Banished to the Purple Planet - Part Seven

Under a Weirdling Sun

Peril on the Purple Planet is an epic DCCRPG box set devised by +Harley Stroh. The adventure is a hex crawl, so player characters get to explore a completely open and lush world. Characters must discover artifacts, make alliances, battle terrifying worms, and sustain the deadly sun's rays if they are to ever make their way back home.

Care to hear about this week's banishment? Read on!

Previous Tales of the Banished

• Banished to the Purple Planet - Part One
• Banished to the Purple Planet - Part Two
• Banished to the Purple Planet - Part Three
• Banished to the Purple Planet - Part Four
• Banished to the Purple Planet - Part Five
• Banished to the Purple Planet - Part Six

The Banished

• Marc
• Nutbiter, Manimal 
• Andy
• Ssof Rehtaf, Cleric
• Paul
• Dukdiv/Dee, Kith
• StarRider, Wizard
• Alex
• Nicodemus, Thief

Banished to the Purple Planet - Part Seven - The Rock Awakens

Judge's Note: I just want to point out two things about this session. First, you may notice that Nutbiter is now a player character. During his first official episode as a Glowburn co-host, I gave Judge Marc a gift: the gift of a manimal character for the Purple Planet. Admittedly there is an ulterior motive here, in that I'd like to see how this Mutant Crawl Classics character class operates in Dungeon Crawl Classics. For mutations, Nutbiter has 4 arms, plasticity, and molecular integration. So, an extra attack, fast runner, can stand tall and reach out, and can heal. 

The second thing is that The Rock Awakens is a friggin' brutal and badass adventure that is laden with death: pure death. Death everywhere. Thankfully the party had Ssof the Cleric with them, but don't play around when adventuring in this city. 

And be especially careful around three headed giant adders. 


Day 8

• The session begins at 12:40am, game time, with 10 hours of travel on the party's skiff.
• The party rests through the night, so they can explore the skiff in the morning. 

Day 9

• Bright and early in the morning the party prepares to enter the great alabaster city. 
• They notice that the walls are low enough to enter from any point. 
• The ruined city is separated into four quadrants. Along the northern edge is a great, black stone "wave" that stretches out over a full third of the city's lost buildings.
• Three buildings are left standing, including an old temple, a great tower, and a bizarre triangular building along the northern edge.
• Six floating devices hover about high above the triangular building.
• When the party enters the city they first have to contend with a patch of quicksand. Fortunately, Nutbiter is on point, and his legs are super stretchy. So when he gets sucked down into the sand, he is able to stand up a full 15' higher than normal. 
• Ssof used his magic hammer "Fairy Stomper" to detect changes in the ground, leading the party around the sand.
• The party noticed that the use of Fairy Stomper caused a minor earthquake. In fact, any magic used caused some kind of quake.
• Heading east, the party came to one of the main roads intersecting the city. To the north they heard a voice chanting. To the east was the old temple. 
• It seemed that all of the buildings that still stood were propped up by stony vines that rose from the ground below. 
• When Dukdiv tried to cross the road, four stony vines attacked him. 
• During a brutal battle with the stone vines, Dukdiv was almost killed, and Nutbiter lost his molecular integration power for the day. After freeing the party's Kith, the party fled to the east.
• Nutbiter climbed on top of the temple, and Ssof climbed Nutbiter's leg to be on top of the building as well.
• Dukdiv and Nicodemus tried entering the front of the temple, and all hell broke loose as a pair of giant, three headed adders attacked. Dukdiv was struck down again for the second time, and Nicodemus soiled himself and ran after taking a snake bite. 
• Nicodemus climbed atop the roof, and the party regrouped. Ssof cast Sanctuary on himself, then went down to heal Dukdiv. 
• Again, the party tried to enter the temple, but this time Nutbiter was felled along with Dukdiv. At least they killed one of the snakes. 
• The team got Nutbiter out of there, but Dukdiv got dragged off by a snake. It was back on top of the roof again to regroup for a second time.
• StarRider the Wizard showed up to assist, led the team into the temple, and Magic Missile'd the remaining snake (who was pregnant) with one hit.
• Unfortunately the snake had already consumed Dukdiv, so he wasn't coming back. 
• Nutbiter skinned the snake, and instantly StarRider noticed that the inside of the snakeskin read like a spell. One of the spells was Patron Bond for Azi Dahaka.
• Given the powerful magicks he used to destroy the pregnant giant three headed adder, StarRider felt a special connection with Azi Dahaka, and was able to instantly attempt the bond.
• StarRider knelt down, and consumed several of the remaining baby snakelings that were flopping around from the exploded giant snake. Once his eyes became snake eyes it was clear: StarRider was now fully bound to Azi Dahaka!

