Dungeon Fantastic

What color is paut? Sigh.

2026-03-02T20:43:00.000-05:00

I think when you've played with a group long enough, and they've asked every question imaginable, they imagine up new ones to torment you.

Actual question from game on Sunday:

What color is paut?

My answer? I don't know. And I don't want to rule on it because, somehow, this will come back to haunt me. It'll be a specific color and then people will ask if it's paut because of the color, is this paut colored, if it's paut colored is it magical, can I get poison that is paut colored, can I get food coloring for my paut so it's a different color . . . aargh.

Look, it's probably blue because of Diablo. But honestly, I don't care. It won't matter. If people really need to know the color - in this case, so they can tell the casters what color the paut is in their bag in case they're unconcious and the casters need to sort the paut from the other potions - they can just tie ribbons of a specific color on the bottles or label the freaking bottles PAUT in large, friendly letters.

But geez, what color is paut.

Oh brother.

GURPS DF Session 220, Felltower 139 - A brief foray

2026-03-01T20:35:00.008-05:00

Date: 3/1/2026
Weather: Mildly cold and wet.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (367 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (355 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (373 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)

We started off in town, with the PCs hoping for Percy and Rogar but neither could be found - Percy was way and Rogar was sick.

They decided to head down to the beholder's cave area, and explore the humanoid-filled nearby tunnels.

That's what they did - they headed down, first checking to see if the Lost City gate was open, and then heading down past the fire gate.

They found the tunnel, hidden by a curtain of hide. A quick Glasswall spell at the curtain revealed noisemakers on the far side. They put Silence over it and Thor tore it down. Vlad moved past the rest of the group and into the narrow tunnel beyond. He moved around a tight bend sideways to fit through and saw and stepped over a cord at ankle height covered with noisemakers. Beyond was a small group - a pair of gnolls with bows, a pair of norkers with stone axes, and a distorted-looking orc with warped features. Vlad put two arrows into one of the gnolls, dropping it, and the norkers closed in. The other gnoll loosed an arrow at Vlad but he dodged, hemmed into place by the ankle-height cord he'd stepped over. He stepped over it and backed up as the norkers swung at him. A critical hit by one sliced him badly, and then a normal hit he failed to dodge crippled his left leg. He fell just in view of the other PCs, still standing in the Silence zone. They launched into action.

Hannari tossed a hatchet at the norker he could see but it deflected the toss with its off hand. Thor rushed forward. Chop healed Vlad from the back ranks. And Vlad, prone, shot the norker with a pair of arrows (Heroic Archer allows a lot.) One hit and the norker dropped back, onto the tripwire, and a deadfall fell on Vlad. He rolled away, just as the stones fell.

They gave up on the humanoids, also fearing the noise would bring the beholder and gargoyles. Not wanting to be boxed in, they fled to the stairs and back up to the level above.

They headed back to the gate level and around the level, lit with light stones but also - critically - Thor's flaming sword. They took a shortcut through a cave marked as having an "acrid smell." Vlad went in, Thor followed with his flaming sword, and FWOOOOOOSH! The "air" burned, inflicting 14 burn on Vlad and setting him on fire. A quick Resist Fire saved him, they had a big laugh, and headed on . . .

After that, they headed to the second GFS, and down to the level where they fought their last big battle with the Gith and Trorkers. They did a brief exploration and headed back (see below.)

Notes:

The raid on the 2nd GFS first landing wasn't supposed to be short. But the headed off the edge of the battlemap, and I tried to expand it . . . and this frelled up the whole map. The walls got moved off, the PCs dumped in a corner, ugh. I had to delete the whole map and re-do it. I couldn't do that during the session, so we ended early. I gave the players a choice - take a re-do, undo the expended potions and so on, and get back to town . . . or stay in the dungeon and do the whole "roll to see if people can join in" approach of a split session. They went with the leave and come back, since they can arm up and if we're delayed enough, get some ordered equipment. Fair enough. I shouldn't have been trying to play with the scene during play.

MVP was Thor for setting Vlad on fire.

Felltower updates

2026-02-22T20:44:00.002-05:00

I did a wee bit of Felltower work today.

- updating rumors

- restocking prep

- double-checking the maps

- and planning for our next game . . . on 3/1. Yeah, our pace has slowed down a bit. But we'll keep gaming.

Thorker Research

2026-02-15T19:20:00.005-05:00

The PCs captured and returned to town a thorker. They paid a sage for research on the critter, and this is what they got back.

Thorkers – probably more correctly called trorkers, are a form of hobgoblin with armored skin and nictitating membranes over their eyes. Their blood strongly resembles that of trolls. While they are definitely living creatures, they have traces of undead traits about them. The sages posit they are a strange mix of norker and troll, with infusions of the essence of wights.

- They are strongly magic resistant vs. wizardly and bardic magic. Sleep effects ignore this.
- Their touch paralyzes (resisted by HT), and direct skin contact isn’t needed.
- They’re exceeding hard to kill but sufficient damage will kill them.
- They shrug off a lot of injury (i.e. they have Damage Reduction) but this can be bypassed with fire, direct magical damage (like Dehydrate or Frostbite, for example), or using Affect Spirits.
- They regenerate quickly – slower than trolls, but only a little slower.
- They’re fearless and don’t seem to have any “human” reactions to anything – pain, included.
- They’re unaffected by poisons.
- They can see in the dark via Infravision.

