Play Report: the Cherry Crypts

Intro

I was able to run my regular group through my new dungeon The Cherry Crypts over the past few weeks. It took them four sessions to go through most of the dungeon, and they decided to leave after losing a party member to a tough fight. We will now return to our regular campaign, hopefully with some fond memories for the group, and some lessons learned for me. 

Evil flying cherry skull. Best pic I could find. 

Characters: 

Cribbage: halfling wizard obsessed with sketching maps. 

Briar: pixie druid who loves to fly around. 

Bozzy: frog-man ranger with a purple slime companion

Jim: big half-ogre barbarian (only joined for Sessions 2 & 3)

Kez: goblin warlock fond of hiding from all danger

Session 1

• The party entered the Cherry Crypts through room 15 ROYAL CRYPT, fought the King & Queen skeletons. Nobody succumbed to the poison herbs, but the goblin warlock’s familiar got clawed to death. 
• They went south and examined 16, 17, 18 CRYPTS and avoided the beetle swarm. The frog sent his slime familiar into 17 CAPTAIN CRYPT and it got enraged by the mood spell, but they enticed it out with some illusory metal (the slime likes to eat metal). 
• They headed west and started listening at some doors. Behind the door to 20 RUINED BREAK-ROOM they could hear three cherry pitlings fighting over something. The goblin cast Tongues and translated their strange language for everyone else. They were fighting over something they called their ‘shiny’ and talked about their dead dad (i.e. the wizard whose corpse is in 12 WIZARD PARLOUR). 

Seasons of Penrod: Four One-Page Dungeons

Given its continental temperate climatography, the Principality of Penrod enjoys four robust seasons. The year begins with an icy winter, with loads of snow and the birth of early goat kids. Next is spring, when flowers bloom and the flax is planted. Then comes summer, when noble families visit their lodges on pristine alpine lakeshores and the common folk are busy mowing hay. At last is autumn when folks harvest peas, honey, grapes and acorns. Thus the world turns around the sun and the gods smile upon those who labour under her light. 

But there are others who do not labour under the sun. They do not slaughter hogs in the winter, nor do they plant onions in the spring, shear sheep in the summer, nor take stock to market in the autumn. These people are noble-born, and thus free from a life of hard work and feudalism. 

You are one of these nobles. You have a gaggle of noble-born cousins with whom you hang out. Your shared Grandmother is the Countess of your little county. And while you don't have to labour in a field, you have labours of another kind. 

Roughly once each season, Grandmother gathers you in her parlour and bequeaths unto you a quest. You line up at the cupboard and grab your swords, spellbooks, and extremely fancy expensive leather walking boots, and head into the hinterlands on whatever dangerous adventure Grandmother sets you to. 

Behold, Four Seasonally-Themed Dungeons

Each one fitting on a single page. 

Winter - The Ice Tower of Evil Sorcerer Hank

Link to PDF. 

Winter - Ice Tower of Evil Sorcerer Hank

Dungeon Poem Challenge: Ice Troll Moon Abbey

Patrick Stuart issued a Dungeon Poem Challenge this week, and how could I not participate? I've been fascinated by the idea of dungeon-key-as-poetry in the past, as well as the idea of reusing a simple dungeon map.

My dungeon poem is:

Ice Troll Moon Abbey

Click the title above for a PDF version. 

I rotated the map and arranged everything into one page, just like the excellent entry from Coins & Scrolls. I am hoping to use this dungeon for a game with a group of friends who have only played a couple times before. They're not much for combat, and much more for social interactions and looking at weird stuff. So hopefully a giant talking panther and some moon iconography is weird enough for them. 

I am greatly looking forward to reading all the other Dungeon Poems. I haven't looked at any of them except for the Coins & Scrolls one, since I wanted to have the map be fresh and unspoiled in my mind. I might come edit this post linking to my favourites. 

A Bestiary for Penrod

The Principality of Penrod is pleasant state, ruled by Prince Pepin the Young, surrounded by jolly allies and good-natured rivals. Chief exports include timber, flax, tin, literary culture, and temperate fruits. A brutal king many many generations ago hated all the minority cultures of Penrod and so did his darndest to eradicate them by forcing the dominant language on the populace (on pain of death), thus solidifying the Penrodite culture as we know today: literate and unified. 

