 L for news of his whereabouts/fate. [At this point we were still using Lunars as the standard Questworld currency, but that was only a placeholder.]

They tell the party that Trazien always wore a bloodstone amulet around his neck, by which he can be identified if the worst has happened.

THE VILLAGE OF SANMARL

Sanmarl is a typical fishing community of about one hundred and fifty souls. The villagers are generally good-natured, though a little wary of strangers.

There is one tavern (The Smuggler's Retreat) and one four-room inn (The Bell).

The principal inhabitants are:

Carnobar, a Lightbringer priest. A small village like this does not merit a full priest; he is just an initiate. He is also the local doctor. Impatient and irascible, he is not well liked.

Mother Ril is, at 70, Sanmarl's oldest inhabitant. She lives alone in a cottage on the outskirts of the village. She will tell visitors how she used to see Moldragor stalking the clifftops by night in her youth. The more inducement she is offered, the more she will embellish her tales.

Fergus the Red is the most influential man in the village. Officially there is no headman – all adult males have equal say in village affairs – but he is usually looked to as leader. He was a soldier in his younger days. If anyone breaks the law in the village (stealing, using weapons in a brawl, vandalism, etc.) he will see they are dealt with quickly and severely.

Mad Hriss was the cabin boy, and the only one to survive when Lord Culgast's ship went down. He has lived here ever since. He hit his head on a rock as he swam ashore, and he is now very simple-minded. Anyone patient enough to buy him a drink and listen to his rambling speech will be told how Hriss found himself washed up on the beach that night. Some way off he saw a hideous figure – the lich Moldragor, he insists – communing with figures of flickering light which danced and leaped between the sea and the raging heavens. Moldragor did not notice him, and presently a huge inhuman creature strode out of the sea carrying the treasure chest from Lord Culgast's cabin.

Selith Hala is a poet, a minor noble who chooses to live here for the quiet and scenic scenery. She can sometimes be seen practicing her swordplay on the beach; her technique is superb (60%), but she has no interest in adventuring.

Gosvin Keg is the village head-case. He will pick fights in the tavern and try to intimidate his opponents by saying, "I break bones." He is forever being put in the pillory, but it makes no difference. At least he normally only bothers strangers...

THE TOWER

Set back about thirty yards from the edge of the cliffs, this was originally built as a watchtower to give early warning of raiders from the sea. Mostly it appears to be very ancient and weathered except for the pavilion at the top and the arrow slits from the upper floors, which seem more recent additions.

The tower is sixty feet tall and about thirty feet across. The worn blocks of stone are quite suitable for climbing. (+5% to climbing rolls.)

The door to the tower is of oak. (It is not locked.)

General notes: There are seven floors, the topmost of these being the pavilion. Each floor consists of a single chamber about twenty-five feet across (the walls are ten feet thick). Crude stone steps link each floor to the next.

A. Ground floor

INITIAL DIE ROLLS:

01-95 Nothing
96-00 Gallofess (see below)

FIRST GLANCE: A large shield has been set against the door. As the party enter they will knock this over. Whoever opened the door has a chance to grab the shield before it hits the floor (DEX as a percentage) if they have a free hand.

The room is circular, about eight and half feet high (as are all the others). It has recently been swept clear of dust. Beside the entrance is an oak beam which once served to bar the door; the brackets which held this have fallen out of the wall. There are no windows.

CLOSER LOOKS: There is a bedroll against the wall behind the door. Its size would suit a dwarf.

EXITS: The steps up to the next chamber begin diametrically opposite the door. Below the steps is a trapdoor to the caverns under the tower.

TRAPS: The top of the shaft just below the trapdoor is covered by a Warding 1 spell. Passing through this will not activate an alarm. The Warding wands count as a Hidden Item.

DENIZENS: Gallofess need not be present in this room, but he will be somewhere in the tower. The shield against the door is his, placed there to warn him if anyone enters.