Quotes

"Get him boy! Go get him boy!" - Nicodemus trying to command Nutbiter. 

"You should write Harley Stroh a very stern letter about how Manimals from Mutant Crawl Classics ruin Peril of the Purple Planet." - Alex

Alex - "Gonna give it the old college try. [Fails die roll]"
Judge James - "Did you go to community college?"

"The view up here's pretty nice!" - Ssof to Nicodemus and Dukdiv getting attacked by snakes. 

"Suddenly climbing the dog's leg doesn't seem so bad." - Andy

"This game has literally become Tremors." - Judge James

"You know, you should've called me sooner." - Starider to the rest of the party. 

In Memoriam 

• Dukdiv/Dee - Devoured by pregnant 3 Headed Giant Adder

Legends of the Great SCOT 

The Free Company successfully completed the Great Sunken City Omnibus Tour. Care to find out about their previous quests? Follow the links below to greatness...

• Perils of the Sunken City, Part One
• Perils of the Sunken City, Part Two
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part One
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Two
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Three
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Four
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Five
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Six
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Seven
• A Gathering of the Marked, Part One
• A Gathering of the Marked, Part Two
• A Gathering of the Marked, Part Three
• Return to Slither's End
• Lair of the Mist Men, Part One
• Lair of the Mist Men, Part Two

As always, Die Rodney!

Family Game Knights - The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 4

Exploring the Chained Coffin

Welcome to Family Game Knights, our regular tour through of the Shudder Mountains and  The Chained Coffin box set.  

For those uninitiated with the Chained Coffin, creative lead +Michael Curtis and the rest of the Goodman Games crew have created a wonderful and vibrant fantasy campaign setting based on Appalachian myth and legend.  During this journey, we'll be dipping into all of the adventures written specifically for the Shudder Mountains, as well as tossing in a few other favorites as well, thus turning this into a fantastic, ongoing campaign!  Special thanks to the DCCRPG G+ community for so many wonderful adventure suggestions.  

Here are our previously yarns:

• Session 1 - Sour Spring Hollow (from The Chained Coffin)
• Session 2 - Moonricket Bridge (from Tales of the Shudder Mountains)
• Session 3 - Doom of the Savage Kings (from Doom of the Savage Kings)
• Session 4 - Doom of the Savage Kings, Pt 2 (from Doom of the Savage Kings)
• Session 5 - Doom of the Savage Kings, Pt 3 
• Session 6 - Doom of the Savage Kings, Pt 4
• Session 7 - Attack of the Frawgs, Pt 1 (from Attack of the Frawgs)
• Session 8 - Attack of the Frawgs, Pt 2
• Session 9 - Discovering Ugly Bottom
• Session 10 - The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 1 (from The Emerald Enchanter)
• Session 11 - The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 2
• Session 12 - The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 3

Also to note:  I'm working on a Shudder Mountain soundtrack through a YouTube playlist.  Any suggestions?  Here's where we're at so far. 

