For
my first attempt at judging and first road crew game, I choose to run the
excellent DCC #79 Frozen in Time by Michael Curtis as a zero-level
funnel at Whose
Turn Is It? Games in Austin, TX. Twelve players attended, many of
them pathfinder vagabonds for the night new to DCC. I instructed them in
the basics of the system and to select three characters from the purple
sorcerer pre-gens sheets I had printed out, discarding the unused fourth. The
pre-gens all used the "Frozen in Time" setting with standard rolls.
The resulting horde of primitives included:
- Kovacs,
fisherman and iron demon slayer
- Harley the
Red, brewer
- Harley the
Red's slave Dieter Hugh
- Bubba
Two-Step, canoe-maker
- Loran the
hunter
- Jenny the
gatherer
- The dwarf
Gort, herder
- Broi the
potter, brother of Broi the gatherer and Broi the hunter
- Broi the
gatherer, brother of Broi the potter and Broi the hunter
- Broi the
hunter, brother of Broi the potter and Broi the gatherer
- The orphan
Shrew
- Pharon the
gatherer
- Harein the
hunter
- Sathys the
gatherer
- Elias the
hunter
- The dwarf
Thulin, flintknapper
- The elf
Funshway, fletcher
- Ugluck the
hunter
- The halfling
Zilan, animal trainer
- Yultang the
weaver
- Kas the
hunter, son of Yultang the weaver
- Anakh the
gatherer, daughter of Yultang the weaver
- Scoony the
hunter
- Morakin the
butcher
- Gorelick the
Indifferent, gatherer and yeti friend
- Rand Hothan
the hunter
- Glunk of the
Swamp, gatherer
- Cero the
hunter
- Aust the
gatherer
- Shela Ray
the gatherer
+ six others whose character sheets became lost in the evening
aether.
The
adventure began with a bit of backstory: three days ago the great glacier at
the head of the valley where their tribe wintered suddenly calved with a
thunderous roar. When the clouds of ice settled, a huge portion of the
glacier's face had collapsed and two dark holes were now visible halfway
up its shear 300' surface - a strange emerald-colored smoke billowing out from
them. The elders of the tribe deliberated for days and decided it was a sign
that the power of the ice-demons long thought to inhabit the glacier was
finally broken; all that was needed now was confirmation. Happening to have a
rather large group of tribesmen on hand preparing for their rites of passage,
the elders tasked the characters to investigate and return with proof that the
ice demons' curse was truly lifted or, failing that, find another tribe to return
to.
The group decided to start by carefully picking their way to the top of the pile of rubble at the base of the glacier created by the collapse. Seeing the two holes now only 50' above them, they tied a grappling hook and rope together from their common equipment and took turns throwing it into the openings - hoping to catch on the lip or something further in - but without success. Abandoning the shear face as too risky to attempt unaided, they headed north to try and reach the top of the glacier from the cliffs along that side of the valley. The paths ascending the cliffs were narrow and treacherous, however, and three unlucky tribesmen never reached the summit. A respectful detachment was sent back down to lay the bodies to rest, and of course recover any useful items they would have wanted the party to carry on with (including the still-living wolf pup they found gently cradled in the broken body of Zilan - a last act of halfling heroism).
Once
atop the glacier they began their trek towards the source of the smoke, a
distance of perhaps half a league, when they were surprised by an enraged
sabre-toothed bear, its white coat blending in seamlessly with the snow. Before
anyone could react, it attacked Elias the hunter, savagely biting into his
shoulder, and then slashed Sathys with a swipe of its massive claw. The stunned
hunters in the party quickly regrouped - surrounding the beast and bringing it
down with a half a dozen spear thrusts. In the silence that followed, they
almost thought they could hear the forlorn wails of sabre-bear cubs echoing on
the icy wind…but were completely unfazed and they skinned the bear while Loran
made a helm from its skull.
Reaching the spot directly above the holes, they debated the best way to lower Bubba Two-Step's canoe over the edge when some of the party noticed a large crevice in the ice that opened onto a steep ramp of ice and snow descending into the heart of the glacier. Abandoning the canoe-centric hypothesis of entry, they anchored their grappling hook, tied three of their four ropes together, and began a careful rappel down, eventually entering into a large room partially filled with debris from the collapse. The walls of the room were white and entirely smooth, like fine glazed pottery. As they looked around, something lunged at them out of the shadows, man-shaped but huge and covered with fur. Seeing that the attaching creature was injured, Gorelick the gatherer quickly held out his basket of vegetables as it charged, which, to everyone's surprise, caused the beast to hesitate, then cautiously take the proffered basket! More food from the party followed while the yeti backed away to one of the walls, hoarding the proffered morsels.
While careful to keep watch on the yeti, they looked around, taking note of a strange white column in the room with a seam running from the floor to the ceiling. Nearby the column was a dark wooden box partially covered with by the snow. They also noticed another seam in one of the walls. Examining the latter, they discovered what looked like a strange door with a small circular depression in it. Looking through the seam, they could see that it led to another room beyond, the floor of which was covered with ice and slush. They managed to force the door open and it disappeared into the wall with a quiet "swish", evidently some sorcery of the ice demons! Even more disconcerting, though, was that it closed on its own a few seconds later.