Gallofess is gifted with infinite patience. He is distantly related to the Cavilla family and believes he could make a legal claim to much of their land if he could obtain the lost talisman. He came to the tower six weeks ago. He has disguised himself, using gruesome make-up and rich, dusty robes, to appear as some sort of undead sorcerer. His plan is to pretend to be Moldragor and to send any adventurers who come along down into the caverns on his behalf. He can lie very creatively, and managed to fool Trazien the dwarf. Since Trazien has been gone a month, however, Gallofess realizes he must have been killed. If the party call Gallofess’s bluff he will use his Vial of Smokes (see below) to escape. If forced to fight, he will try to get his attackers to follow him up the steps (where they must use their weapons left-handed).

SPELLS - Demoralize; Bladesharp 1; Protection 1; Dispel Magic 2; Detect Magic; Detect Enemies; Healing 1

SKILLS - Oratory 25%; Evaluate Treasure 45%; Listen 55%; Spot Hidden 50%; Spot Trap 35%; Disguise 60%; Move Silently 35%; plus various Knowledge skills (Demonology, History, etc. at about 45%).

MAGIC - Tattoo on arm can be used to summon demon wolf for 2D4 rounds once per day.

Vial of Smokes is a glass bottle which releases thick fog over a 64 cubic meters volume when shattered; the fog disperses instantaneously after 5 rounds (one minute).

POW 5 storage crystal.

TREASURE – 3W (hidden in belt) and 35L (in belt pouch).

SPECIAL NOTES: The demon wolf takes half damage from bronze weapons. Anyone striking it with a bronze weapon is subject to a special curse spell; if the curse takes effect (compare the wolf's POW and the character's POW on the Resistance Table), roll D6: 

1. Character's arms are paralyzed 
2. Character is struck blind 
3. Character is struck dumb 
4. Character is transformed into a rat 
5. Character's leg is withered, halving their movement 
6. Character is hideously disfigured and twisted, causing the loss of 10 points CHA.

A curse can be removed with dispel magic 2.

As daylight demoralizes the wolf, Gallofess will summon it only on the ground to third floors (where there are no windows) or within the fog from the Vial of Smokes. At night he can summon it anywhere, of course.

B. First floor

INITIAL DIE ROLLS:

01-95 Nothing
96-00 Gallofess (unless already encountered)

FIRST GLANCE: Pretty much the same as the ground floor. Again, there are no windows. There are brackets on the wall for torches. There is a wooden table in the middle of the room.

CLOSER LOOKS: There are several clay jars and a pile of what look like rabbit bones on the table. (The jars contain fresh water.)

EXITS: Two - the steps leading down to the ground floor and, across the room from these, the steps up to the chamber above.

C. Second floor

INITIAL DIE ROLLS:

01-95 Nothing
96-00 Gallofess (unless already encountered)

FIRST GLANCE: Still no windows. Set around the room are several statues about a metre tall.

CLOSER LOOKS: There are five statues in all. All have had their heads smashed off and one has been toppled from its plinth. The statues are of black marble and all depict old men in ceremonial robes.

EXITS: The steps up and the steps down.

MISC. NOTES: Moldragor used the statues to commune with his colleagues in the mystic Brotherhood of Whispers. Gallofess smashed them, just as a precaution in case they animated.

D. Third floor

INITIAL DIE ROLLS:

01-95 Nothing
96-00 Gallofess (unless already encountered)

FIRST GLANCE: Still no windows – and no torch brackets, either. There is a stone font in the middle of the room, and the floor around it is thick with dust.

CLOSER LOOKS: The font is dry. Within, at the bottom, is the bas-relief of a smiling unhuman face.

EXITS: Steps up and down.

MISC. NOTES: The font was used by Moldragor in certain scrying spells. Gallofess knew just enough about it to give it a wide berth (hence the dust), but it is in fact quite harmless.

E. Fourth floor

INITIAL DIE ROLLS:

01-95 Nothing
96-00 Gallofess (unless already encountered)

FIRST GLANCE: Six arrow-slits serve as windows in this room. It seems to be a storeroom strewn with miscellaneous items of all kinds.

CLOSER LOOKS: There are wands of various woods, lacquered ceremonial masks, several flutes, two small silver bells, a drum, rotting gowns and robes, bottles of fluid, coloured chalks, books, censers, a small bronze gong, and so on.

EXITS: Steps up and down.

TRAPS: There is a trap on the bronze gong (See below for details.)

