3 October 2016

[Catacombs] Into the dark

At first it sounded like the petty request of a petty noble with a whiff of undead threat tacked on to get the attention of knight's errant like Sirs Pellas and Owain with their experienced retainers - "I've lost my gemstone and I think the nasty skeletons have taken it!" - but when they realised that the "gemstone" was imbued with scrying power, they knew it had to be retrieved from the crumbling passageways and sprawling ossory beneath the long abandoned summer residence in the Gaddifer hills on Sir Hubert's vast estates.

Initial exploration gave them a good idea of the layout of the passageways:



It wasn't long before Sir Pellas and his retinue had laid hands on the orb:


Meanwhile, Sir Owain and his men were guarding their return to daylight:


The retrieval of the orb had not gone unnoticed, however, and the whimperings of Sir Hubert proved accurate; there was indeed a necromantic presence in this now-dreadful place:


Sir Pellas was also being pressed hard, but the steady aim of his faithful retainers kept him safe for now:


No matter how many they felled, however, the revenants kept pouring out of the darkness like a tide of mindless evil. The two retinues had been cut off from one another! Not only the succcess of their expedition, but their very survival was at stake:


Ensuring the orb was safe with his men, Sir Pellas showed the impetuous and chivalric heroism that was his at his core, charging into the foe, heedless of his own safety - and paid the ultimate price:


In furious vengeance, arrow after arrow sped down the dimly lit passageways to clear the path, a lantern full of oil was hurled down one corridor to smash open and engulf the undead in sheets of flame, and the orb was passed from one man to another as they sprinted for daylight. "Follow who can!" went up the shout - the orb was saved from the nefarious purposes of the necromancer behind its theft!


And there we must leave our tale as the stragglers raced to stay ahead of the rising tide of darkness...

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Our third full expedition played with my (very slightly) adapted and medievalised rules for a certain game of claustrophobic battles normally played out between space knights and space monsters. Boy #1 took the undead horde, and boy #2 and I had a retinue each. 

This time there was felt to be no need to change the balance of visibility or weaponry so I'm happy that they properly work now. Only the crossbow may need tweaking a tiny bit as it was brutally effective. If we can get a third expedition that I'm happy with out of this mod. then I'll share them for those of you who, like me, prefer your knights chivalric rather than cursed with a genetic flaw.

2 comments:

  1. I've been away from the blog for a very long time. Great job on this mod. Very interesting. Reminds me that I still haven't tried out those Knight's Quest magic rules. Sorry. I have the attention span of a gnat.

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    1. I think it's the curse of the imaginative gamer - you should see the pile of half-converted, half-painted, half-built and half-written bits and bobs on my desk. It's ridiculous, I tell you!

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