Thursday, August 08, 2019

Bone Hoard of the Dancing Horror


This is another Dungeon Crawl Classics module I ran for son for his Wilderlands solo-campaign based in the city of Tarantis.  I hooked it by saying the magic user studied scrolls and notes taken from the previous dungeon and claimed he could deduce the location of a lost chaotic temple (yay!) not far from the city.  The party purchased supplies to outfit the expedition and made about a five day trek overland due south to the Brath Woods (including building raft to cross the Trollraun river).  They knew which five-mile hex in which to search for the entrance to the dungeon but I required a "1" on a 1d6 to find it – they got lucky and found it on the first day!
 
Like other DCC modules this does not feature "regular" monsters.  In this module (please note this review includes spoilers), the chaotic legacy of this former temple, combined with the experiments of a neutral wizard who wanted to forge an anti-chaotic sword (the "Fellblade of Dellsparro"), has resulted in (a) a weird fluid that will make your bones and flesh meld together, (b) rats with no skeletons that attack you like flopping, leaping leeches, (c) the titular giant "insect like" creature, which makes piping noises out of its back and wants to draw the skeletons out of the characters bodies, (d) a 80-foot centipede abomination made entirely out of bones, and (e) little six-inch tin warriors who try to kill you.  The dice rolls all basically went the party's way, but not without one character almost getting her skeleton drawn out, and another losing a point of Constitution due to the weird fluid, and another getting impaled by the bone centipede.  But they got the Fellblade and plenty of loot (although they missed some magic items, either by not finding a secret room or simply not realizing some items were worth taking).
 
On the way back, a day out of Tarantis, they were confronted by ten bandits, to which my son jumped for joy!  These opponents?  He knew all about these opponents – no weirdness this time!  Sure enough, the party made quickmeal of the bandits.  The entire party is now a mix of 2nd and 3rd levels. 

This concluded a two day period where we played "D&D" almost exclusively throughout the day.  We completed Well of the Worms on a Friday and this adventure on a Saturday. 



The Adventurers in this session were:

Hoaback Hoagan, a 2nd level fighter
Famdok Famba, a 2nd level cleric
Raknon Sablain, a 1st level magic user

Cardith, a 2nd level cleric (partial NPC)
Simghai Tsith, a 2nd level fighter(partial NPC)
Selylla, a 2nd level thief (partial NPC)
 

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