TREASURE: The entire contents of the room would count as treasure to a demonologist, as they are his stock-in-trade. If the party could locate a practicing demonologist and get all this stuff to him it would be worth about 2500 L.

The bronze gong is the only really special item. Moldragor used it to call and control his demonic guards (see below). He also set a Runic defence on the gong. If it is touched, everyone within three metres must resist a POW of 18 or be frozen in place for ten minutes. Only Detect Magic will reveal this spell. The spell works only once, and then is automatically dissipated. It can be removed with Dispel Magic 6. It was originally intended to hold intruders until Moldragor himself could come and finish them off. Since he is now dead, everyone will be fine when the spell wears off – unless those unaffected take the opportunity for some treachery.

If the gong is struck, one of the demonic guards leaves the door to Moldragor's sanctum and make its way to wherever the gong is. When it sees any intruders, it will attack. Within ten metres the demons find the gong's sound painful – only Moldragor could use it to control them, but anyone else striking it repeatedly can at least cause them enough pain that they will fight at a 5% penalty to Attack and Parry.

F. Fifth floor

INITIAL DIE ROLLS:

01-35 Nothing
36-00 Gallofess (unless already encountered)

FIRST GLANCE: There is an oaken cabinet against the wall, and six more arrow-slits.

CLOSER LOOKS: There is a complicated geometric symbol etched into the floor. The cabinet contains six bows and six quivers, each with twelve arrows. The bows require a STR of at least 18 to use, and do 1D10+1; treat as Composite Bows.

EXITS: Steps up and down.

TREASURE: The bows are very fine, worth maybe 300 L each.

MISC. NOTES: The symbol in the floor is (of course) for summonings. Moldragor liked to call up demonic archers if his tower needed defending. The summoning spell is described in one of the books in E and could be used by anyone who knows the Ritual of Summoning.

G. Top floor

INITIAL DIE ROLLS: If the players have come up from the other floors and not yet run into Gallofess, he will be here. If they scale the outside of the tower, there is roughly a 27% chance of finding him on the top floor.

FIRST GLANCE: The chamber is a marble dome with five archways leading out onto a balcony. The steps themselves emerge onto the balcony, which is five feet wide. In the middle of the domed chamber is a low stone slab.

CLOSER LOOKS: This was open battlements when originally built, and the dome is a much more recent addition to the structure. The floor under the dome is tiled with green marble. On the stone slab there is a greatsword. Its blade is a deep, almost luminous, blue-green and the hilt is of polished coral. Four effigies squat at the corners of the slab: clawed warriors with heads and lower bodies like a shark’s. These are about 25cm high, carved of black wood.

EXITS: Down the steps or (in emergencies) over the parapet.

TRAPS: Within each effigy is a Warding wand. The sword is protected by a 4-point Warding, and anyone reaching for it will receive a 4D3 Disruption attack.

TREASURE: The sword bears the Water Rune. Anyone who belongs to a Water Rune cult can use it to summon a small undine from out of the sea once a month. Any character, whatever his cult, can use it to fight in water at no penalty. The sword can take 30 points of damage, and is as hard as iron on a critical hit. The user can swim with it in water, at no penalty.

THE CAVERNS BELOW THE TOWER

The trapdoor at the bottom of the tower gives access to a three-metre shaft protected at the top by a Warding spell (see above). At the bottom of the shaft are steps hewn out of the rock. After descending about thirty metres these emerge into a tunnel sloping gently downwards, and this opens into a natural cavern.

1. Jetty

INITIAL DIE ROLLS:

01-75 Nothing
76-00 Zombie

FIRST GLANCE: A low chamber; characters will have to stoop. Stalagmites and stalactites reach to form pillars here and there. An underground stream flows across the far side of the cavern, and a boat is moored at the jetty there.

CLOSER LOOKS: There are moorings for a second boat. The boat is in perfect repair and could hold half a dozen people. The stream flows south.

EXITS: There are three: the passage back to the tower, and the two tunnels where the stream flows.

DENIZENS: The zombie may be here, but is more likely to be encountered in 6.

MISC. NOTES: The perfect condition of the boat is due to the Stasis Rune magic Moldragor used in building it. A Dispel Magic 6 would cause it to rot in seconds.