The Penrod of today is full of chipper flax farmers, timely tin miners, and flouncy quill-bearing fops in the capital, safe from the frigid foothills of the southern reaches, thick forest to the north, and sinister mountain peaks at the eastern border. And so—there are beasts abound. At these borderlands lurk creepies and crawlies, and in the liminal spaces of all human life (underground, beneath floorboards, in the walls, between specks of civilized light) dwell the horrors that shall consume us all. 

A Bestiary

1. Flaxenvaccim

When refuse from the flax harvest is piled at the edges and corners of the fields, and these fields lay adjacent to drained cranberry bogs and the hopeless cranberry pulp laid aside after being pushed through juicers and strainers, the rotting flax and cranberry mix and mingle, slowly birthing a Flaxenvaccim. 

This slim creature is fragile and wet—its bones are flax fibres and its flesh is cranberry jelly. Slop sloughs off as it walks, and it often has to stop to scoop bits of jelly back onto itself, or to affix a fallen flaxen fibula back onto its knee joint. When first born, they're usually the size of a small child, but proportioned like a human adult: two legs, two arms, a torso, and a lopsided head with no eyes or mouth. 

As they grow by feeding on god knows what, they solidify and gain strength and stiffness. Eventually they mature at about waist height, but never really gain full strength. They love to hide in fields and steal cats. 

The Cherry Crypts: a big ol' dungeon

I made a dungeon! I worked on this a lot over the holidays, and I finally polished it up and finished the key. At 98 rooms this certainly isn't a megadungeon. But it's big enough to fuel multiple sessions of play. There are lots of toys to play with. 

Enchanted gremlins made of cherry pits, trapped devils with whom to deal, treasure to steal, a wizard's corpse to loot, creatures frozen since the ice age to battle, dinosaurs to let loose, factions to fall into, and at least two rooms where it's snowing all the time. 

**EDIT** Some folks asked for a map with a white background. I put in an image below and updated the PDF to include both map versions. 

Cherry Crypts Map

White background map. 

Check out the full PDF (map + key) here and let me know what you think. I was able to run my regular group through this dungeon for four sessions and it was a lot of fun. Check out the play report here. 

The 'top' level of the dungeon is a set of ancient crypts buried beneath a grove of cherry trees. These crypts were probably built within the past few centuries, by a clan or two of druidic type folks. Lots of herbs and leather, plenty of rotten wooden doors and nature-themed fun. 

More recently, like within the past decade, a wizard made his lair in the crypts. He harvested cherry fruit to make enchanted wine, created little gremlin slaves out of mashed-together cherry pits, experimented on woodland creatures, and dabbled in a little devil summoning. Sometime in the last year, he was killed by his latest experiment: a giant ferret with three heads and dragonfly wings. Ever since, his botched experiment and the cherry pit gremlins have run amok on their own. 

The 'bottom' level of the dungeon is much older. I'm not sure exactly why they're connected, or how aware of the bottom level the druids (or wizard) were, or how far they explored. It was built thousands of years ago by a race of powerful sabretooth-tiger people (aka. the smilodons). It is part tomb, part fortress, and part cryogenic freezing chamber. 

The smilodon have very recently (maybe within the past few days) been awoken from their cryogenic sleep. Also dinosaurs. 

Some Design Notes:

• All Monster Stats are for my GLOG hack Catacombers, which is basically Electric Bastionland but with GLOG magic classes and gold-for-XP. 
• I made multiple entrances because I like that flexibility. I would say any of these entrances would make a good starting point for a delve. 
• I tried to Jaquay this dungeon to a high degree: there are plenty of loops, multiple entrances, two different ways to access the second level, and plenty of connections. 
• Each level has an encounter table. I'm assuming that you are rolling on this table every 10-20 in-game minutes, so pretty often. The last entry on each table is a wanderer from the other level, just to give some continuity. 
• I'm hoping to run this thing pretty soon, so I will add more about my thoughts.