The Adventuring Party

• Jen
• Wize Wizard McBride - Cleric
• Evie
• Jefffff - Warrior (she plans to add another "f" after each gained level)
• Carrie
• P. Specs - Thief
• Jeremy
• Sir Huey, Keeper of the Sacred Door - Warrior
• Ella
• Quinn & Kippy - Wizard & Squirrel Familiar
• Andy
• Walden - Thief
• Frank
• Zzizzle Fenderbender - Dwarf

Rugo USA QQ96, by Cooper Walls

The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 4

Look, I'm not gonna sugar coat tonight's game...

... it was a bit anti-climactic. 

After three previous sessions within The Emerald Enchanter's crazy lair, including a pair of trips back to town to restock and heal up, the party wrapped up the adventure by accepting a payoff to leave. That was it. No big boss battle. No pile of loot. No epic trip back to town, with a bunch of captives in tow. 

Nope, none of that. 

I guess the village of Ugly Bottom will continue to suffer under the ever-vengeful eye of the Emerald Enchanter.

Here are some of the details:

• The party did a bit more talking with dead things. Quinn used her Speak with Dead spell to converse with Gobur the skull, hoping to glean a bit more useful info about the Emerald Enchanter's Lair. She didn't gain much, only that the group's trip would take them past a prison holding area, and through a trapped room.

• The prisoner holding area included seven starving humans, a pair of cats that could shoot laser beams from their heads (totally in the adventure, I didn't make that up!), a boring snake, and an alien blob that only spoke in "wub" and "wub-wub's."

• Let it be known that the alien was henceforth known as "Wub Wub."

• The human prisoners were of little help, and the laser cat almost killed the Wize Wizard McBride, so the team turned their attention to Wub Wub. Through a series of "yes or no" questions (in which Wub Wub would answer Wub Wub for yes and Wub for no), the party was able to learn a bit more about the dungeons that lay ahead. Specifically of the dangers found in each room.

• A nearby trap room with a drop floor opening into acid (inspired by Grimtooth) really jacked with the party. On the other side of the short hallway consisting of this door was the chamber with a giant heat ray shooting skull. 

• It was around this time that Cooper (my 7 year old son) expected his monster/NPC to join the fray: Rugo USA QQ96. With skulls for fingers, and chainsaws around his waist, Rugo was a force to be reckoned with. But by a few lucky rolls, Walden was able to befriend the alien, who in turn attacked the skull, destroying it with his chainsaws. 

• The party followed a secret passage behind the giant skull to a room full of hands. Just a lot of hands, all being way too handsy. The hands had to be dealt with, and by combat, so that happened.

• At this point the Emerald Enchanter started to converse with the party. He was able to pay off the party pretty cheaply. He offered Wub Wub and a small gemstone that would help the user learn how to build spaceships better. I thought the offer sounded crazy, but the party bought it. Wild

And THAT is how we finished The Emerald Enchanter! I'm sure your trip was different.

Campaign Crematorium

• None this game... boo!

Family Game Knights - The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 3

Exploring the Chained Coffin

Welcome to Family Game Knights, our regular tour through of the Shudder Mountains and  The Chained Coffin box set.  

For those uninitiated with the Chained Coffin, creative lead +Michael Curtis and the rest of the Goodman Games crew have created a wonderful and vibrant fantasy campaign setting based on Appalachian myth and legend.  During this journey, we'll be dipping into all of the adventures written specifically for the Shudder Mountains, as well as tossing in a few other favorites as well, thus turning this into a fantastic, ongoing campaign!  Special thanks to the DCCRPG G+ community for so many wonderful adventure suggestions.  

Here are our previously yarns:

• Session 1 - Sour Spring Hollow (from The Chained Coffin)
• Session 2 - Moonricket Bridge (from Tales of the Shudder Mountains)
• Session 3 - Doom of the Savage Kings (from Doom of the Savage Kings)
• Session 4 - Doom of the Savage Kings, Pt 2 (from Doom of the Savage Kings)
• Session 5 - Doom of the Savage Kings, Pt 3 
• Session 6 - Doom of the Savage Kings, Pt 4
• Session 7 - Attack of the Frawgs, Pt 1 (from Attack of the Frawgs)
• Session 8 - Attack of the Frawgs, Pt 2
• Session 9 - Discovering Ugly Bottom
• Session 10 - The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 1 (from The Emerald Enchanter)
• Session 11 - The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 2

Also to note:  I'm working on a Shudder Mountain soundtrack through a YouTube playlist.  Any suggestions?  Here's where we're at so far. 