2. The tunnel

This is very low, and characters will have to crouch down in the boat.

3. Another jetty

FIRST GLANCE: A second boat, identical to the first, is moored here. The cavern is like the first, except that the roof is high enough for characters to stand normally.

CLOSER LOOKS: There is a metal gate (open) in the southern part of the room.

EXITS: Via the metal gate, or up- or downstream.

HIDDEN SPOTS: Concealed behind a stalagmite to the north are two hand axes and a small pouch containing damp, very mouldy bread.

MISC. NOTES: Trazien left the axes and bread (which was a bit mouldy when he first bought it), thinking he would return this way.

4. Storeroom

FIRST GLANCE: The room is obviously artificial, carved out (presumably) by Moldragor's demonic servitors, whose claws have left gouges in the rock. It is two and a half metres high. There are four figures standing at the far end.

CLOSE LOOKS: The "figures" are just suits of bronze plate armour hanging on stands. They are SIZ 15.

EXITS: There are two: the metal gate through which the party have just come, and a heavy wooden door in the eastern end of the room.

TRAPS: Opening the door in the east rings a bell to alert the demons outside the inner sanctum. The bell cannot be heard from here.

DENIZENS: The Iron Snake. This creation of Moldragor's is hidden in one of the suits of armour. Its favourite tactic is to coil around the leg or arm of the person it attacks, in order to prevent the use battle magic.

5. Small waterfall

There is a shallow but quite sudden slope in the tunnel here. If the boat overturns, there is a chance that the zombie will make an underwater attack (if not already encountered and destroyed).

6. The tomb chamber

FIRST GLANCE: The cavern is some three metres high, flooded except for a protruding shelf of rock to the north-east on which rests a bronze casket 2x1x1 metres.

CLOSER LOOKS: The casket lid bears a glyph. Anyone who can read will recognize it as the glyph denoting "mol-". This glyph represents the same sound in both Sovereign and Upcoast so it does not matter which of these languages the character understands.

Within the casket is the shrivelled body of Moldragor. Clasped to his chest he has a small lead plaque covered with a twisting serpentine script that can only be read by characters with Demonology of at least 15%.

EXITS: The only visible exit is the tunnel from which the stream flows into this chamber. To the south, under the surface of the pool, the stream exits and flows down to the sea.

DENIZENS: The zombie spends most of its time here. It was once a smuggler who foolishly took refuge in Moldragor's tower one night when the coastal patrols arrested his companions. It will attack any intruders, attempting to drag them under the water.

MISC. NOTES: The plaque buried with Moldragor is a special safeguard. Without it, his spirit is prey to the torments of all the demons he summoned in life or undeath. If either of the demonic servitors from 8 is led here it will (after discharging its duty to kill intruders) remove the plaque. Gallofess would recognize the plaque's significance, but would hardly care about removing it.

7. Antechamber

FIRST GLANCE: Another chamber hewn out of the rock by demons. Steps lead down to the south. The staircase is surrounded by a low balustrade, so that there is a narrow landing to the south of the room. There is the mouldering corpse of a dwarf with a bloodstone amulet beside the entrance.

CLOSER LOOKS: There is a painting on the south wall. It depicts a proud-looking young man. The corpse is that of Trazien and he was hacked to death.

EXITS: The passageway in the north end of the east wall, and the stairs to the south.

TRAPS: If anyone goes onto the landing directly under the portrait, a trapdoor gives way and drop him/her about six metres onto the stairs.

TREASURE: The portrait is of Moldragor as a young man. It is more than three centuries old, signed by the artist, and worth up to 800 L to a collector. It is preserved with Stasis Rune magic.

There is also Trazien's equipment. The armour is bronze - but dwarf-sized, naturally. He also had a heavy mace, a large shield and a spear. His belt-pouch has 100 L, which his relatives would like returned.

8. Passage to the sanctum

FIRST GLANCE: From the foot of the stairs, the passage goes south for eight metres and ends in a door. There are two figures standing at the far end – or only one if the other was summoned by the gong in E.

CLOSER LOOKS: (Is anyone going closer?) The figures are Moldragor's demonic guardians. They are powerful beings with fiery red eyes and black scales tinged with reddish-gold.