Notes:

- Yes, they're inspired by Thouls from Basic D&D. I took them my own direction.

- The sleep effect was a thrown-in so they'd have some interesting weakness. I have a reason why that's the exception, but I doubt it'll be discovered. I always like the idea that you couldn't just get good mutations, you also get bad ones, in games like Gamma World. I like downsides to upsides.

Black Company Playtest: Summer of Riots

2026-01-26T20:07:00.004-05:00

We playtested the rules for the Black Company RPG. This is the first, partial release of rules v.1, from 2025-11-26. As requested in the rules, I'll add:

"THIS IS A PLAYTEST, NOT FINAL, IT MIGHT CHANGE!"

Let's see how it went. SPOILERS FOR THE PLAYTEST ADVENTURE ABOUND! And for the first chapters of The Black Company.

Date: 1/25/2026

Characters:

Jumpy - NPC, controlled by all players
Pops (VL)
Big Dog (OL)
Princess (JM)
Lovebird (DC)
Redeye (ML)

We started when the Black Company was in the service of the Syndic of Beryl, on a hot summer day, not long after lightning had struck the Necropolitan Hill and possibly let loose . . . something. According to rumors (from Otto, who heard it from Tom-Tom), a demonic cat-woman-thing called a forvalaka was loose. Six of the company were hanging out with the remainder of their squad. Elmo, senior company sergeant, showed up and voluntold their corporal, Two-Hand, for a special mission. He voluntold the PCs they were in his group of men to for that mission.

They were led off to the Syndic's chambers, where a keen-eyed and sneaky member of the group (Princess or Redeye, I think) sidled up to a window and saw a quinquereme with a sail with a ruby-eyed skull on the sail.

They were assigned to escort Sabine, the spoiled teenaged daughter of the Syndic, 2.5 miles to her lessons at the Conservatory, where her tutor lives and works. They headed out with her carriage. The streets were tense, packed, and hot. Rumors of evil stalking the night, all too many signs of the Blues - rivals to the Syndic's Reds faction - were along the route. And the soldiers spotted coordinated looks between folks on the streets and in the upper floors. Meanwhile a bored Sabine tossed food to dogs following the carriage, in full site of angry, and hungry, impoverished folks. Good PR, Syndic's family.

(The PCs were marching in armor, in the heat - making it hot and miserable and impacting their rolls. BC RPG uses the Advantage/Disadvantage system. It also uses a group roll system where the lowest skill is rolled if numbers hurt - stealth, or forced marching for speed - and highest if numbers help - spotting things, for example. Sometimes it wasn't clear which case was intended. You can accumulate Stress, which slides you down towards loss of control, from some failures or from forcing a better roll.)

The PCs came across a barricade by the Urban Cohorts, who resent the Black Company, who in turn look at them with contempt. They wanted to know what was up with the carriage, and gave Two-Hand a hard time. Pops stepped in and intimidated the lot of them, warning them about the dangers of messing with them. The cohort decided to let them pass unmolested. (The PCs knew they wanted to get by without a fight, but it wasn't clear what mechanic to use. I offered up what the system allowed for in the adventure, and they picked that.)

Past their, they made it to the Convervatory but only through an angry mob of people who threw rocks, shit, and rotten food. Redeye was stunned, and the PCs kept their cool, and didn't kill any of the rioters. They made it in and set up patrols and bodyguards for the poorly fenced-in building. They knew they'd never get the carriage back out through the mob that was locked outside.

A few hours later, lessons were over - but in the meantime, a frightened scholar claimed to have seen something, and heard a woman's voice, and was unnerved. Forvalaka? Also, some Urban Cohort members came up and offered to the patrol group to escort them to safety. The Soldiers didn't buy it (no roll, it's stated to be patently false.) And the riotous mob had clearly turned into a full-fledged riot across the city.

Two-Hand consulted with the group and the scholars to find a way out. They wanted to get to the Bastion, rejecting getting to a nearby estate friendly to the reds. (They could have gone to the Rubbish Gate, but they didn't even consider it). Instead, they snuck out a back way, with Sabine and her servants, leaving the carriage behind.

The soldiers headed out into the streets. Along the way, they ran into a couple guys with a wagon full of corpses - blood drained and torn up, by a cat according to Redeye, the medic. No throats, little blood, no hearts or livers. Yikes. They made reasonable time - 6 hexes, 1800 yards, in two hours, dodging rioters as best they could. Next, another 1800 yards, and they found a group of Blues guarding a cat-headed statue. Lovebird tried to scare them off with tales of the corpses they'd seen, but the Blues attacked (Lovebird rolled about, oh, call it two or three successes and a Berylian assload of failures.) Their best trooper - Princess - risked Stress to seize the Initiative. They put down a large number of Blues in the first round, fended off a couple attacks from the remainder, and then put a few more down and the rest fled. Big Dog killed a few Blues still hanging around. (In retrospect, this was probably a chance to remove stress from him, but place it on others - see my notes.)