The Adventuring Party

• Jen
• Wize Wizard McBride - Cleric
• Evie
• Jefffff - Warrior (she plans to add another "f" after each gained level)
• Carrie
• P. Specs - Thief
• Jeremy
• Sir Huey, Keeper of the Sacred Door - Warrior
• Ella
• Quinn & Kippy - Wizard & Squirrel Familiar 
• Cooper
• Soapy McSoap - Warrior
• Andy
• Walden - Thief

The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 3

As you can probably tell from the cover art of this blog post, I decided to add a little trickery to tonight's session. You see, during Goodman Games' big Black Friday sale I managed to get my hands on Grimtooth's Ultimate Traps Collection. I then spent about three evenings digging through the crazy and brutal inventions. I couldn't wait to spring these on my players, and I had the perfect opportunity during our next episode of The Emerald Enchanter.

Our players are taking their sweet time with this adventure, an they keep going back to the village of Ugly Bottom after exploring part of the Emerald Enchanter's lair. Well, this time I decided that there would be a price to pay. The Emerald Enchanter reached out to Grimtooth and purchased a bunch of traps to catch those pesky jerks that keep messing around with his stuff. My good friend Frank put this idea in my head about 8 years ago. The idea that a dungeon left alone should be restocked and better guarded this time around.

Well the Emerald Enchanter spared no expense to protect his home! When the PC's arrived they found a note on the front door:

"Dear Burglars: Don't come inside ever again. You've been warned. - EE"

Naturally my players did not follow this advice... it would've been a short game if they had!

The party thieves, Walden and P. Specs, both checked the door for traps, and found one: a door knob that would grow spikes, blast off and strike the players. Walden disarmed the trap, and pocketed the spiky knob. They then opened the door. 

The front hallway had a complete home makeover! The Emerald Enchanter replaced the tile floor with black tiles, and the ceiling was a swirling mass of sand. Walden entered the room, and gravity reversed, pulling him into quicksand on the ceiling. Both Sir Huey and Soapy managed to get sucked in as well, but they went in head first and started taking damage. Maybe I should give you some mechanics, as this trap was inspired by Grimtooth, but of my own design:

• Gravity Sand: PC steps into the room and gravity reverses. DC 15 Reflex Save to go into the quicksand feet first instead of head first. If headfirst, PC takes 1d10 damage every minute. Anyone trying to pull the PC free must make the same save or they get pulled in unless they are tethered. 

Holy traps!

After freeing the PC's (Sir Huey would need to be revived, as he fell below zero hit points) our party wizard Quinn used her Flaming Hands spell to turn the sand to glass. The team then stepped out into the room. Since only the first fifteen feet were glass, Soapy used his shovel to burrow through the nearby wall into a hidden passage. This gained the team access to the next part of the map.

If you read our play report from the last session, you know everywhere that the players went this game, as they didn't go anywhere new. But with every turn, I hit them with a trap:

• A floor trap in one of the hallways that can be found in Grimtooth's Ultimate Traps Collection. Step on one side, and the floor flips around on a hinge, dumping the PC into spikes below. 
• Another trapped doorknob, with a handle that turned to acidic slime. On the other side of that door the party would find a signed receipt from Grimtooth to "E.E."
• A [REDACTED] that the party didn't find, but I really hope they do next game.
• A rolling ball trap that greeted the players just before they went into the room with the remains of the three dead wizards (the Consultorium.) It was a full 10' wide ball, straight out of Indiana Jones. Three of the PC's ducked into a nearby barracks chamber, while the other three retreated so as not to get crushed. 