EXITS: Back down the passageway or past the guardians and through the door at the end. The door is oak, stained with blood, into which Moldragor's name has been burned.

DENIZENS: The demonic guardians. One of these will guard the door at all times, but the other will leave to attack or pursue intruders.

9. Inner sanctum

FIRST GLANCE: This is a circular room hung with rotting tapestries. Illumination comes from a circle of bright white light six metres across on the floor in the middle of the room.

CLOSER LOOKS: The pool of light has no obvious source. The tapestries fall into shreds if touched.

EXITS: One door to the north (the entrance) and a secret panel to the south-east.

HIDDEN SPOTS: The secret panel counts as a Hidden Item. If not spotted immediately, a meticulous search of the room (taking 15-20 minutes) would locate it. The panel is hinged horizontally through the middle.

TREASURE: In the alcove beyond the secret panel is a chest. Moldragor bound this with his Stasis enchantments. Dispel Magic 4 or 35 points of STR will break the seal; there is only room for two characters to wrench the lid up at the same time.

The chest contains an amulet, a bronze jar, three books, a ring and a number of gold and silver coins.

The amulet is an emerald in a silver setting. This is the lost talisman of the Cavilla family. It would fetch 800 L if sold as treasure. Returned to the Cavillas, it would earn their undying gratitude, which is maybe worth more.

The bronze jar is sealed with wax. If opened, it will be found to contain a pungent liquid in which floats a pickled human heart.

The books are tracts on Demonology (theory rather than practice). They are almost incomprehensible to anyone with knowledge of Demonology less than 25%. Others can use them to raise their knowledge of Demonology to 50%, at a rate of 300 hours' study per 5% increase. The books are worth 2000 L each.

The ring is silver with miniature jade butterflies set around it. It is a Healing 3 matrix.

The coins amount to 75 W and 1000 L.

Notes

It irks me that we gave no explanation for why Moldragor is now properly dead, having previously enjoyed two centuries of existence as a lich. Player-characters are bound to wonder about that, especially as the demons he summoned are still doing his bidding. One possibility is that he is not completely dead but only dormant, using long periods of rest to recuperate his undead “stamina” – but the characters will probably burn his body, so perhaps he could partly awaken and mutter threats and promises if they don’t destroy him. You won’t want him to awaken fully because these are after all starting-level characters, but it could still be a memorably creepy and frightening moment in an otherwise fairly routine dungeon-style adventure.

Oliver and I assumed we’d need a simple adventure like this because a lot of players might be coming to Runequest for the first time. Our Questworld setting in its eventual form was more of a traditional fantasy milieu (influenced by Moorcock, Vance and Robert E Howard) than Glorantha with its Bronze Age cults and talking ducks – though whether it was traditional enough to entice the mass of players away from D&D, as Games Workshop hoped at the time, is something we’ll never know.

If the GW Questworld book had ever looked like being published, we might well have decided to drop this scenario. One sign that we hadn’t revised it is the presence of a dwarf (“Mostali” in RQ). At the point we wrote this we were still testing how far we could push Questworld away from Glorantha. I couldn’t see the point of importing all the same gods, and was damned if I was going to include those daffy ducks, and soon after this we’d discarded RQ elves (not actual elves but humanoid plants, meh) and dwarves in favour of bespoke creatures like habdigar.

The Dragon Warriors variant

This being the anniversary year of Dragon Warriors (oh, did I mention that before?) I can't resist adding DW stats -- purely for completeness, as it's hard to imagine that anybody wants an old-school dungeon bash for starting DW characters these days!

GOSVIN KEG (village bully)

Rank: 2^nd

ATTACK 15                            Fist (d3+1, 3) or improvised mace (d6+1,5)

DEFENCE 7                             Armour Factor 0

MAGICAL DEFENCE 3          Reflexes 11

EVASION 4                             Movement 10m/20m

STEALTH 12

PERCEPTION 6

Health Points 15

Special ability: On an Armour Bypass roll of 4, Keg grapples his opponent, who is then at −2 ATTACK. The grappled character must roll Strength or less on d20 to break free (one attempt per round).