They returned to examining the rest of the room. While the rest of the party cleared the snow away from the door in the pillar, Gort the herder dug the wooden box loose and, using a handy ten foot pole, prodded at the latch until it opened. Resting on a cloth inside, he found a small blue-grey metal disk with five short tendrils extending from it. As he picked it up, the tendrils wrapped around his hand, hugging the disk to his palm. Realizing the disk was about the same size at the depressions they had seen in the doors, he placed it against the door in the pillar, and it opened, revealing a hollow space inside, entirely dark except for the light coming through the door. Excited by the discovery, Rand the hunter hurried to be the first one iside and found it to in fact be the top of a rather long shaft of which he was now plummeting down rather rapidly.
Deciding Rand did not need any immediate, or indeed future, assistance, they returned to the room beyond the wall, Gort again pressing his hand into the depression to open the door. As they filed out, Gorelick noticed the yeti cautiously following him. The room beyond was covered in the same strange white clay-like material and was illuminated by small glowing rectangles in the ceiling. It was square except for the southwest corner, which was convexly curved, and contained three doors to the east, south and west, all closed. Another set of doors was in the curved corner. Deciding to first turn east, "towards the rising sun representing hope and renewal", as Yultang the weaver noted, the door opened onto a lush room overgrown with flowering exotic plants. They could just make out the shape of another tube on the far side, beyond a tangle of greenery they would need to hack through to reach. They returned to the square room, Broi the potter jamming the eastern door open with a lump of clay he carried.
The
west door, "towards the setting sun and the houses of the ancestors,"
opened into a room with two large metal tables and a wall filled with small
doors. Opening one, they found it full of curious miniature tridents, too
small even for a dwarf to wield. Another door contained several large metal
bowls, which were quickly tuned into helmets by the more enterprising members
of the party. Anakh the gatherer prodded a set of tiny undecipherable runes
next to another door with a window, and a sweet-smelling orange paste poured
out from a hole inside, spreading and dripping to the floor. Aust the gatherer
collected some of the paste on his fingers and licked them, the pleasant
sweetness turning quickly to bitter horror as cramps wracked his stomach and he
collapsed, dead. Inspired, Broi the gatherer unabashedly stepped over Aust to
press more buttons and poured the resulting orange goop into a large metal pot,
while the hunters dipped the tips of their spears in it.
Leaving the west room, Gort opened the door in the curved section of wall to reveal another hollow pillar, this one going up. Unlike the previous pillar, as this door opened rectangular lights ran up the far inner wall illuminating the tube. Opening the southern door next, "the direction from which comes decadence and civilization", they saw a bizarre room: one wall that used to be made of glass, which now lay in broken shards on the wet floor and scattered with dead fish; walls with odd paintings in the style of the southerners; and three large white stone statues of nude people. But the room was dominated by a raised central platform on which stood a huge lizard-like creature, enormous jaws opened and poised to leap at them – except that it appeared to be frozen in place. Gorlick noticed the yeti hanging back, hesitating to enter the room. Cautious, Harley the Red ordered his slave Dieter to throw a rock of snow and ice at the creature, which bounced off without any sign of having an effect. The three Broi brothers then climbed the platform and were suddenly made still as the creature itself! The rest of the party used the ten foot pole to topple them one-by-one off the platform, releasing whatever spell bound them. Satisfied that the lizard was not an immediate threat, they examined the rest of the room, Bubba Two-Step finding a small statue of what looked like an armored demon with a round helmet in the wall of broken glass. Kovacs the fisherman briefly examined a painting of a woman with an enigmatic smile, dressed in some strange southern fashion, before turning its canvas into a small sack.
The party left the statues and frozen beast and decided to return to the eastern room to hack through the plants. After several minutes, they reached the pillar and opened the door – finding another illuminated tube, this one going down. Broi the gather threw some fruit he collected into the tube, and astonishingly, instead of falling, it slowly descended and came to rest at the bottom, some 50' away. Thulin the flintknapper placed Zilan's wolf pup inside, and it too slowly descended until it reached the bottom.
For the time being abandoning the pup to its lonely mewling, they returned to the pillar in the square room that led up. While peering inside, Broi the potter was playfully pushed in by his brothers, and he frantically kicked as he was grabbed by an unseen force and slowly carried to the top, finally stopping next to a closed door. Ropes were passed up, but he was pulled and tugged down without success. Noticing a raised plate on the inside of the door next to him, he pushed it, and the door opened onto a hallway! The hallway was empty but for a single plant in a clay pot. Appropriately, Broi the potter dumped the plant and soil out, taking the pot as treasure. The rest of the party piled into the tube and joined Broi above.
Two doors marked either end of the hall. Trying the eastern door at the end of the hallway, Gort's disk glowed blue as it was pressed against the depression, but the door did not open. They tried the opposite door and it opened into a spacious chamber, a bed resting on raised platform against the far wall. They also saw several other interesting objects, including the large floating metal sphere covered in gleaming spikes that spun and began to slowly approach them while making a soft whirring sound.
