SESSION 33D: THE HELL HOUND AT THE DOOR

December 28th, 2008
The 18th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They headed out the opposite door and found themselves in another hall with doors to both their left and right. Arbitrarily choosing the door to the left, Tee picked the lock. Agnarr kicked it open.

The room beyond was extremely untidy, with a fetid smell that seemed to peremeate everything. The simple furnishings were crude and ill-kept. A weasel-faced man lying on the far bed jerked awake as the door crashed open.

Agnarr hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether the man might be a prisoner or not (the door, after all, had been locked and the room stank). But then he noticed that there was a sword laying on the bed and the man had a dragon pistol strapped to his side.

Agnarr charged with Tee on his heels. They hoped to silence the man before he could say anything, but he dove adroitly off the bed and rolled to his feet, firing his dragon pistol. He started shouting for help.

Tor and Dominic, still in the hall, turned and headed for the door at the far end of the hall, throwing their weight against it.

Tee, meanwhile, circled to the side of the weasel-faced man. Her blade darted here and there, keeping the man’s blade completely engaged while Agnarr came up from the other side and delivered the killing blow.

Someone threw themselves against the door Dominic and Tor were propping themselves against. It barely budged. They glanced at each and made a quick, unspoken decision. Dominic stepped away and Tor, timing things perfectly, yanked the door open at precisely the right moment.

A young elf woman – ebon-skinned like Shilukar – came stumbling through, thrown off-balance by the sudden disappearance of the door she had been planning to throw herself against.

Dominic and Tor were quick to take advantage – the former’s mace crushing her upper arm and Tor’s sword cutting deep into her thigh. She stumbled further down the hall, shouting over her shoulder. “Theral! There are six of them! Grealdan’s dead!”

Dominic looked through the open door and spotted Theral – the Brother of Venom that Tee had seen discovering Reggaloch’s body – beginning to cast a spell. He promptly slammed the door shut.

Almost simultaneously, with a powerful sweep of his sword, Tor caught the dark elf woman in the side of the face – his sword cut through one cheek, passed through her mouth, and out the other side. Her severed jaw fell to the floor and her body followed after it.

They took a moment to collect themselves and then threw open the door again.

HELL HOUND AT THE DOOR

A hell hound was at the door!

Like the ones that had attacked them at Pythoness House, the hound’s skin was cooled lava and its gaping mouth was a lake of fire that gouted a cone of flame down the length of the hall.

Beyond the hound was a massive chamber, its walls painted in horrific combinations of kaleidoscopic color. On the far side of the hall they could see a set of wide stairs leading down. To one side of the room stood Theral. At first there appeared to be six others on the other side of the room, but then they realized that there was only one man there – Vocaetun, the cultist with an ebon hand tattooed on the front of his neck – his form blurred and duplicated a half dozen times.

Tor and Agnarr squared off against the hell hound, rapidly reducing it to a pile of slag-like magma.

Theral, seeing the body of the dark elf woman and watching the fighters demolishing his hound, cursed and then shouted to Vocaetun. “Hold them here while I fetch the damn rats!”

Theral ran off down a side corridor. Vocaetun glared at his retreating back.

As the hell hound finally collapsed, Vocaetun waved a wand in Tor’s direction and then disappeared. Tor felt his eyes burning as they filled with acid.

Elestra leaped over the magma pile and headed towards the hall that Theral had dashed down. Rounding the corner she skidded to a stop.

“There’s a wall!”

“Don’t believe it!” Tee shouted, remembering the illusionary wall that Uranik had spoken of.

But Elestra hesitated. She didn’t want to throw herself into the unknown without the others to back her up.

Then Tee screamed.

Vocaetun had reappeared and hit her with an acidic curse that turned her own tears to caustic acid, having somehow circled around in the meditative chamber behind them. But none of them could see that – not even Tee, who was now clawing at her burning eyes.

Ranthir, seeing Tee’s reaction, knew that it must have come from behind them. “Over here! Tee’s being attacked!”

The others closed in on Vocaetun, but between the mirrored images dancing around his figure, the blurring displacement that seemed to cheat their vision, the blinding attacks from his wand, and the tight quarters, things quickly got confused and cramped.

Vocaetun mounted a fighting retreat back across the meditative chambers into the hall on the far side and then through a secret door into the kaleidoscopic hall. He had been hurt and was clearly beginning to panic. Once he was through the secret door, he broke into a pell-mell run across the hall – heading towards the stairs on the far side.