Things slowed down from there - as it got dark, they repeatedly rolled 1s to travel only 300 yards in two hours of furtive movement, avoiding crowds, and maneuvering past barricades. Things got ugly . . . and angry mob split them up (critically failed Soldiering roll to maintain order) and grabbed their VIP, Sabine. Two-Hand lost it and ordered them to kill everyone. They tried. They didn't succeed, but they killed a good number of rioters and rescued the girl. But Jumpy had gotten seperated and knifed badly (he went from fine to Wounded, two steps from dead.) They further ran into a vigilante squard trying to kill a merchant and his family (and killed a bunch of them to "solve" that problem, creating a lot of matryrs for the Blues and anger against the Company.) And they ran into the forvalaka. It pounced into a crowd, killed one rioter, and then tore open a screaming victim, drinking his or her blood and then eating the liver and heart to finish it off.) The PCs tried an orderly retreat and failed, turning into a bit of a confused escape that got them lost. They reformed, but almost all had picked up a lot of stress (see notes.)

In the end, they reached the Bastion, only to find a partial squad of fellow Soldiers stuck outside the stuck main gate, engaged with a bunch of Blues. The PCs blew an attempt to close with them by surprise but still got into a fight. A couple of fellow Soldiers went down and they killed a few Blues and scattered the rest.

From there, they set up a defensive line, got Sabine stashed in temporary safety, and turned to face a few hundred rioters in the waning hours of the night. The rioters came in waves. The soldiers gave up ground and lost a few NPC soldiers before breaking the first wave. The second and third broke as well, but they took a few more soldiers down.

In the end, the riots ended with a deluge of rain, cooling down the anger of the day and night. The PCs got chewed out by the Syndic, but not by Elmo, so who cares? They'd survived.

Notes:

- Some of the scenario was a bit hard to parse, like how the squad PCs are listed and 1st squad, 2nd platoon but the scenario calls them 1st of the 3rd. And it occasionally buries the lede - like telling you what someone's doing before you know what they look like. It made it tricky at times but I'm used to that. What was trickier was when it wasn't clear who was doing what - was the whole squad going? Just six guys? I split the difference by sending a larger group but the PCs did all of the actions.

It was also a railroad. So much so that there while you do have a variety of paths you can choose at one point, you end up needing to be at one specific place or adapting the adventure to another spot to make it work. In other words, it gives the illusion of choice - whereever you go, you get the same encounter at the end.

- The stress mechanic is excellent. It needs some getting used to, but it was interesting to see how much on edge everyone was, knowing that even though they could shrug off some combatants with ease they couldn't get out of everything without stress. Having to risk stress levels to get things done - or let a better person instead of the the worst person roll for some tasks - or as a result of failure meant that rolls felt important. It made even a successful fight with no injuries potentially a cost for having engaged in it.

I also love that almost all of the ways to remove stress are negative. You can complain to relieve stress, but you pass on it on to the one you complain to. You can brawl, or gamble, but they can result in injuries or money loss. You can attend a reading of the annals, but that's a monthly thing. You can't just take a short rest and recover fully. Add to the fact that you're always risking stress to get things done without potentially incurring injury or worse stress or bad outcomes, and it becomes central quickly. It's enjoyable even when it's not perfect.

- Combat is cheerfully quick and lethal. The PCs admittedly fought lesser foes most of the time, maybe all of the time. But they took it very seriously. Initiative and Morale are important, so the PCs risked Stress to gain Initiative, and cut down enemies as quickly as they could. Foes went down often appalingly quickly, but that suits Glen Cook's writing in general - fights are more often slaughters than battles. It was clear how quickly it could turn, though. Also, only the players roll - they roll offense when attacking, and defense when attacked. Makes you wonder how you'd resolve a fight between two PCs if one resulted, maybe as a result of some mind-bending effect (Spoilers: think Booboo's "Love Me" effect), or how major NPCs are handled. Still, it was fast. We had, uhm, four or five fights and then a mass combat, and played only 4 hours start to finish. GURPS with the options on it is not.

- Several times I just straight up listed some options to the players. Not great GMing, but it was clear people didn't know how to leverage their abilities to do things. It just wasn't clear what you'd use to do what, so no one knew what they were good at.

- Overall, the game is a lot of fun. I put in some concerns about issues that came up in play . . . but we liked it. I hope to see more, and I could see running a side game of Black Company if this remains the main core of the system.

Black Company playtest pre-summary

2026-01-25T19:50:00.001-05:00

Six of us played The Black Company RPG playtest rules.

The PCs:

- escorted a VIP

- annoyed Beryl citizens

- brutually demonstrated that you can't mess with the Black Company

- ran from supernatural terror, proving that maybe sometimes you can

- and had a lot of fun. No, wait, the players did. The PCs got stressed out, and chewed out.

More details tomorrow.

Year in Gaming 2025

2026-01-05T18:05:00.003-05:00

Here we are in 2026, recapping 2025. How was it for gaming for me?

Running Dungeon Fantasy

I GMed 17 sessions of DF Felltower this year.