This was Cooper's 3rd full game in this campaign, and he did a wonderful job figuring out a way to bypass some of the traps via digging through walls.

When the party finally made it back to the Consultorium, Quinn used her new Speak with the Dead spell. She cast it on both the mummified corpse and the brain in the jar. 

• Thesipedes (the corpse) revealed that the word "Yasmilon" could be used to destroy Emerald Eidolons. Also, that the safest way to get to the Emerald Enchanter was through a grate in the floor, found later in the dungeon.
• Istrobian (the brain in the jar): promised Quinn great power, and tricked the party wizard into letting it sneak into his brain, taking up residence. Quinn would gain intelligence with his new second brain, but at the cost of needing to eat human or elf brains. 

Unlike previous journeys into the Emerald Enchanter's domain, this time the party decided not to head back to the village afterwards. 

A Fine Selection of Quotes from the Table

"Wait a minute. I have a bomb." - Andy. And his character really did have one!

Campaign Crematorium

• None this game... boo!

Family Game Knights - The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 2

Exploring the Chained Coffin

Welcome to Family Game Knights, our regular tour through of the Shudder Mountains and  The Chained Coffin box set.  

For those uninitiated with the Chained Coffin, creative lead +Michael Curtis and the rest of the Goodman Games crew have created a wonderful and vibrant fantasy campaign setting based on Appalachian myth and legend.  During this journey, we'll be dipping into all of the adventures written specifically for the Shudder Mountains, as well as tossing in a few other favorites as well, thus turning this into a fantastic, ongoing campaign!  Special thanks to the DCCRPG G+ community for so many wonderful adventure suggestions.  

Here are our previously yarns:

• Session 1 - Sour Spring Hollow (from The Chained Coffin)
• Session 2 - Moonricket Bridge (from Tales of the Shudder Mountains)
• Session 3 - Doom of the Savage Kings (from Doom of the Savage Kings)
• Session 4 - Doom of the Savage Kings, Pt 2 (from Doom of the Savage Kings)
• Session 5 - Doom of the Savage Kings, Pt 3 
• Session 6 - Doom of the Savage Kings, Pt 4
• Session 7 - Attack of the Frawgs, Pt 1 (from Attack of the Frawgs)
• Session 8 - Attack of the Frawgs, Pt 2
• Session 9 - Discovering Ugly Bottom
• Session 10 - The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 1 (from The Emerald Enchanter)

Also to note:  I'm working on a Shudder Mountain soundtrack through a YouTube playlist.  Any suggestions?  Here's where we're at so far. 

The Adventuring Party

• Jen
• Wize Wizard McBride - Cleric
• Evie
• Jefffff - Warrior (she plans to add another "f" after each gained level)
• Carrie
• P. Specs - Thief
• Jeremy
• Sir Huey, Keeper of the Sacred Door - Warrior
• Ella
• Quinn & Kippy - Wizard & Squirrel Familiar 
• Cooper
• Graver - Gravedigger
• Soapy McSoap - Gravedigger

The Emerald Enchanter, Pt 2

Happy holiday season to all you Living 4 Crits readers out there! What better way to spend this festive season than to be together rolling dice with all your favorite folks? That's definitely how we roll here in the Walls residence! 

And to make this season even more special, we received a special package from Goodman Games: our rewards from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Scratch Off Character Sheets Kickstarter. Now, I was planning on keeping these hidden until next month's Norwin Game Knights event, but Cooper was so excited at the concept that he demanded the opportunity to join our game as a player... so long as he could scratch off some characters. 

I was pretty geeked about this. Cooper played in Moonricket Bridge but has been absent since, not showing much interest in joining the group as a player. He's been participating as a monster creator, drawing some random crazy stuff that I've injected into the game from week to week. Now that he's seven, though, I really wanted him to spent more time at the table. Well, the allure of these scratch off sheets was quite strong! 

