This week was an exciting one. It was a session of perilous fighting, lethal magick, victory and loss. And perhaps most importantly, I remember how things ended. Its amazing what a tiny amount of moderation can accomplish.
Dramatis Personae
PCs
* Calvert, hammer-wielding dwarf with a shield pauldron
* Stacia, aka The Lady of the Quaking Bosom, cleric of Mitra
* Chandler, cunning thief with a do not resuscitate order
* Nick, wizard and pole arm enthusiast
* Poundfoolish, halfling and wielder of Eye Finder, a magic bow
Foes
* Birmzy the Trickster, a wicked wizard of Sezrekan the Elder, recently beheaded and reborn (unborn?) as a demilich.
With the help of players Jim and Rolland, I have reconstructed how last session ended. The party made it to the final chamber of the dungeon, a room that contained a plinth with a bell jar on it. The bell jar contained what appeared to be the circlet that the party was sent to retrieve. Given the trap-filled nature of the this dungeon, grappling hooks were again used, a bell jar was smashed and the circlet was snatched. Also Chandler, a man with a crowbar, decided to pry the gong that was handing in the room off. And evidently he rolled really well in doing so, which may be why in my *ahem* compromised state last week I allowed him to do so without triggering the final trap.
Oh, and what a fun trap it was meant to be. The Dinner Dong trap, from page 101 of the Grimtooth’s Old School Traps, is supposed to lure adventurers to something like a treasure chest. Once opened, the gong activates, becoming a giant magnet that pulls all metal towards it. Armored characters get stuck, weapons go flying, and then a false wall drops to reveal a hungry monster. I modified this trap, replacing the recommended geriatric monster with a decrepit undead, mid-metamorphosis. But alas, through a combination of good rolls and GM self-sabotage, we’ll never know how that trap would’ve impacted the final battle. It’s probably for the best, since Birmzy almost TPK’ed the party without it.
And this is where we first met Birmzy the Trickster (excluding his cameo as a severed head). He is a skeletal nightmare, his back crooked with corpse-skin partially stitched across his body, his eyes aglow with a ghostly eldritch purple light. Annoyed that his traps failed to kill anyone, he initiated combat and initiatives were rolled.
We began this week’s session by taking a small step back from that ending. Instead of jumping into combat, Birmzy took time to talk to the party, because he had important things to say and offers to make. I couldn’t believe how close I had come the week before to undoing all of my own plans. I mean, the undoing of GM’s plans is the dice’s job, not the GMs!
For one thing, more details about Birmzy were revealed. On his head was the circlet the party sought, and it was more ornate than the other two they had seen on the heads at the Vorpal One’s camp. He also had a sword hanging at his side, that he frequently took time to shout “shut up” to while he talked to the party.
He offered the party to join with him in fighting the Vorpal One. He told them of the power they would have if they recovered the other two circlets. When Chandler announced he serves no gods or masters, Birmzy tried to assure him that with this power they would be able to rival even his own patron, the wicked Sezrekan the Elder.
Birmzy also explained how it was only because of the tactical prowess of the dwarves Jackson and Livingstone that The Vorpal One defeated him and his companions. But in spite of these promises, the party was not swayed. And now we rolled initiative.
From the start, Birmzy was using the powerful Transference spell to try and control the body of different members of the party. He also cast Color Spray, which both blinded and paralyzed PCs, while using spells like Scorching Ray to damage and ignite them. Chandler managed to do some impressive damage to the demilich before Birmzy successfully cast Transference.
After a high spell attack roll, Birmzy took full control of Chandler’s body. The spell manifested itself in the form of spectral versions of the demilich and thief locked in a grapple, resolving with the ghostly villain forcing his way into the PC’s body. Birmzy’s body went limp, and Chandler’s body went charging back into the previous room. Poundfoolish, blinded by Color Spray, fired arrows to no avail at the demilich. Even Calvert had a hard time connecting his hammer to the villain’s empty body. Stacia did what she does best, which is heal the wounded. Worth noting that while she was not successful in every Lay on Hands she did, at least she did not gain any disapproval this session.