Session 203, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part III - War of the Robots
Session 204, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part IV - Mechanical Knights, Gnolls, and Cultists
Session 205, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part V - Mopping Up & Pursuit
Session 206, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part VI - Exploring & Looting
Session 207, Felltower 134 - Exploring the Gate Level
Session 208, Felltower 135 - Exploring the Air Gate, Part I
Session 209, Felltower 135 - Exploring the Air Gate, Part II
Session 210, Felltower 135 - Exploring the Air Gate, Part III
Session 211, Brotherhood Complex 9 - Chop & Hannari's Excellent Adventure
Session 212, Felltower 136 - Steel Knights
Session 213, Felltower 137 - Looking for Evil Temples in All the Wrong Places
Session 214, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS
Session 215, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part II
Session 216, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part III
Session 217, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part IV
Session 218, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part V
Session 219, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part VI - Walls or Death

We started off finishing a multi-session epic fight that ran over from 2024 and finished with a multi-session epic fight that almost ran into 2026. Good stuff!

Same crew of gamers as last year, plus we added my friend Freddie. Long story short, he used to play in my games back in high school and early into college. We always stayed in contact even if not closely. He was out for a family visit, we did some BJJ together (he's a black belt, I'm not), and he mentioned wanting to drop in on a game session as a visitor. Lo and behold, we play online these days . . . and now so does he. He's a good match for the group.

I'm also well pleased that Felltower has been seen as a lost cause recently, due to lots of dead ends and "can't win" encounters. So what did the players do? This is going to sound crazy, but they put their big boy pants on and got to work on a couple of the thornier problems - a visit to the Air Gate (profitable!), a run at the steel knights (not profitable), and an epic run at the first landing on the second GFS and the maw of the "Gith" area (profitable, but less than hoped.) That really made me happy as a GM. Yes, these are hard problems to solve, and tough battles to win. But edging around the problem didn't help . . . and a straight-on assault of all three made headway. The Air Gate is an active place with a lot to do - even if only "raid more giant's castles." The knights are a problem but they have a better idea of how big of one. And the Gith are a serious, potentially existential threat when engaged, but rich as can be (even just from their arms and armor - nevermind whatever cash they have.) It suddenly looks target rich instead of an empty hole.

Playing RPGs

None. Not one session. Again. Hmm.

Other Gaming

I played a lot of Battle Brothers this year, after finally pulling the trigger on it. I really like it. I eventually added the Warriors of the North DLC and it's fine but I haven't enjoyed it as much since I added it. We'll see. Maybe I'm just getting used to the new backgrounds.

Writing

None. I might be done writing, basically. The opportunity cost in time is high, and the payoff is not great. A sizeable project can net me less than a week's pay at my day job and take many more weeks to do, and a small project isn't an option without Pyramid around any more.

We'll see. I do enjoy the finished projects, so maybe if I get an opportunity for something special I'll take advantage.

Overall, a pretty good year for gaming.

But, not a good year overall for our game group. We lost one of my former gamers. I still don't feel up to writing a post about that, yet. She'll be missed. She hadn't rolled dice in anger since before I started this blog, but she was one of my old game's regulars. I didn't want to say nothing, but maybe that's enough for the moment.

Black Company postponed

2026-01-02T18:14:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately, I caught a cold and I can barely speak. We put off the playtest session until next Friday.

Black Company tomorrow

2026-01-01T20:28:00.002-05:00

Playtesting this is tomorrow night's plan.

The Black Company RPG

We'll see how it goes but I have high hopes for the system as written.

Notes & Oopsies from the big fight

2025-12-28T10:01:00.002-05:00

- A clarification on our XP system - multi-session delves get +1 XP per extra session, not a base 1 per session.

Honestly, a base 1 xp per session wouldn't harm anything, but I'd rather have 0 be a real risk so people don't do bored "let's just check level 1 again" delves for 1 xp when no one's around.

- Big Oopsie. That whole area of the big fight is a Low Sanctity zone. Chop should have been at -5 for all of those divine spells he was casting.

I can chalk that up to a benefice from the Good God, but honestly, it was because I knew I had an electronic map of the area and didn't look at my paper map. My paper map clearly denotes that whole area - yes, including the entrance hallway, and the GFS - as a Low Sanctity Zone. So we'll call it a one-off +5 to Chop's spells because of a special, one-time only, NON-REPEATABLE set of circumstances that allowed him to be so effective in his healing and Lend Energy casting. I will double-emphasize the NON-REPEATABLE statement. My players (okay, Hannari's player) will want to figure out some way to have that effect come up again. GM error is bad enough, I'm not going to make something solvable either with an in-town action ("We pray a lot") or bribe/donative ($1776 to the troops, er, $5000 to the Good God) or in-dungeon whatever when it shouldn't be solvable without a much, much bigger in-dungeon action. And that's if it's solvable at all.

- There isn't a Wall of Stone spell. I'd discussed it as a possibility a while back, but no, we never created one. I don't intend to, either.

- I'm well pleased with our new version of Great Haste. It really does make it worth casting, but not a required spell you need to cast because of its overwhelming effectiveness.

Random Links for Friday 12/26/25

2025-12-26T19:52:00.004-05:00

It's been a while. Here is stuff to read.

- A nice rule for "cooking" a hand grenade in GURPS.

- A quick rules answer I need to put somewhere besides here - only the consumables in DFRPG Adventurers are available off-the-shelf. Want an Ironskin amulet? Pay for it and await the enchantment.

- These consequences for too much time at sea are really funny over at d4 Caltrops.

Christmas in Felltower

2025-12-25T10:01:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas from Felltower

You'll be lucky to get out alive, but if you survive, may the dungeons grant you a suit of Magescale in your size, an artifact-grade weapon with minimal downside traits, and a bucket of healing potions.