He ended up with two gravediggers (scratching off the second after the first died.) The first character was pretty decent (14 Agility, everything else between 9-12), and the second was pretty much the opposite. Obviously the second lived. I'm hoping that he wants to join in the next game. We played for about two-and-a-half hours and he stuck it out for all but the last thirty minutes. I think he'll have a better time once he has a character that can stand toe-to-toe with the monsters in this challenging adventure. 

During our last session of The Emerald Enchanter by +Joseph Goodman, the party chose to leave the Emerald Enchanter's Citadel to regroup and upgrade their gear. I thought that this was some wise gameplay last session, and was impressed at the care they were taking to ensure that they would all survive the adventure.

Gameplay was a bit shakier last night. 

I think the fact that we've been away from this particular campaign since early September threw off the group's Dungeon Crawl Classics dynamic. Quinn the Wizard was leading the charge into rooms firing a bow instead of casting spells. Both Jefffff and P. Specs kept trying non-combat solutions to encounters where combat had already been chosen by other player characters. The Wize Wizard McBride couldn't cast a spell to save his... or anyone else's... life. 

Actually that last part is pretty par for the course throughout the campaign.

Eventually the group remembered how to properly play DCC, and they made some great progress in what only ended up being a two-and-a-half hour session:

• Hall of Anguish: The party encountered a series of weird Ebon Spirits, who at first were very little threat until Jefffff started playing his fiddle. For some reason this really made the spirits mad, and they assaulted the party's spear-weilding warrior! Sir Huey was quick to come to Jefffff's aid, but the rest of the party bickered over whether or not to try and fight. The Wize Wizard McBride couldn't cast a single spell, so no help there. The battle cost poor Graver his short life. Sir Huey was able to light the fiddle on fire, thus quelling the anger of the spirits.

• Passageways:  Here's where the party got a bit sloppy. Quinn led the team right through a trapped area, which he dodged, but then he led them into battle with an emerald statue. Sure, that fight was pretty easy for the supremely powerful Sir Huey, but the party was by no means prepared.

• Bedroom: Looting this room led to some great swag! A scroll for Quinn an a statue and cash for Sir Huey.

• Lounge:  All that great gear in the previous room meant that the party expected it in the next. No luck! Even so, the Judge was nice enough to place a hissing metal cylinder in the room for the team to agonize over. 

• Library: Now THIS was a fun puzzle! The room contained two teleporting books that traveled around eight pedestals as they were approached. The party needed to figure out a way to first get them to stop teleporting, and then free them from their ledges. To help the team visualize the scene I used dice for the books, and then brought out my old D&D miniatures. The party eventually found copies of "Thesdipedes' Book of Transmogrification" and "The Emerald Enchanter's Blueprints." Quinn could use the former to communicate with the dead, so long as he had enough practice.

• Guard Station:  After finding the secret door at the end of the Hall of Anguish, the party broke into the next portion of the Emerald Enchanter's Citadel... where the true danger awaited the foolish mortals!

• Consultorium: Earlier in the quest, some of the emerald statues turned to humans after being slain, each calling out for Thesdipedes for some request. Well in this macabre room the party found the elusive Thesdipedes. All that remained was a mummified corpse leaning against an ancient sarcophagus. Also in the room was a brain in a jar (labeled "Istrobian") and a skull on a wall (labeled "Gobur.") Quinn believed that he could communicate with all of these corpses if only he had an evening to study the books found earlier. So the party ditched the citadel and headed back to Ugly Bottom. 

Hopefully next week we'll be joined by +andrew lyon. He was supposed to be at last night's event, but he took a nap and slept in. Too bad. We really could've used Walden's expertise! 

A Fine Selection of Quotes from the Table

Carrie - "I'm gonna crack open a cold one!"
Judge James - "Don't you mean you're gonna uncork a warm one?"

"If I die, don't rip my underwear off." - The Wize Wizard McBride's requests were modest. 

