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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9776007" data-attributes="member: 42582">The adventure site that I had written up, posted in my previous post upthread, turned out to be a bit of a disaster for the PCs. (Which is, perhaps, the way of Torchbearer.)Fea-bella filled two waterskins from the rivulet, and noticed the lint in the water. Then, the Ob 4 Dungeoneering check, for the PCs to successfully enter via the cleft, succeeded. The PCs saw the body that the lint had come from. I explained that the body looked as if it had fallen from the cleft more-or-less head first, and suffered a broken neck. This was how the clay pot had survived, cushioned by the body. It was mostly skeletal, years old.Fea-bella decided to (instinctually) scavenge for Loot, and succeeded on the Ob 5 Scavenging test. A roll on Loot Table 1 yielded Stuff ("I love stuff," said Fea-bella's player. "Stuff is the worst," responded Golin's). The "stuff" in question was an idol of an unknown religion, which Golin ended up with. At about this time, Fea-bella's player also wrote a goal: to escape the caverns.I then had one of the evil water spirits speak, but the PCs took it to be the ghost of the dead body. It urged them to drink, but they didn't want to drink corpse water, and Fea-bella emptied the waterskins she had filled. Telemere led the retort to the spirit, and offered to help them find peace. So I declared him the captain in the Trickery conflict that the spirit had initiated. The PCs' disposition was 5, vs the spirits' 10. I equipped Malicious Pranks, and scripted Feint/Attack/Attack; the players scripted Manoeuvre as their first action - and in the ensuing independent tests, I knocked off their whole disposition while losing none of my own.I then had the talking spirit narrate something (I can't remember what it was now, but the players found it suitably confusing for a feint), while I secretly noted that the second spirit had been able to (maliciously) defile all their water. The players were uncertain what, exactly, had happened as a result of them losing the contest - but I didn't have to wait all that long before I had the chance to reveal the truth of the trick.I described the two ways on in the antechamber, and the PCs lit two candles - one with Golin and one with Fea-bella, leaving Telemere in dim light - and chose to descend the stairs. When I described the ammoniac smell, they (correctly) inferred it was bat guano, and Golin's player, playing Golin's Explosives-wise, mooted the possibility of blowing things up. It turned out that he got his wish!When they got to the base of the stairs, I described the statue's legs, but with only candle light they couldn't make out its upper body. Then three troll bats swooped on them. I offered to default to a drive-off conflict, but Golin wanted to capture them: he equipped his large sack to trap them in, Fea-bella equipped some fresh rations to lure them in, and Telemere equipped his spear. The PCs won this conflict handily, and so ended with a sack full of bats.This was the fourth turn on the grind, and so the PCs became hungry and thirsty. Fea-bella and Telemere each ate a portion of fresh rations, and Golin took a sip of water. Which was defiled by the spirits, and so rather than quench his thirst it made him Sick! I thought this was hilarious, but the players didn't fully agree. It only got better when Telemere made a Survivalist test to check if all their water was spoiled, and didn't roll a single success. So he got Sick too!, from tasting some of the tainted water as part of his inspection of it. Golin ate some food to recover from his hunger. And they all emptied their waterskins.I had described the helmet and coins laid out as an offering, and so there was debate about taking them. Telemere had doubts - "It will activate the golem!" - but Fea-bella felt compelled to act on her Belief. So the treasure was scooped up; Golin put on the Dwarven helmet. I duly called for the Will test set out in my notes; they all failed, although Telemere, being a Fearless Elven ranger, avoided becoming Afraid. But 11 troll bats, including an Ancient Chiropteran, swarmed down intent on killing the PCs. (Reviewing the maths now, it should have been 12. Oh well.)This kill conflict was brutal. The PCs had a disposition of 8, and the troll bats 12. I scripted Attack/Attack/Attack for my first round, and reduced the PCs to 1 hit point on my first action - the Stubborn Golin was the only one left.But Golin, as conflict captain for his side, had also opened with an Attack. And he had equipped his candle, with the intention of setting fire to the guano and scorching the bats. (And with his plan being to use his Explosives-wise, if necessary, to reroll traitors.) He got an epic roll (3 6s, that he open-ended with a Fate point), and reduced the bats to 4 hp. I can't remember all his subsequent actions, but with a second use of his Dwarven helmet and his leather armour, he survived the next two attacks, and even got up to 2 hp with a Defend. For my second round of bats, I scripted Defend/Attack/Manoeuvre. I got a hp back from my defence - one of the seemingly scorched bats was actually only singed! - and then, with my attack, I reduced the PCs to zero, but they also knocked off two hp, reducing the bats' disposition to zero. A failed Kill conflict, but with a major compromise owed.I read out the options:• The loser is killed, but their demise causes massive collateral damage (starts a fire, opens a dyke, collapses a roof, etc); • The loser is killed, but they in turn kill all but one of their opponents (in the case of multiple attackers); • The losing team is killed but badly injures or maims the opposing team: reduce their maximum Nature rating by one (reset the current rating to that rating) and remove a Nature descriptor or a trait (and its trait slot); • The loser is disarmed and disabled but buys a moment in which they can beg for their lives: will the winner hear them out or slit their throats? • The loser is left for dead (but survives): they take the hungry and thirsty, angry, afraid, exhausted, injured and sick conditions; also reduce their Circles and Resources ratings by one.Golin's player then raised the possibility of different outcomes for different characters, and so we agreed that it happened like this:Golin lit up even more guano, causing a massive explosion that destroyed all the bats as it brought down the cavern, while Telemere and Fea-bella escaped (the latter crawling on her belly), both with a full suite of conditions except for the Fearless Telemere remaining unafraid. And reducing their Circles and Resources by one each, their ignominy being so apparent!Golin would have been destroyed in that conflagration, but he had the Will to Live, and his player dutifully spent a point of Persona. So his Nature dropped to 1, and as he staggered victorious out of the collapsing cave, I decided that he was no longer Cynical - I changed that trait to Bold instead.The players then decided it was time to recuperate, and so they entered the Forgotten Temple Complex. They had collected two checks, and so Fea-bella and Telemere first ate Golin's preserved rations, to remove their Hunger and Thirst, and then spent one each, to recover from Angry.I'll write up the town phase in a further post.</blockquote>

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