See you all in the coming year.

Session Cleanup

2025-12-22T17:20:00.001-05:00

Lots to do before our next session.

- I need to go through the VTT and check each and every NPC in the fight for their status so I can update the roster. It was easier back in the pen and paper days, honestly.

- I need to delete the thorkers and re-enter them. I may have to make them up in GCS, which is annoying as can be, so they can properly get their advantages into the system.

- I need to delete the Gith Axemen and re-enter them. Somehow, despite having equipment and DR, their DR shows up as 0 when they're actually hit. It's wrong. My players love this, and I get at least comment per session about how it's really 0, which is odd becuase when they have 8 DR showing up and they really have 9 it's a major system failure. Huh.

- And then I need to do a restock pass at the dungeon, since it will have been months since the PCs last went in. I'm curious what they'll do next, but that's more a "they" problem than an "I" problem and this post is about I, me, mine.

GURPS DF Session 219, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part VI - Walls or Death

2025-12-21T19:45:00.004-05:00

Will the fight ever end?

Date: 12/21/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)

We picked up where we left off, at around second 52 of the fight.

Rogar was down, Hannari chasing down some escaping Gith, Thor cornering an axeman, Percy bashing thorkers, and Chop dodging thorkers. Duncan began to move to put up a wall to seal off the room from the "south" (screen down) entrance.

Things went sideways immediately. A number of thorkers rushed out to assist the Gith that Hannari was after. Others stood up from where they'd fallen, healed up enough to get back into the fray.

The PCs pulled back a bit, as Thor finished off the axeman and Percy downed a couple of thorkers. Duncan put up a wall of earth and then immediately tried another, to seal another corridor into the room, but failed. Chop followed, feeding him energy with Lend Energy and drinking paut as fast as he could.

The PCs fought the advancing new thorkers off for a couple of seconds and Duncan sealed off that side, too. Meanwhile, thorkers retreated back, in response to some unhead command, and dragged off some fallen Gith. Hannari and Percy and Thor rushed over, with Vlad providing arrow support, to try and stop them. A tossed sleep grenade by Hannari put one down, but another escaped with two bodies dragged behind.

Duncan turned two of the earthen walls to stone, and then rushed over - still fed energy by a trailing Chop - and sealed the last one off.

They rapidly began dragging corpses of the Gith to the hallway, rescued the fallen Rogar and began to heal him, and prepped to get out. As they did, a few thorkers stood up, and needed Percy to put them back down. Hannari dragged one to the GFS and threw him off the landing and down the deep, deep, deep put to the "domed city" level far below.

As they dragged corpses, though, the "west" wall disappeared - the Gith leader had dispelled or dissolved it, somehow. Thorkers rushed in just as Thor was dragging two bodies. He quickly let them go and ran back to the party, grumping the whole way but knowing the plan was grab and go. They fought briefly in the entranceway before walling it off - Hannari dive-rolling into the safe area and grabbing a sleeping thorker - put to sleep in Part I - to keep him on their side of the earth wall.

Duncan got the wall off, turned it to stone, and they fled with their loot - four dead Gith, and one sleeping thorker. Left behind was probably a dozen fallen Gith, easily a score of fallen thorkers and norkers, and everything they dropped during the fight (like a Wand of Fireballs, Rogar's axe, and some thrown weaponry.)

From there, it was a quick trip back to town . . . no wandering monsters turned up (yes, I roll, Felltower is DF on hard mode.)

Notes:

Short crew today - no players for Rogar, Chop, or Percy, but Vlad and Duncan's players, respectively, stepped in for the last two. Rogar was unconcious until the very end. Normally we don't allow PCs to come along without the player, but we do cover for players who can't make all of a multi-session delve.

Finally, this grindy, epic fight ended. It was a grind but not a slog - it really felt like every turn was a decision point . . . and we ended on the 70th turn for most of the PCs.

The PCs didn't nearly get the loot they "earned" but they did get a lot. Four suits of magescale, a magical Gith longsword, chameleon clocks and stealthy boots, and a live thorker to hand over to a "sage" - vivisectionist - for research. The cost was high - a lot of consumables, a dropped Wand of Fireballs with 14 charges, a number of weapons - but no PCs were killed or maimed. They almost certainly killed a number of enemies - a few decapitated or skull-smashed Gith and norkers, for sure, and maybe some of the thorkers. The enemy will be more ready, but have they taken such heavy losses - dozens of their number down - that they can't muster such a hard-crust defense again? We'll see. The PCs will be back, eventually.

MVP was Duncan for the walls.

XP was 4 xp for loot, +5 XP for 5 extra sessions, for 9 xp each. Not bad, oh, and $22K or so in cash, each, after Duncan took the suit of Magescale in best repair.

Fun stuff! Like I said, this was long, but man, I enjoyed every session. I think my players agree, but they'll be happy to do one-session delves if they can pull them off.