Campaign Crematorium

• Graver: Cooper's first 0-level character created using the DCC Scratch Off Character Sheets got murdered by an Ebon Spirit in the long hallway. 

Cypher vs. the Sky High Tower

Cypher the Shaman of ACHROMA

I've had several opportunities over the last year or so to be an over-the-top, radioactively gonzo Mutant Crawl Classics judge. Granted, most of these games have been one shots. I've run two sessions of Museum at the End of Time (by +Jim Wampler), three sessions of Nothing's Free in Ocean World (homebrew adventure), and just last week Judge Evie and I kicked off a father/daughter MCCRPG campaign starting with Hive of the Overmind (by +Julian Bernick). Many games, but I wanted more.

I wanted to try out Mutant Crawl Classics as a player! 

Leave it to Judge +Marc Plourde to oblige. My good friend, player, and occasional GM (whenever he can pin me down) offered to run Assault on the Sky High-Tower, by +Jim Wampler, for me and the rest of our Banished to the Purple Planet crew. There was no way I was missing this event! As one of the co-hosts of the Glowburn Podcast, I relished the opportunity to sit on the other side of the Judge's Screen and get the full, mutated experience.

Assault on the Sky-high Tower is featured in the back of the Mutant Crawl Classics Role Playing Game rulebook, and is suite for either 15-20 0-level characters or 8 1st level characters. We ended up with four players, and Marc let us each bring a single 1st level character, backed up with a trio of 0-level fodder. So I thought i'd take a moment to talk about my little team.

After generating four 0-levels via the Purple Sorcerer Mutant Crawl Classics 0-Level Party Generator, I took a look at everyone's stats, hoping to gain some kind of advantage. Three of my four 0-levels would make suitable 1st level characters, but I wanted the best experience. This is the one that spoke to me:

Great stats, maxed out hit points, and a Pure Strain Human... I was all set to play a Shaman!

Cypher, 1st Level Shaman of ACHROMA, Hunter from the Clan of Cog

• Strength 11, Agility 11, Stamina 14, Personality 14, Intelligence 15, Luck 9
• Hit Points 10, AC 10
• Wetware Programs: Invoke Patron (1/day), Security Override

Since ACHROMA is essentially Agent Smith from The Matrix, I wanted to have a name that I could draw from the movie series. Originally I went with Novo (kind of like Neo), but Neo and Agent Smith weren't the best of buds. Cipher (played by Joe Pantoliano in the movie) made much more sense. I swapped the "i" for a "y" as a little tribute to my other favorite RPG system. I think the coolest part of this character is how he has permanent "ACHROMA Over eyes" - sunglasses that are just glued to his face. Super badass!

Cypher has some pretty rad compatriots too. 

• Bromber the Plantient (berry bush), played by +andrew lyon 
• Agutter the Healer, played by +Paul Go 
• Tarn the Rover, played by +Craig McCullough 

All of those guys still have some 0-level characters left, but I don't keep track of minions' names. All in all we are a pretty Pure Strain Human heavy party, but I'm not complaining. Our plantient has an 18 Strength and multiple limbs!

We're about halfway through the adventure (I think), and Cypher is still going strong.  I drank some radioactive coffee and now have a permanently boosted Agility and Luck (both went up by one point). Unfortunately my three 0-level characters (Leondias, Frawg, and Slurps) didn't make it, and I just have the one-PC. But I have faith that Cypher will last until the end.  Our next game is early in November, and I can't wait to take MCCRPG out for another test drive. 

Player Perspective - TPK'd by Judge Evie

Stuffed on the Starless Sea

Following her incredible Dungeon Crawl Classics debut at Gen Con 50, Judge Evie went on the hunt to run another game as soon as possible. We talked about letter her run events at our local game club, the Norwin Game Knights, and agreed that it would be the perfect venue to let her build up her DCC Road Crew street cred. I thought it would be really cool if she gave +Harley Stroh's Sailors on the Starless Sea a try, as it's a great way to introduce the game to new players as well as new Judges.  