GALLOFESS (fraudulent warlock)

Rank: 5^th

ATTACK 17

DEFENCE 11                           Armour Factor 3

MAGICAL ATTACK 18

MAGICAL DEFENCE 9          Reflexes 14

EVASION 5                             Movement 10m/20m

STEALTH 14

PERCEPTION 8

Health Points 11                       Magic Points 10

Special Items:

o    Vial of Smoke: Thick white smoke billows out in a 5m radius; completely opaque, even to magic; dissipates on a roll of 6 on d6, roll at the end of each round.

o    Summoning Tattoo: Calls a Demon Wolf for 2d4 rounds, one use per day.

DEMON WOLF

Rank: 2^nd

ATTACK 16                            Bite (d6,6)

DEFENCE 4                             Armour Factor 1 (half damage from nonmagical weapons)

MAGICAL DEFENCE 8          Reflexes 17

EVASION 7                             Movement 15m/30m

STEALTH 17

PERCEPTION 14 (elfsight)

Health Points 12

Special Abilities:

• Cursed bite: a target who is bitten is subject to a curse with a MAGICAL ATTACK of 8; roll for effect of the curse as in the Runequest scenario; it can be removed by a holy relic or a 6-point Dispel Magic.
• Takes half damage from nonmagical weapons.
• Weakened (−2 ATTACK, −1 Armour Bypass) in daylight.

THE IRON SNAKE

Rank: 4^th

ATTACK 19                            Bite (d6,4 + poison) or coil (see below)

DEFENCE 8                             Armour Factor 5

MAGICAL DEFENCE             Reflexes 18

EVASION 7                             Movement 15m/30m

STEALTH 18

PERCEPTION 10

Health Points 15

Abilities:

• Coil Attack: Restrains an enemy’s arm, causing −2 from ATTACK, −1 from Armour Bypass rolls, and preventing gestures needed for a sorcerer to cast spells.
• Poison: Injects a strong poison if it scores 5-6 on an Armour Bypass roll.

THE ZOMBIE

Rank: 4^th

ATTACK 14                            Axe (d8,6)

DEFENCE 6                             Armour Factor 1

MAGICAL DEFENCE 3          Reflexes 3

EVASION 3                             Movement 6m

STEALTH 6

PERCEPTION 5 (gloomsight)

Health Points 24

KAIFENGS

Rank: 7^th

ATTACK 17                            Battleaxe (d8,6) or 2 x Claws (d6,5)

DEFENCE 10                           Armour Factor 4 and shield

MAGICAL DEFENCE             Reflexes 13

EVASION                                Movement 10m

STEALTH 15

PERCEPTION 15 (panoptical)

Health Points 24

Special Abilities:

• First kaifeng Can jump 10 metres in combat.
• Second Kaifeng: indetectable by magic, ESP, etc.

Converted Magic Items

Bronze Gong (Summoner’s Bell)

• Striking it calls a kaifeng demon from the tower’s sanctum.
• Can be used to cause pain to summoned demons (−1 to Attack and Defence if gong is struck within 10m).
• Has a one-time stasis effect (Magical Attack 18, lasts 10 minutes).

Greatsword (Sea-Forged Blade)

• Magical Weapon (d10,5))
• Allows wielder to fight in water without penalty.
• User can summon a water elemental out of the sea once per month.

Silver Ring with Jade Butterflies

• Allows one use per day of Greater Healing, Antidote or Cure Disease (user’s choice). Roll d20 when used; on a roll of 20, the magic dissipates permanently but the ring still has value as jewellery. 

Doomed Ones (a sorcerous subclass for Dragon Warriors)

Doomed Ones were originally a magic-using character class that I created in 1980 for Adventure, a roleplaying game that Games Workshop commissioned me to write. (The title was their idea.) A Doomed One permanently burnt a point of Constitution to unlock about twenty quite powerful spells. The character got one use of each spell and at any time could sacrifice another Constitution point to get another use of the twenty. Since Constitution both set the basis for the character’s hit points and limited the number of times they could be resurrected, it was a death sentence with a lot of power to use up on your way to the grave.