Felltower tomorrow

2025-12-20T19:40:00.003-05:00

A reduced crew of players will attempt to finish out the fight tomorrow. I think it's doable as long as people don't get hung up on:

- kill maximization

- loot maximization

- loot carrying min/maxing

and instead focus on

- winning the battlefield

- quick and easy loot and casualty recovery

- getting away clean

We'll see if they do that. I'm giving away no hints, here - this is all things discussed during the last session. The ideal is win the battlefield so they can get away with loot and their wounded and dropped/thrown weaponry, allow no enemies to escape, and get out with all the possible loot. But it's not an ideal situation and they know it - way too many ways to get flanked (three hallways and an unblockable staircase), a casualty, low amounts of FP and time even with a fairly clean win.

It should be interesting - successful and profitable raid, or overextended attack that leads to tragedy?

Felltower short break

2025-12-07T12:11:00.002-05:00

Folks, we'll be taking a short break from Felltower. One of our regulars has suffered a tragic family loss - someone who was also an important friend to me, as well - so we're just not feeling getting a game organized and going right now. I turned off comments because as much as I appreciate that people will want to express sympathy, this isn't the place for it right now. We'll be back at it when the grief and complications from a loss are at a place that allows it.

GURPS DF Session 218, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part V

2025-11-30T15:59:00.004-05:00

Short session today - all we had time for.

Date: 11/30/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)

Bullet points to cover the action in the continuing big brawl:

- before Duncan could put up a wall to block them, a bunch of Gith rushed into the room.

- Percy managed to beat back a few Gith and a thorker with aid from Agar's Wand and Vlad.

- Thor and Hannari killed a Gith or two and pushed back the Gith leader and two of his allies, with Thor crippling the leader's sword arm.

- Lots of nageteppo countered by Purify Air dominated the magical fight for the day.

- the PCs are back to Operation Build a Wall.

Notes:

We had a short session budgeted for today but even so, we couldn't finish the fight. It's a good one, but the PCs have to contend with high-damage-soaking thorkers and high-defense Gith mixed together. Honestly, it's the kind of fight where boths sides don't like how it's been going and don't like where it ends up, but there is no clear way out.

The players seem concerned that the Gith leader, who was driven out of sight, is getting reinforcements, and that even with 3 walls up (they'll do that next time) they'll have scant time to gather some loot, gather up their fallen brother, and get the hell out before foes come upstairs after them. They can't block that off entirely, or even tactically, given so many airmobile foes at this depth of the dungeon.

Speaking of which, one thing that makes delving deeper hard isn't always more lethal foes, but ones that have abilities that counter the usual "win buttons" of early play - foes who can move through the air, see invisible, see in the dark, or ignore or recover from status effects quickly make for a very tough delve. But the loot is better . . .

MVP was Thor for his critical hit that crippled the sword arm of the toughest foe of the bunch.

GURPS DF Session 217, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part IV

2025-11-23T19:30:00.007-05:00

Continuing from the previous session.

Date: 11/23/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)

Bullet points to cover the action in the continuing big brawl:

- The Gith turned their focus to Rogar, with the "main" Gith - blurred, enhanced by spellstones and potions - joining a Gith Lichtor and their axemen in attacking him. Hannari ran over to help, himself doubly boosted by a DX potion (+4 to DX) and a Speed potion.

- The remaining thorkers around Percy and Thor kept piling on to keep them busy, along with a Gith Lichtor.

- The other thorkers mobbed Chop, Vlad, and Duncan.

- Chop kept healing Rogar from afar, Cursing any non-cursed foes, and used Purify Air to clean up a nageteppo used to (it turns out) obscure incoming reinforcements.

- Hannari put down three of the axemen with help from Vlad's arrows right after they finally knocked Rogar unconscious, Percy put down a few thorkers and a Gith Licthor, and Thor decapitated a hapless norker brute and then put a few thorkers down.

- Alarmingly, 10 or so (by Hannari's quick count) Gith came running up, and then shieleded themselves with a layered wall of smoke from nageteppo. And even more alarmingly, a few more thorkers - supposedly bashed into death or unconciousness - clambered to their feet and re-engaged, not much worse for wear from endless head blows, neck shots, and "chop[s] to the hit points."

We left it with 4-5 thorkers up, and a lot of incoming Gith. The PCs plan to hold them off at a hallway so Duncan can temporarily wall it off with stone so they can haul ass and haul corpses out to get a lot of loot. We'll see how much they can take with them, assuming they get to that point, given that they're 100% sure the enemy can get around the walls rather more quickly than they'd like. That is where we'll pick up next time - Operation Build a Wall and Have the Gith Loot Pay For It.

Notes:

10 seconds of combat time. Took a while today - I was lagging toward the latter half of the session and that slowed us a lot.

MVP was Chop for his curses, which disrupted several critical successes by the enemy.

I like that the PCs call their enemies Gith, so I named them all that way in the VTT.

I don't like that one particular group of them shows with their DR under Actors, but when I add them to the map and use them to fight it goes to 0. Editing it doesn't help. Manually typing in DR on every hit isn't fun.

Game tomorrow

2025-11-22T16:16:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow will - hopefully - be the end of the big multi-session battle in the depths of Felltower. The PCs seem to be in a good spot . . . but of course battles can turn suddenly, and they've been spraying resources (especially FP and ER and Paut) all over the place. They only have so much.

Looking forward to seeing what happens!

GURPS DF Session 216, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part III

2025-11-09T19:18:00.004-05:00

Continuing from the previous session.

Date: 11/9/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)

Bullet points to cover the action in the continuing big brawl:

- the enemy continued to pull back into a large "C" facing the PCs, and laid down three smoke nageteppo after Vlad shot one of the "Gith" axemen.

