The story so far, in our Dungeon World roleplaying game
An inn that was once a monastery, isolated in a high mountain pass. One wagon-sized dirt trail goes downhill in both directions, while the inn has its back to the mountain going higher. In front of the inn, across the trail, a wooded hill goes up further until dropping off a steep cliff. Mist and clouds and wind swirl around the top of the mountain.
Our heroes – Gilead of Aquerigon (human Holy Warrior), Brewis “Lucky” Smalls (human Swashbuckler), and Octavian Kreel (human Scout)Pregenerated characters presented for the influential Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (an authorized hack of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy). DFRPG and Pyramid Magazine, both published by the excellent Steve Jackson Games, also inspired our earliest adventures with “You All Meet at an Inn,” by Matt Riggsby. Later, we tried the ruleset for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. – met at the inn, fended off a zombie attack, heard and felt strange battle horns and earthquakes, and headed down an unused well into the dungeon cave below.
They were joined in their dungeon delving by Arabal the elf ranger; Boris “Gentleman Johnny” Darkwater, human thief; and Gunther Gruslig, half-Orc bard. Octavian left the party. Gilead looted a flaming sword from the corpse of a fire demon. While Gilead tended to the dead and wounded outside the inn after the zombie attack, Arabal and new friend Titanius (human Barbarian) explored the wooden hilltop.We were starting to find our Dungeon World groove now. They encountered faeries, Titanius killed a faerie toddler much to Arabal’s horror, and they burned down half the woods. They escaped with the help of Titanius’ new-found wooden staff that magically creates trees when stamped into the ground.
Boris and Mashito (female Asian human Paladin) went up a sky-chain at the same time as Titanius and Arabal were exploring the woods. A moth-man helped them fly upwards, they fought giant squirrels, talked with a giant owl, and found in a dead wizard’s hut: his indecipherable spell book, some potions, a feather, some magic rations.
Once together, our party fell into the earthquake-rumbling cracks, down into another labyrinth inside the mountain. They encountered a mummy, hell hounds, traps and pits, kobold (reptoid?) guardians, an owl bear, faerie laughter, and Nadras – a shifty human wizard who offers a crystal key in exchange for the prize treasure in this catacomb. Mashito’s backpack smashed while fighting a giant octopus, making her float and losing the glass potions and rations, but allowing her to land on a siren-like mermaid. Titanius retrieved a golden mirror bowl from her after a skirmish resulting in the siren’s death.
Mashito has some treasure from a warrior’s trophy room. Titanius has speared a spellbook, which occasionally shows him diagrams and portents if he asks nicely. In the final cavern, Nadras chuckled to himself and disappeared. Red-robed students descended from stairs above to investigate the disturbance in their basement cave. They mistake the party for students on a cleaning rota who are also from the aboveground monastery – not the same place as the inn-that-was-a-former-monastery where they started. This monastery is… different.