Even if Adventure (did I mention that was GW’s idea?) had ever been published, I’m not sure Doomed Ones would have made the final cut. They were kind of boring. A player would cross off a couple of Constitution points, then stingily husband their forty spells in any encounter while letting other characters do the heavy lifting. Not that that couldn’t make for an interesting dynamic, just that there was only one story to tell there and it didn’t bear repeating dozens of times.

There’s a certain logic to revisiting the idea using Dragon Warriors, seeing as how DW evolved out of my notes for Adventure (huh, that title…). So here they are.

Doomed Ones

A Doomed One is a Sorcerer who has bound themselves under ominous stars in the pursuit of magical power to the exclusion of all else. The Doomed One is treated like a normal Sorcerer except as follows:

Attack, Defence, Stealth, Evasion and Health Points do not increase with rank. Magic Points increase faster than for regular Sorcerers.

Because Doomed Ones are half in love with easeful death, they are unaffected by fright attacks caused by ghosts and the undead.

Every Doomed One has a fate in the form of a death that has been prophesied for them -- their doom. When creating the character, the player specifies a time of day (night, morning, afternoon or evening) and a cause of death. Causes of death should be reasonably general, not “belladonna mixed into warm milk” or "bitten in the ankle by an adder", say. Pick from this list or (with the GM’s discretion) something similar:

A blunt weapon, a cat, a dog, an edged weapon, fire, a fish, a fungus, a horse, an insect, a lake or pond, a moat, an ox, a pig, a plant, a rat, a river, rope, sand, the sea, a serpent, a tree, wine.

In any situation in which the character is exposed to the fated element, object, or thing at the fated time of day, they are subject to a Magical Attack of 2d6 + (d6 x rank/2). If that overcomes the character’s Magical Defence they are slain, if necessary by a freak accident. Conversely, if they survive, the close brush with death immediately restores their full Magic Points and Health Points scores.

The GM should bear in mind that dying because of a fish could include choking on a fish bone, for example. Further inspiration is available by looking at unusual demises in antiquity, in medieval times, and in the Renaissance. Or even these bizarre 17th century deaths. However, a character who is careful to guard against their fate should not be arbitrarily imperilled. Don’t say, “A horse bolts towards you out of nowhere and knocks you down.” In that example, the character should only risk their doom if they have voluntarily approached a horse or a stable at the preordained time, or if the situation makes an encounter with a horse reasonably likely.

The prophecy doesn't entirely protect the Doomed One from death by other means. If reduced to –3 Health Points in circumstances where their prophesied fate doesn’t apply, they are incapacitated but remain alive. The character can be healed and will recover consciousness when at positive health points but thereafter is a parolee of fate, having cheated death because of their prophecy, and recovers only 50% of their Magic Points each day until such time as they are faced with the preordained circumstances, whereupon they are challenged by the Magical Attack described above; if they survive that then their full sorcerous abilities are restored.

If reduced to –3 Health Points when the foretold cause (but not necessarily time) of death is present, the Doomed One is slain in a way that ensures the fulfilment of the prophecy. (‘She might have dodged that fatal blow if that darned cat hadn’t distracted her at the crucial moment.’) In those circumstances no Magical Attack resolution is needed.

If the Doomed One is slain in a manner that leaves no possibility of doubt – for example, incinerated in a furnace or sliced into small pieces – and the ordained cause is not involved, it is left to the GM’s ingenuity to contrive some way for the cause to take post-mortem effect. For example, the character’s coffin might be dropped in a river on the way to the churchyard, or the funeral procession might be held up by a runaway horse.

It goes without saying that a Doomed One should be careful to keep their prophesied fate a secret. The GM should not reveal it in front of other players until the circumstances apply, and even then conceal the precise details. If our example character is foolishly riding a horse in the afternoon, and the horse stumbles and throws him or her to the ground, the other player-characters won’t necessarily know if it was the tree root in the road or an insect bite on the horse’s rump or the horse itself that was to blame.

OK, look, if you really insist -- and don't say I didn't warn you -- here is part of the original manuscript of Adventure from 1980 in which Doomed Ones first appeared. It's mostly interesting for the glimpse of the Assassins rules, which I used when writing Out of the Shadows (DW book 4), but both Doomed Ones and Shamans (also in the excerpt) would probably have been dropped, at least in that form, if Adventure had ever come out.