- Chop cleared the smoke with Purify Air and the PCs charged.

- Rogar fought his own little war with a couple of Norker Brutes and a quartet of axemen, eventually felling the two norkers and wounding one axeman.

- Thor rushed the main core of the enemy and got hit with Slow by a Gith they supposedly hit with Magebane, so that wasn't as effective as it might have been.

- Percy bashed down a few thorkers.

- A few fallen thorkers got back up, after having been put down rather harshly earlier.

- Vlad landed a few eye shots on Gith Lichtors and put them down.

- Hannari crippled the foot of a Gith Lichtor and found the guy have Levitation on and didn't fall. They decided that's probably why they don't worry about the Deathtouch floor.

We ended it at second 31 of the fight, having resolved a good 10 seconds or so of combat. Slow, yes, but people kept a move on. It's a big fight and the VTT helps a lot but also slows things down a bunch, too, when we hit issues that it doesn't do well.

Notes:

- MVP was Vlad for the nice eye shot criticals.

- I really need token statuses for - "off balance," "unready weapon," "Slowed," "Hasted," Crippled Limb, and a few more. Oh, and different ones for Blur, Shield, Armor, and other buff spells.

Norkers & Thorkers

2025-11-02T19:08:00.003-05:00

Norker (n). 1. One who norks.
2. A Fiend Folio monster I use a lot.

(Warning - stats are AD&D, and I've made them different for GURPS.)

One thing I love about norkers is that they're great fodder. They're intrinsically armoured, so they don't need to provide $5K in loot each just to be able to absorb some hits. They are cheaply armed with axes, so killing a few of them doesn't provide a realistic amount of loot. They fulfill the value of monsters to a GM - they're a threat - without that implicit promise that games have made to PCs - fighting is good because fighting means loot.

The "Gith," aka the Masters, the six-fingered elven vampires, etc. - seem to have a number especially tough norkers. So the PCs are enaged in a brawl with them as I write this.

They also have some other guys - Thorkers.

Thorkers

The PCs aren't exactly sure what thorkers are, exactly. They're very quiet, eeriely silent. They don't readily bleed - or maybe don't bleed. They take enourmous punishment to put down, regardless of magical or non-magical weapons. Their best effect on them has been putting them to sleep with sleep elixirs - clearly they're not immune to that - and repeatedly bashing them in the head with a flail - which takes far too many hits of far too much damage to make anyone feel like it's a really vulnerable spot.

They attack with claws or a bite - generally claws, since GURPS (unlike AD&D) tends to make biting suck unless biting is your main or only thing. They don't use weapons, unlike "regular" norkers.

They're a new monster for Felltower, although with an old inspiration. And the PCs are the first to encounter them, so research isn't going to turn up much. Their best bet is to take a live or dead one home - in that order of utility. They've hit upon that plan.*

I may update this post - or just link back to it - when they find out more.

* And I expect either way, they'll try to explain why someone in town should pay them for the prisoner or the corpse, and then tell them everything they want to know on top of that. No, NPCs don't pay you to find out what you want to know from them. No one has that level of social skills in game to pull that off. And it's probably less fun as a game if they do and regularly do so.

GURPS DF Session 215, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part II

2025-10-26T18:31:00.004-04:00

Continuing from the previous session.

Date: 10/26/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)

Reinforcements:
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)

We picked up where we left off. Not a lot to add for the fight, except that:

- Thor came running up, a few seconds into the battle.

- More foes came up - a dozen or so norker brutes led by a pair of "Gith" Licthors, as the PCs call them.

- Percy put down a few thorkers, but it took a lot of hits to do so.

- Vlad's arrows were largely ignored - he hit a couple of norker brutes but Missile Shield kept the Gith safe.

- More Gith showed up - axemen, more lichtors, and a taller, more slender Gith. Assuming he was a mage, Hannari used a pair of Magebane grenades to take away their Magery. It didn't stop one from using one of Wyatt's long-lost spellstones to Awaken a good number of thorkers asleep from Hannari's grenades last session.

- Thor bashed down two obsidian golems and the iron spectre, allowing Rogar to concentrate on the norker brutes.

- Gith threw lightning - even after being hit with Magebane - and demon's brew grenades at the PCs.

- Chop found out that while norkers can be hit with Command to attack their allies, they won't follow through.

We left it mid-fight, with the awakened thorkers getting to their feet and the Gith and norkers forming a semi-circular position away from the PCs.

Notes:

- I really need a way to display multiple icons in one hex in Foundry.

- Thor was MVP for smashing up three constructs pretty quickly, freeing up Duncan from a threat and Rogar to fight foes he is better able to deal with as a brand-new 250 point PC.

Random Links for 10/10/2025

2025-10-10T21:49:00.000-04:00

- AD&D Asassination. Seems straightforward in the PHB, and then the DMG comes and takes it away. Thanks, Gary.

- Next game is in 3 weeks.

More notes on Session 214

2025-10-06T19:47:00.004-04:00

More notes on Session 214, which we played on Sunday, 10/6/2025.

