Demons Gate - Sellswords Campaign Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Through the Tunnels.

As the rest of the party reached the bottom of the stairs, Brother Christos climbed painfully to his feet.

“Lucky the Dwarf brought torches.” Gunnar commented with a grin, then looked back up the stairwell.

“That’s was quite a tumble you took there, laddie. Are you sure you are up to carrying on?” he asked, innocently.

“Quite able, thank you.” Christos replied, stiffly.

“So long as there are foul undead and evil demons to smite, I can carry on.”

Suddenly Eddie looked around, wide eyed, then started to giggle.

“I think our spellshite has got his mojo back.” Sintamo commented, with just a touch of sarcasm. Come on, let’s get going. Gunnar has the map.”

“Follow me.” Holding his torch high, the dwarf stepped forward, then turned and winked at Christos.

“Remember to watch your step!”

The party set off, along an ancient, rough-hewn tunnel. After a while Gunnar paused, and looked closer at the wall, running his hand over the surface.

“What’s up?”

“The tunnel’s changing!” the dwarf said, puzzled.

“What do you mean?” Eldarondo asked, peering at the wall. “It’s a stone wall, just like the rest of it.”

“Pahh! Elves!” Gunner exclaimed. “Look closer, the surfaced changed. It’s a more recent excavation, it’s smoother and there’s different tool marks.”

“He’s right.” Said Sintamo. “And look ahead, the tunnel is getting wider. There’s a light ahead as well.” he added.

Extinguishing their torches, they realised the tunnels were lit by a faint, reddish light. As they continued the light slowly got brighter.

“Where’s the light coming from?” Sir Robin wondered aloud.

Eddie closed his eyes a moment, then smiled in wonder.

“It’s magic!” he said, then his smile faded.

“But not normal magic, there’s something odd, not right about it.”

“Chaos Magic!” Christos nodded. “I can sense it’s foul presence.”

Gunnar hefted his axe.

“Well then, let us go and smash it!”

As he stepped forward again, a skeleton lunged out from a hidden alcove and struck at the dwarf with a rusty sword. With a grunt, Gunnar knocked the sword aside, then smashed his axe through the skeleton’s skull. The undead creature dropped to the ground.

Looking down, Gunnar noticed a glowing red stone on a chain around the skeleton’s neck.

“That’s a pretty bauble.” He muttered as he bent down to take it.

“What the….” The dwarf paused, frozen in surprise and the cloven skull reformed before his eyes, then the skeleton leapt up, slashing across Gunnar’s chest with it’s sword. Gunnar fell backwards, winded but fortunately unhurt due to his armour.

Christos stepped forward, smashing the skeleton’s ribcage, and the glowing stone, with his mace. Yet again the skeleton fell to the floor, but this time stayed down.

“More Chaos Magic!” Christos explained after examining the crushed stone, then flinging it away in disgust. Then he smiled down at Gunnar.

“You need to watch your step, master dwarf.”

Gunnar took his offered hand and heaved himself back on his feet, then kicked the skull down the passage in front of him.

“Will they not just stay dead.” He complained, as the party moved forward cautiously.

Set Up.

A network of tunnels, rooms and chambers. The tunnels are just wide enough for two characters to move/fight next to each other, but two PCs will block LOS for anyone behind them.

The PCs enter anywhere along the eastern edge.

Skeletons:

All skeletons have chaos stones which makes them protected by Xichtul – (roll 1d6 for all hits, 4-6 = knockdown only)

Traps: There are no traps.

Foes:

2 hordes of 4 skeletons/zombies placed in random rooms.

2 hordes of 4 Cultists patrolling in random corridors.

2 Cult Warriors in random rooms.

When the AMBUSH! card is drawn, a skeleton leaps out from the nearest cover (doorway/alcove/corner) and charges the closest PC.

Reinforcements: 1d6 Cultists enter from a secret passage in a random room.

They Are At Our Back: 1d6 skeletons enter from the PC’s starting point.

Complications: A Chaos Champion enters from a secret passage in a random room.

Scenario Event: A wraith appears in a random room.

Wandering Monster: 

1-2 = 1d3 Ghouls enter from a secret passage in a random room.

3-4 = 1d3 Imps enter from a secret passage in a random room.

5 = A Cult Warrior enters from a secret passage in a random room.

6 = A winged lessor demon enters from a secret passage in a random room.

