We ran some town stuff. I only had one small village on my map, so Two-Trees it was, which just happened to be Bret’s character’s home town. They stayed at his parent’s house, flopping in bed with all of his brothers and sisters while they healed up. Both Father Wim (prayed at a shrine, did research and haggled) and Dust the halfling (digging for leads) failed their resources checks, so leg-breakers are en route, waiting for them when they fail a test somewhere, somewhen.
To be honest, I was so worried about having a dungeon ready that I did not go over the town rules and I was the one with the rules at hand, so it was a little frustrating figuring out the structure of it. I’ve got it now and it will be more smooth later.
They talked to Knots about a nearby crypt from Dust’s circles roll:
Bret: He looks like Don Knotts.
Judd: He does.
Kevin: So, he’s some old dude. Is he missing any limbs from his adventuring days?
Judd: Yeah, he’s missing some fingers and he looks really old but he’s only like 27.
From Father Wim’s research (yeah, there’s no library in this small town but lots of houses have old scrolls in the attic, enough to wander around and do some research on) and Dust’s circles, they learned about a wizard’s tower in the hills above a crypt. The wizard was studying this dead Chaos Knight.
There was an owlbear in the area and it was that creature that bit off Knotts’ fingers before his party wizard (also Dust’s enemy) stole the party’s treasure and ran.
Bret visited his buddy, an old former adventurer who gives him advice. He was proud of Krev for facing down kobolds, “Don’t let anyone fool ya. Just because kobolds never horded up and tried to take over the world doesn’t mean they aren’t ferocious bastards,” and getting stabbed in the gut but getting back out there into the mix.
Kevin: That sounds really fucking dangerous.
John: It really does. Look at it this way, maybe this dungeon is so far beyond us that we’ll just have to get into that first room, take the treasure and get the hell out of there.
Someone, Bret or Kevin: Steal the door-knocker and run.
Dust failed his Pathfinder check and the twist was running into the Owlbear, which they frantically ran from, winning the Flee conflict easily and running headlong into the tower itself.
They still have some conditions but the tower is before them. I have the map all done up and we’ll start the delve next week.
I like how dangerous the dungeon is and yet the rewards are there just enticing the adventurers back. The town doesn’t sound carefree either, with debt collecting bone breakers around.