- It was interesting watching the players talk themselves into going into a big fight on the "first landing on the second GFS." It's always been a big fight on this level, against a mixed lot of enemies who are always (somehow) alert to the invasion. But somehow there is always some at least mild surprise that, hey, those guys we never defeated are still there and still ready to fight. They did make it past before, but it always involves a nasty battle.

Maybe this time they'll be able to either win out or make a permanent dent in the forces here. They have a lot more tools for the job - witness the sleep grenades and nageteppo - and better supporting tactics. But the "Gith," as the players call them, are tough and have a lot of seemingly loyal minions.

- I have a "no helping" rule but waived it for helping our new guy. He's an old hand at gaming and a quick study. Still, we really need the GURPS module for Foundry to include Committed Attack as his barbarian has Berserk (Enraged, Battle Fury) and will use it extensively.

He also has Bad Temper and Bloodlust. But I know that's how he plays, so he may as well gets points for them.

- I love that they visited the mysterious blue pool when their PC with Curiosity and Impulsive isn't around. Oh, and jumped into a big fight when the same player - who is all for heavy combat - isn't around.

I can't wait for next session . . . in 3 weeks. Oh well. If this goes well enough for the PCs I suspect it'll strongly opened up a lot of adventuring possibilities. If not . . . I hope there will be sufficient survivors.

GURPS DF Session 214, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS

2025-10-05T20:07:00.004-04:00

Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)

We started off in town, and the PCs gathered rumors and set off. The plan was simple - take the new guy to the altar, and hope for the best, and then go down the second GFS.

The group went in the well and made their way to the altar. Hannari handed a big bag of silver coins to Rogar and he touched the altar - and 45 of those coins turned to gold.

That done, they made it to the GFS and went down. At the bottom, Hannari used Autohypnosis to put himself in a meditative state and then tried to keep climbing down the steps by following the pattern on the floor. It faiiled, and left him dizzy.

Out into the level itself, they found the air very stale indeed, and Rogar felt dizzy and nausea (he rolled a 17 on his HT roll, his first in-game roll.)

They headed towards the second GFS. Along the way, they forced open the door to a room near the "Ape Gate." They felt a refreshing sense of good, clean air . . . but inside was an intact black hemisphere, and two bronze spiders that seemed to be repairing or having just repaired it. The spiders attacked. One jump-slammed Vlad but he dodged. They quickly pounded them into junk. Then Vlad shot the hemisphere to pieces with a few dozen shots from his Cornucopia Quivers.

That done, they headed to the second GFS, but sidetracked to a magical pool nearby. The hallway was lined with runes, sigils, and symbols powerful for water magic. At the end of it was a opaque blue pond. Vlad drank some - their notes said it made the drinkers strong. Instead, it nearly killed him - HT-5, which he barely passed. He spewed out the water - which had tasted wonderfully clear until he had a full mouthful - and stood back. They didn't stop there - they put Resist Poison on Vlad and he stuck his head in and looked around, to no avail. Hanari tried some, since he has a Serpent's Amulet and is immune to poison. Nothing happened but it tasted bad.

They moved on to the other GFS. It took Strengthen Will and a few tries to get everyone through.

They wound down the stairs a few turns and opened the first door - they planned to bypass the "Deathtouch floor" and find something to kill and loot. But as they moved in, Chop and Vlad heard a faint five-note chime. They let everyone know the enemy was alerted. They stacked up on the left wall to give Hannari running room for a jump across the room, and Vlad began to shoot the black hemisphere in the room.

From a side passage, four Obsidian Golems and an Iron Spectre emerged. They waited at the edge of the floor for the golems. Vlad shot at the eyes but didn't make any real progress on them. Rogar threw a hatchet, missed his target, but rolled a 4 on the next golem in line and knocked its left hand off. The golems moved up and bathed Hannari and Rogar with their paralytic eye-rays. Hannari was paralyzed but Rogar was not. Relieve Paralysis from Chop took care of that.

Hannari threw a smoke nageteppo to block their line of sight, which forced the golems a little forward. They managed to beat one down with a combination of Percy's flail and Vlad's arrows. But soon after a big mob of humanoids rolled in from the far hallway - a dozen or so norkers . . . but unarmed ones. Stories from previous groups talked about "thorkers," and these were they. Vlad shot one in both eyes, and it basically shrugged it off. Hannari blinded a few with a flash nageteppo thrown behind his own smoke. A few were blinded, and complaints were heard. The "thorkers" were otherwise silent while they fought.

They mobbed up against the PCs. Percy knocked a few out with skull hits, but clearly hadn't killed them even with 2-3 clean, hard hits. They were vulnerable to Sleep Potions, though, and Hannari had a lot and kept them coming. Two of the golems were down, but two are meleeing Rogar who is slightly battered but holding firm and dealing damage back.

We left with the PCs getting swamped with thorkers, but most of those who got too close were asleep and a few knocked out.

We called it there for time.

Notes:

Rogar Thane-Blood is the first DF PC for a new player. Actually, one of my old players, from my 1st edition GURPS game back in the day set in the then-new Forgotten Realms. He happened to be visting, and asked if he could drop in on game. I did him one better and let him join ongoing. He knows some of my guys from back in the day since we all grew up in the same town.

There is a random effect from the beneficial altar, but the silver-to-gold has come up quite often. It feels like more than it should, but maybe just because that's the one people get excited about?

MVP was Hannari for his timely and effective grenade and nageteppo use.