Running the Campaign: NPC Spellbooks – Campaign Journal: Session 33E
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Mystic portals are awesome. Beautiful, enigmatic, and alluring, they’re a classic trope for a reason, and I’ve run some variation of this gag countless times. They’re also a great example of how a little bit of finesse in your game mastering techniques can take good material and advance it into something amazing.

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A cap system is a mechanic or sub-system that’s designed to be used with many different roleplaying systems — either supplementing them or perhaps modifying them. (Not necessarily every RPG, though: It’s not unusual for a cap system to end up being fundamentally incompatible with some systems.) Dice of Destiny, a system for getting rich, non-binary information from dice pool resolution systems, is one example. The downtime system presented in the upcoming So You Want To Be a Game Master? is another.

This is a micro-cap system I’ve been experimenting with called miss-initiative, which is designed to replace the initiative system in your RPG of choice.

MISS-INITIATIVE

By default, at the beginning of combat, the PCs get to take their actions first. They can take their turns in whatever order they choose, but no PC can take a second turn until all of the PCs have taken their first turn.

If one of the PCs misses, however, this allows the GM to trigger one of the NPCs. Once the PCs’ turn is finished, one of the NPCs will take their turn for the round. (If all NPCs have already taken their turn for the current round, a miss has no effect.)  This is referred to as seizing initiative.

A miss is generally considered to be any missed attack roll or failed action check. This can generally be characterized as the character’s failure or screw-up offering an opportunity for the enemy.

SURPRISE

If surprise is achieved at the beginning of a fight, this overrides normal miss-initiative:

• If the PCs surprise the NPCs, then they do NOT lose initiative on their first miss. Only on the second miss are the NPCs able to seize initiative.
• If the NPCs surprise the PCs, then the NPCs have seized initiative. They take their actions until one of them misses, which allows the players to trigger one of the PCs.

After the end of the surprise round, combat continues normally (with the PCs going first, followed by NPCs, and with misses triggering NPCs).

VARIANT: SIDE-BASED MISS-INITIATIVE

Miss-initiative can be used with side-based initiative (in which a single initiative check is made for each side in the fight; e.g., using the highest initiative modifier on each side or a group initiative check or some similar method).

If the PCs win the initiative check, miss-initiative continues normally.

If the NPCs win the initiative check, however, then they have initiative and take their actions first, triggering PC turns when they miss.

An initiative check might be made once at the beginning or the fight or repeated for each round, representing the ebb and flow of the battle. (The GM might grant advantage, penalties, and so forth for each round’s initiative check based on the outcome of the previous round.)

VARIANT: THE MISS CASCADE

As a variant, when the NPCs seize initiative from the PCs, they retain initiative. In other words, NPCs continue taking actions, in whatever order the GM chooses, until one of the NPCs misses, which allows the PCs to seize initiative (and continue taking actions until they miss and allow the NPCs to seize initiative).

Remember that, regardless of which side currently holds initiative, everyone in the fight must take their turn before any character gets their next turn.

I have an article printed in Bayt Al Azif #5: “The Three Clue Rule!”

“Now wait a minute,” you say. “I’m familiar with the Three Clue Rule. In fact, I can read that article right here on the Alexandrian!”

That’s true!

But this particular version of “The Three Clue Rule” has been revised and rewritten. The original version of the essay was written in 2008. In fact, today is the 15th Anniversary of the Three Clue Rule! There are people reading this today who weren’t even born when the Three Clue Rule was published.  I’ve learned a lot in the last fifteen years and I wanted to bring the “Three Clue Rule” into accord with that. (For example, the terms “node-based scenario design” and “scenario structure” didn’t even exist yet in 2008.)

Now, to be perfectly honest, if you’re already a long-time fan of the Alexandrian, this new-and-improved version of “The Three Clue Rule” probably isn’t a good enough reason to grab a copy of Bayt Al Azif #5 all by itself. The new tools I’ve incorporated into the article are things you can also find lurking around on the site.

But Bayt Al Azif is just a fantastic magazine for Cthulhu roleplaying, so it’s worth checking out regardless! Issue #5, for example, includes:

• Interviews with John Tynes, Shanna Germain, and Sean K. Reynolds
• “Die Not Gloriously,” a Trojan War scenario by Rina Haenze
• “The Human Element,” a look at good starter scenarios by Lisa Padol
• “Dead Man’s Chest,” a Golden Age of Piracy scenario by Stefan Droste
• Shannon Appelcline’s “Designs & Dragons Next: Arc Dream Publishing 2007-Present”

And more!

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