This wasn't Judge Evie's first time enjoying Sailors. Back in the summer of 2015 our family mashed Disney and DCC for the first time using this module. But it had been two years, and Evie never tried reading the adventure until this week. 

I have to admit it: the kid was really dedicated! She packed the adventure in her school backpack through the week, reading and studying during her breaks and on the bus. I even caught her earlier today laying in bed, napping with the book draped over her face. With this much diligent research and study I was pretty sure that we would get an experience faithful to the original spirit in which the adventure was published. 

I was so wrong!

I knew there was going to be trouble when I looked at her setup. She packed a bunch of extra stuffed animals in her game bag, along with her iPod, her Kindle, and four small tubs of homemade green slime. Looking at her quizzically I asked, "what is the slime for?" 

"It's for a certain part in the game," she replied. "It's also a prize." 

I shuddered in terror. 

We had five total players for the event. Six if you count Evie's friend who showed up late but got in for the final boss battle. 

I ended up with a decent set of 0-level characters: a Mutant Scout, a Robot Wanderer, and an Elf Armorer with a pair of sixteens. We were using the Crawling Under a Broken Moon pre-gens for the most part, but my special stash of 0-level characters in our big 0-level box is so mishmashed. You never know what you're going to get. 

I named my Robot Wanderer 12345 (alternatively spelled I II III IV V).  The Mutant was Trevor Buttz (named for one of player Michael's US Army basic training buddies) and my Elf was Sabra.

None survived the evening. 

Judge Evie made sure to come to the event decked out in her finest DCC Judge Swag, including her special shirt. 

Evie was very clear that the stuffed animals had a critical roll to play in the adventure. 

That pink stuffie in the picture? That was an actual stuffed animal in the game that attacked us before we even started the adventure. It was brutal too! Pretty sure it took down the first player character. 

There was a small greenish dragon that she put in front of the player with the lowest Luck score. I'm quite proud, as she got this from me! I've used the "Unlucky Dog" and the "Unlucky Squirrel" and she caught on. 

There was also a white owl that appeared mid-game just to indirectly cause carnage. The Owl had a 15 armor class and would sit on players' shoulders asking to be friends. I don't think it ever attacked anyone... at first... but we were pretty intent on killing it ourselves. Unfortunately we never managed to beat it up long enough to drop it down from the 20+ hit points my kid gave the jerk.

Wait... you don't recognize the pink stuffed animal or owl on the shoulder from Harley's original adventure? Let's cover a few of the other modifications Judge Evie made to this game:

• The vines that attacked our player characters as we entered the keep had a lingering curse on the players. Anyone who hit them eventually had vines erupt from their body. After that first encounter Judge Evie set a timer on her iPod. After an hour of gameplay one of the PC's had their chest explode. Then another. The vines then took control of the PC forcing them to attack their friends.

• Oh, that last scene wouldn't have been so hard if Judge Evie hadn't turned the owl against us at the same exact time. 

• When I tried removing one of the Beastmen banners down from the outside of the keep, Judge Evie ruled that there were jellybean colored termites waiting behind the fabric. They ate my character through the hip, and chased the rest of the PC's into the keep. 

• In the original module there is a small, burned down chapel on one of the keep's inner walls. On the outside there is a sign that says "Repent." Evie decided that this sign actually said "PAIN" and that there was a "Welcome Mat" on the floor just outside. When one of the PC's lifted the mat and saw a big red button, she pushed it. This caused the PC with the lowest Luck score to just explode, even though they were nowhere near the button. 

 

When we were running low on time and characters, Judge Evie pulled out the rest of the stuffed animals and declared that the Cult Leader was the big, pink, bear-unicorn. The rest of the stuffies were cultists. Within ten minutes the entire party was dead. 

No punches pulled. No quarter. No relief.

Just death.

Here's our pile of the damned. I'm starting to think that DCC Inferno Road had a lasting impact on this kid that the Norwin Game Knights is going to feel for years to come.