The
hunters rushed to beat on it with clubs and spears. Attempting to bring it to
the ground, Funshway the elf leaped on top of it, but also managed to impale
his rather unfortunately fragile body on the spiky protrusions. With the dead
elf’s weight atop it, the creature's whir reached a high whining pitch as it
struggled to stay aloft. The orphan Shrew ran to the bed and grabbed a blanket,
only then noticing a motionless body resting beneath it, and threw it over the whirring
thing and its silent sylvan passenger. Broi the gatherer dumped his bucket of
neon-orange goop on top of the blanket while Gorlick mimed to the yeti to
attack. Gleefully, the yeti proceeded to smash the goop-covered demon with his
huge fists, metal and glass scattering across the floor. Afterwards they
examined the bed, finding the body to be a mummified corpse of a man, but an abnormally
tall man over 7'. Next to the bed were several bizarre long metal rods. Anakh
noticed the dead being had a disk in its hand similar to the one found by Gort,
except golden in color. Prying it off, the disk promptly latched onto her
palm. The party took two of the nearby metal rods with them when they left
the room.
The gold-palm disk opened the eastern door, which led to another room. An array of pedestals was arraigned about the room, each with a curious object resting on it. Also strange was that most of the objects were surrounded by spheres of golden light, some solid, some flickering, and some entirely unlit. There was a sword, a full set of armor, a huge shield, and other items they didn’t understand the purpose of - a five pointed star with a hole in the middle, a statue with a grotesque mask, a blank wooden plank, a metal rod with small buttons, and a delicate-looking painted urn. And in the middle of the room stood a huge suit of strange armor with arms that ended in claws.
As
they walked in, the armor came to life and began to shout in an incomprehensible
tongue. To their horror, it grabbed Morakin with its claws and snipped his head
and legs off. Chaos swept over the room: hunters surrounded the iron demon and
attacked, their spears sliding off the smooth metal armor; someone snatched the
sword and shield from their pedestals; the orphan Shrew again tried to throw a blanket,
but missed; Glunk was also rent apart; Bubba Two-Step picked up the strange
metal rod from its flickering housing and a bright blast of light shot out of
one end, causing a smoking hole to appear in the opposite wall; the iron demon
was tipped over by swarming hunters into one of the fields on the pedestals and
fiery sparks lit the room; Kovacs managed to grab the wooden statue from its pedestal,
but as Ugluck the hunter reached to grab the urn, the surrounding field of
light activated and sliced his outstretched arms of; Anahk ran down the
corridor and cut the head off of the mummified corpse; at Gorlick’s prompting,
the yeti rushed into the room and ineffectually swung at the demon. Finally Kovacs
drove his spear into the panel of blinking lights on the iron demon's torso and
impaled it on his harpoon, bathing him in a shower of sparks as it fell motionless
and inert.
Moments later, a huge distant boom echoed through the room while the ground shuddered. The white light panels went out and returned, now casting a blood red glow throughout the room. At the same time an oddly calm voice started speaking from somewhere insubstantial, but no one recognized the language. Everyone rushed to the tube back in the hallway, and though it opened at Anahk's touch, it stayed unlit on the inside. They secured the party's last rope to the iron demon and everyone started to descend. At the bottom, the calm voice called out again. Kas the hunter opened the door at the bottom and rushed over the slush and ice coated room, making for the door on the opposite side where they originally descended the ramp. Suddenly, there was a huge crash behind him! The southern door was torn apart as the unfrozen lizard-beast rushed through with a scream. Terrified, Kas ran and slipped on the ice, fell prone, and was snatched in the jaws of the terrible lizard and torn apart. Some of the party attacked while others fled to the northern door, slipping and sliding as best they could, and only remembering once they reached it that it was closed except to the two party members with palm-disks. The great beast crushed Jenny the gatherer with a huge foot, but was torn apart by a blast of light from the strange metal rod Bubba Two-Step had taken with him from the room of the iron demon.
Safe for the moment, they rushed up the ramp using the still-secured rope. As they crested the top, the ground shuddered, and panicking, they all decided to run for the cliff edge a mile and half away; only the yeti loped further up the glacier. With a huge roar, the glacier below the party fell apart and they all were carried away in a cascade of ice and debris. Four lucky survivors were favored by the gods and rode the ice flow all the way down. They returned to the village, Anahk Goldenhand leading the procession and holding the head of the ice-demon aloft in triumph.
Roll
of Surviving Heroes and Future Level Ones (all received 10XP each at the
adventure's end):
- Bubba
Two-Step, Wielder of Light
- Loran the
Lucky
- Anahk Goldenhand, Slayer of the Ice Demon
- Broi, Last
of His Name
(Note: This game almost didn't happen. The
weekend before play I had one confirmed person signed up and almost postponed.
But I decided to press on, leaving some of the awesome fan-created DCC flyers
at the game store Sunday night to force me to stay committed and spamming my
social media sites on Monday to try and get at least a couple more people to
show. By game time, twelve people had signed up across my various invites and I
was in for a delightful judge hellride)
