Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Dungeon Scum, The Boss Battle.

Rose Glenguard and her party of Adventurers follow their treasure map to a narrow chamber that echoed with the sound of rushing water.  In the deepest recess of the chamber the party finds their coveted treasure, unguarded and partially submerged by a small waterfall fed by some unseen underground river.  The treasure looks to have been picked over, but still the party finds a magic shield and bags of gold.

Once the Treasure is secured, Rose begins to lead the party back to the surface, hoping to return to a near by village.  Some of the passages on their way out, however, have been flooded, perhaps by rain on the surface feeding the underground stream.  Forced to take another route, Rose leads her party through a narrow fissure that opened up into a huge chamber.  The party smells smoke from cook fires, hears the din of activity, as well as the guttural sounds of Orc speak.  With flooding behind them, Rose has no choice but to lead her party into the Orc camp.

The Adventurers stumble upon an Orc camp.


An Ogre lords over his lesser cousins.


Many Elite Orcs are also in the camp.


The Adventurers (L to R)-  Trina the Ranger, Estelle, Rens (back), Rose Glenguard, Halfdan (back), Monica the Scholar, Listra (back), and Lady Lena.


Rose singles out the advancing Ogre and shoots arrow after arrow, but cannot penetrate the tough hide of the beast.




The Elite Orcs rush Lady Lena and Monica, hoping to overwhelm them.


Trina rushes to the other flank and faces off with the advancing Orcs.


The Ogre throws large stones at Rose as it approaches.  One hits the escarpment she hides behind, and she is momentarily stunned.


Orcs on either flank rush towards the Adventurers.


Lady Lena and Monica are joined by Halfdan, who blocks the Orcs from flanking the heroes.


Estelle joins Trina to help hold off the oncoming foes, but a foul Orc gores her with his spear.  She screams as she falls, but then goes deathly silent.



Monica dispatches one of the Elite Orcs, then rushes headlong to meet another.



Lady Lena does the same.  She guts her Orc then rushes forth and with a quick slash she stuns Monica's new opponent.


The Ogre rushes Ranger Trina.  Things look bleak for the Hero as she faces the brutish beast as well as 3 Orcs.


The battle divides into smaller conflicts on each flank.


Listra darts forward with her knife and brings down one of the Elite Orcs.


Meanwhile, Rose and Rens rush to aid Trina.  The two Heroes valiantly engage the Ogre.


Listra pays for her boldness as an Orc swings it's morningstar and brings her down.


Monica brings down another Elite Orc.  Though a Scholar by trade, she holds her own in a fight.



Lena slays Listra's killer, then rushes over to aid the Heroes in their struggle against the Ogre.


The fight now centers around the Ogre and the few Orc supporters he has left.  Neither side seems willing to leave the fight whist foes still breathe.


The Ogre slams it's mighty club into Trina, wounding the hero.   Even though other Adventurers have come to her aid, Trina is still assailed by multiple attackers.


The weight of attacks seems too much for Trina and she falls, wounded again when an Orc spear pierces her light armor.  The Hero slips into unconsciousness due to exhaustion and blood loss.


Monica brings down another Orc, while Rose and Lena continue to fight the Ogre.



Halfdan also takes down on Orc.  This leave only one Orc remaining, the one faced off with Rens.


Lena lashes out with a mighty slash and the Ogre bellows, enraged.  Though she did not wound the creature, she gained it's full attention.


Monica takes advantage of the beasts reaction and lands a thrust of her spear that plunges into the creature's shoulder.  The Ogre, now wounded and even more enraged, turns to face her.  The Heroes continue to harass the beast from all sides, causing it some confusion.


Rens finally dispatches the last Orc standing.



The Heroes continue to confuse the beast with attacks from all sides.  Lena lands another wound on the beast, and as it turns to face her, Rose runs it through with her boar spear.  The beast topples to the ground, and after a moment to catch their breath, the Adventurers turn to their fallen friends.  Estelle and Listra prove beyond any help.  The party saves their morning until they can reach the safety of an Inn, where they can drown their sorrows and pay respect in proper form.  Trina stirs at their ministrations, and though still wounded, the Hero will survive.  A trove of treasure is gathered from the Orc camp, including a magic bow, adventuring supplies and bags full of gold.


Now that I have gotten a full Dungeon Delve played, I have a better idea of how the rules play out, and how challenging the game can be.  I found that the early encounters were not too dangerous for the party, but the addition of a single Ogre changed the challenge level significantly.  I also got to see how character advancement works.  This delve provided few opportunities for level changes (though Listra moved from a Grunt to an Elite after an encounter), however, several characters were able to gain new traits.  Lena gained a weapon specialist trait that provides an extra dice in combat, I gave Monica a Monster Lore trait that gives her an additional dice when fighting Monsters (like the Ogre, though I forgot to apply it this last game).  Trina, through her introspection trait which gives her a chance to advance every encounter, gained a much needed dodge trait which provides an additional defense dice.

Altogether I have liked playing Dungeon Scum and hope to continue my solo adventures with this party, but I really look forward to getting a group of players to run characters and try the game out as an RPG as well.

1 comment:

Maudlin Jack Tar said...

Nice series of games; Dungeon Scum looks like a good game. The coconut shell hut is inspired!