By the next round, the Birmzy-possessed Chandler jumped gleefully into the chute that ended in the spider pit. In DCC, the best a PC can hope for is a glorious or gruesome death (ideally both glorious and gruesome). Chandler received a pretty gruesome death, as the spiders descended on him to his full awareness after Birmzy left his body. Multiple venomous bites paralyzed him and dropped him to 0 hit points. To further seal his fate, Birmzy Color Sprayed the party again, blinding and paralyzing most of them.
It’s worth noting that this is the closest we’ve come to a TPK in our DCC campaign. Chandler was down, all but I believe Stacia and Calvert (here is where my memory is a little fuzzy) were left standing due to the strategic placement of the bell jar. And Birmzy was ready to finish them off. I can imagine how things would’ve picked up had everyone died. A new party approaches the camp of the Vorpal One and he says “hey, have I got a job for you…”
It is at this point some of the finer details escape me. Chandler expired in the spider pit. Poundfoolish fumbled as he blindly fired his magic bow. And a melee attack from an unlikely source put an end to Birmzy. Nick and his halberd delivered the final blow, putting an end to the demilich.
Upon reflection, if I had been a more attentive GM the TPK would’ve probably happened. For example, how does a non-magical halberd do damage against a creature that probably should be immune to such things? Why didn’t the Shield Maiden, a defensive spell only available to followers of Sezrekan, not intercept the killing blow? Perhaps I’m not as ruthless a Judge as I’d like to think. But then again, another PC did die, which brings the death count on this campaign to 13 out of a total of 18 PCs by my count. Out of the original 15 PCs that began at level 0, only 4 remain, or 3 if you don’t count Umbobo, who gets to live on as a NPC now that Bryce is on indefinite hiatus from the campaign.
I do want to say that a game that embraces lethal consequences requires players who aren’t afraid to watch their characters die. And I understand that is not for everyone. But lethality of encounters is a primary component to what makes this game fun, with the initial funnel setting expectations with its hyperbolic example. Players that see a PC death as a chance to end one story and begin another in their individual journey is what makes this game a blast to run. And I am glad that everyone in this group has truly been on board for this part game. So a little shout out to my players for being good sports about their characters’ grizzly deaths.
After defeating Birmzy, the party recovered Birmzy’s sword. It is a short sword, that he described as being forged by elder forces from an ancient time. It looks otherworldly, made of an alien-like metal with a greenish color almost like verdigris. I forget who picked up the sword, but it greeted them with a low pitched “hey.”
All in all, it was quite a boss fight. I was really unsure how long the battle would last. I certainly didn’t expect it to go the 15 rounds it did. Originally I conceived of this final boss being a more conventional one. For example, I considered a giant spider, keeping it on theme for this dungeon. But then I decided it would be more fun if it was a villain that we’d find as interesting as quest giver himself, the Vorpal One. Another weird creature warped by the chaotic magic found in DCC would be a lot more memorable than just a giant bug.
I homebrewed Birmzy by cross-referencing a few different DCC monsters. Of course there is the lich influence. But oh boy, lichs have always been tough monsters since the early days of d&d, and they are downright murderous in DCC. Which means Birmzy actually had very little lich influence on his creation. More of an influence was the demon generation rules in the DCC core book. I loosely followed the type 2 demon tables. And then to round things out I gave him some stats equivalent to a 6th level wizard.
But even with all of that, I wasn’t sure how one opponent would hold up against the entire party. Other boss fight have gone really well for the party. Even when I set up a fight with the intent of culling the herd, the Wight Knight fight, the party has managed to squeak by without being too worse for the wear. I was happy to discover that Birmzy was the right level of dangerous to be a worthy adversary. The fight took up the whole session, things got pretty dire in the end, and the players won the day.
Next session, we’ll pick up where we left off in the final chamber. There’s a Knave to loot, a quest to complete and maybe even some limbs to regrow. Oh, and a new PC from Rolland! I look forward to his follow up to the memorable Knaves 3. Pour one out in memory of the Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker, the Knaves 3 of Dünghovl. They all died grisly deaths in the bowels of a dungeon- what more can a DCC PC hope to achieve?