Fireballs
Fire balls that explode in a room act as normal, ie 3" radius blast. If one explodes in a tunnel the blast is channeled by the confines of the walls and the blast will extend 6" in EITHER direction from the point of impact.

Victory Conditions: The PCs must cross the table and leave from one of the tunnels on the western edge.

Other individual rewards: A PC carrying an out-of-action PC off the table gains 1 XP. Killing the wraith. demon or chaos champion earns 1XP.

This ended up as a two-level game and highlighted an issue with Sellswords & Spellslingers when playing an D&D style dungeon/tunnel adventure. Only foes that appears in, or close to, the tunnel the PCs are using get into play, any foes that appear else where in the complex never reach the party. This made it quite an easy game, so we decided to add in a second board to the game, laid out as a more open cavern complex.

In the first turn we had a bunch of skeletons turn up At Our Backs, but Gunnar quickly dealt with them.

Bravely Bold Sir Robin giving fencing lessons to a horde of cultists.

Brother Christos got distracted and "strayed from the path" to thump some skeletons ("Vile Undead Creatures!").

More undead threaten Eddie and Eldarondo.

The Elf shoots one and Gunnar charges up to deal with the last one.

Sir Robin doing what he does best.

More undead nasties chasing the party..."Who didn't shut the door behind us?".

A big Chaos beastie appears.

" Way out's clear now!" Sir Robin yelled.
"Clear? What about that skeleton?"
Thud!
"What skeleton?"
In the meantime the rest of the party turn to face.....

....a wraith!
It didn't stand a chance!
Eddie, Sintamo and Eldarondo each peppered the floating washing horse with missiles, whist Gunnar chugged his Potion of Fury and charged the creature. On a total of +11 to his combat roll (!!!!) the dwarf smashed the monster to pieces with his mighty axe.

A horde of cults in pursuits suddenly screech to a halt. FIREBALL!

BOOM! Eldarondo got the last one with an arrow.

At this point we called a halt, the way to the exit was clear and the game felt too easy so far. We added in a second level.

We reset the scenario, just leaving off any starting foes we had killed in the previous level, which made the table look a bit empty.....

.....to begin with, but it didn't last.

And a Chaos Champion turned up. Nasty!

Who could breath fire! Very nasty!

Gunnar failed two activations and drew an Ambush. He smashed the first skeleton to the ground.

Then drew another Ambush (who shuffled the deck!). He also smashed that skeleton, but the first one just got back up again!
At this point Gunnar got extremely frustrated that some of the skeletons would not stay down.
"I keep killing the buggers and they keep getting back up!"
Christos: "Technically you are not "killing" them, they are already dead!"
Eddie: "But aren't they undead, not dead?"
Christos:"Yes, but they have to be dead first in order to become undead!"
Eddie: "So if Gunnar smashes them are they then dead-undead?"
Eldarondo: "Or re-dead?"
Gunnar: "Will you lot shut up!"

More cultists charge forward to face a FIREBALL!

"Eddie, stop giggling."
"Sorry."

As Gunnar struggles with yet another skeleton that doesn't know when it's dead, the Chaos Champion closes in.
To avoid a barbecued dwarf, \Sintamo and |Eldarondo fill the creature with arrows, which does the job and the Chaos Champion falls to the ground.

Just as well, because a wraith is closing in from the other side of the table.

A Cultist Warrior (with a big axe) rushes towards Eddie, how tries a fireball but only acheives a puff of smoke and a couple of sparks.

So it's left to Gunnar to cut the warrior down.
At this point Gunnar can see the path is clear to the exit, so calls out "Follow me lads!" and rushes off the table.
"What?" shouts Robin. "We are a bit occupied here!" as he and Christos were now in melee with the wraith.

And a flying demon made it's appearance!

To complicate things Eddie got ambushed by a skeleton.
"SODOFFLEAVEMEALONE, Gunnar. Help!".
While Eddie closed his eyes and panicked The Sword quickly dealt with the offending undead.
Sir Robin and Christos killed the wraith, then moved back to join the party, Christos coming to Eldarondo's aid against another horde of skeletons.
"Where's the dwarf?"

Sintamo calmly peppered the oncoming demon with arrows, and Eddie got it right with his fireball spell this time....BOOM!

With no foes nearby, the rest of the party legged it off after the dwarf.
"What kept you lot?"