The World of WeirthTM is a setting much like a Hyborian Age, with danger at every turn, Swords & Sorcery magic, demons and mad prophets.
Tribes Of Gnolls And Nomads roam the savanna, while peasants and hedge wizards hide behind the walls of even the meanest thorp. A powerful Ley Line crosses the land, creating transient Gateways to the Faerie Realm.
Meanwhile the influence of Demons And the Belowdark waxes, threatening to cover the world in darkness, a suffocating nightmare that wells up from horror-filled dungeons underground.
Check the World of Weirth tab above for more info, including a draft of the Player’s Guide.
33 Sacha 574
The party members have recovered from the battle against the Shade Warrior in the ruined Manor of Gra’do in Otracasbol.
They decide to return, clear out the first floor, and begin planning on how to refurbish the manor for their own use.
A quick look=thru determines that the Servant’s Dining Room is the least damaged room, so they unload some possessions there and move the chest they found under the floorboards in the next room.
Linos investigates the chest, it is locked and has some sort of mechanical trap. They decide to leave this for later.
Next is the exploration of the Eastern wing of the manor, where they find a formal dining area, a kitchen with a greenhouse gallery above, and a chapel dedicated to Tallorba. In the chapel is a staircase leading down into darkness. A soft, arhythmic scuffing noise can be heard.
Linos creeps down the stairs, which are quite long, and sees a shape crawling/lurching up the stairs toward him, slowly but purposefully. He retreats back tot eh main floor and the group sets an ambush.
Soon a skeletal creature with only one arm climbs out of the stairwell, Linos rushes it and bashes it to splinters with his pick. The skeleton Returner is wearing dirty trousers, held up by a belt. A pouch hangs from the belt, and Linos grabs it surreptitiously. Later investigation reveals the contents as 2 SP, 10 CP and a flint/tinder kit.
Linos sneaks back down the stairs. At the bottom he finds a burned out torch, a hatchet, what look like fabric scraps and a thumb-sized amulet on a leather thong. He puts the amulet into the pouch with the coins, picks up the hatchet, then gets out a torch of his own and lights it, to better see the landing.
There is a flash of light reflected from a brass candle sconce on the wall, then a great shadow falls over Linos and a Shade Warrior appears, slashing with two great obsidian axes! The 7’ tall monstrous creature wounds Linos, who turns and flees up the stairs.
Reaching the top just ahead of the creature, the party attacks. A silver arrow strikes the monster in the chest, and sticks fast. The creatures lets out a piercing wail!
Roinseach counter-attacks with her Black Mace and lands a powerful blow. The Warrior attacks Roinseach, she dodges one sweeping axe blow, but the second strikes here full in the chest and knocks her back 10 feet.
Alda casts Blessing upon the bestial shadow-man, and the party resumes their attacks. Goloxir manages to get in a solid hit, Linos throws a silver dagger and the Shade Warrior is defeated.
After bandaging, etc the group makes its way down the stairs. At the bottom they see by the light of Linos’ dropped torch that there is a leather bag & A scrap of parchment on the floor. Also, the brass sconce appears to be crushed, as though by several hammer-blows.
The leather bag is empty, but the parchment has some writing in a poor scrawl:
Secret door in root cellar
Push dark stone
Only touch white mushrooms with gloves on
HOLD BREATH, CLOSE EYES
If you break a blue puff-ball you will never come homeThe crypts are hidden behind the wine cellar, magic spell to open
Gesture with right arm extended up & sweep down in front of you
Say “Death”Past the crypts is a temple to the Old Gods, STAY AWAY!
Green stone is a sign of danger!
Afterwards, they explored further into the basement, finding a wine cellar and root cellar. The wine storage contains hundreds of bottles of wine, 20-30 years old. The root cellar contained baskets of dessicated root vegetables. They found the secret door, as the note described. It led to a room over grown with mushrooms, a normal food-type, and two poisonous types useful in making magic healing potions.
There was a lot of discussion about how to reach the second hidden door.
They searched the wine cellar areas carefully, and found a human skull covered in gold leaf. When Linos went to pick it up, they heard a voice say, “You have reached the end.” Alda and Roinseach tried various ways of enacting the spell directions, including changing the spoken portion to variations of “Death is just the beginning.”
None of these had any effect, or made any noticeable changes.
Roiseach and Alda are convinced they have missed something, either in the Manor itself, upstairs, or in the placement of the skull prior to the spell.
They finally decided to go back and search the mushroom chamber more carefully. Roiseach tip-toed thru the poisonous fungi and, unfortunately, managed to burst an azure puff-ball. The spores exploded in a cloud all around her.
She failed herr save and was almost immediately blinded and deafened by the hallucinogenic spores,
Alda cast Flame Hands and burned a path thru the mushrooms, so that Goloxir could get to Roiseach and help her back out of the room. Around this time Alda realized that perhaps they should have burned up the mushrooms first, before investigating.
With Linos badly wounded, Roiseach blinded, and their way forward stymied, they decided to return to the stable for rest and further consideration of the puzzle presented by the note.
They loaded everything from the dining room, including the locked & trapped chest, and returned to town.
LFG Playtest Campaign 1 - The Shadow of Evil Chaos is an experiment with a new (to me) game system, Low Fantasy Gaming, and a new magic hack designed to bring the atmosphere of danger from the pulp novels of Swords & Sorcery. We are playing fully online over a Discord Voice server, using some home-brew maps, art and characters designed on the HeroForge 3D printing site.
Follow all of the posts here: LFG Playtest Campaign 1.
