4AD: Catoblepas Hunting

Introduction

While traveling a lonely stretch of the King's Road, Dantrag (warrior), Thorbin (dwarf), Arthrallan (elf), and Brandal (wizard) are diverted to a remote village being terrorized by some supernatural beast.

Upon arriving Dantrag and Arthallan spend time reading the signs of unnatural decay, bite marks, and footprints. Both conclude it to be the work of a large Catoblepas, a basilisk like creature with a scaly hide whose gaze can wither crops and kill livestock. Thorbin gripes that such creatures are unlikely to hoard much in the way of treasure and his assessment is that the villagers do not have money to pay for monster hunters. At this, Brandal ruefully suggests that they set out immediately to hunt down the beast so that the dwarf does not incur the cost of lodging and supplies (not that there is anywhere in the small village to spend any money!).

Following the tracks leads to a newly formed region of fetid water which is slowly killing the surrounding vegetation and trees.  Unfortunately tracking the beast through the morass proves difficult and results in a wider search for more tracks and the beast's lair. During this search, the four stumble upon the entrance to an underground ruin. Thorbin immediately pronounces the presence of treasure, Brandal lights the lantern, and all follow Dantrag through the entrance to the underground complex.

Presented with several branching corridors Dantrag puts his right hand on the wall and starts walking...

The Dungeon

The explored section of the dungeon is mostly abandoned and filled with swarms of Giant Centipedes, rats, and even skeletal rats. A small breed of goblin is also encountered in large numbers suggesting the presence of a larger threat hidden elsewhere and responsible for the spear trap which surprised Thorbin and Brandal.

In the depths of the dungeon the heroes encountered a rare Oxidation Beast (or Iron Eater) and quickly dispatched it before it had a chance to ruin any of their valuable equipment.

In a hallway filled with rats, Brandal and Arthrallan were happy to be in the back!

Conclusion

In the near corner room of the dungeon, the Catoblepas was found to have burrowed its way in from the outside and established a lair. The beast was dispatched without complication and some treasure recovered.

On the way out of the underground complex, the party was ambushed by Orcs and it seems that a return to this dungeon will be necessary to keep the towns people safe from a growing threat beneath them...

Four Against Darkness - Beginnings

I recently started adventuring against the darkness.  I never would have considered this game if not for DM Jim's videos (Tabletop Engineer) over on YouTube.  I was never a fan of Hack, NetHack, or Dungeon Hack and this is basically a clone of that with dice.  But DM Jim was on to something...

Four Against Darkness is not a miniatures game, yet.

The mechanics are so simple and generating a random dungeon is surprisingly fun.  With a few small modifications, the player is challenged not only by the dungeon, but also with a story telling element both written and visually.

The Table

Map, dungeon generation guides, character sheet (4 on one), some six sided dice, and a miniatures combat arena.

The Map

Using a laminated dungeon terrain mat, you can draw your dungeon as you randomly generate it from the tables and dice rolls. Here I'm using one of the Paizo Pathfinder Flip-Mats and held down with sticky tack.  My dungeon doors add a nice 3D component to the game and you can do something similar if you own a game like HeroQuest.

I push around a single pawn representing my party and populate the map with furniture for any permanent fixtures like fountains, shrines, armory, etc.  At the conclusion of this quest I dropped the monster miniatures on this map to make a nice picture / record of the adventure.

The Arena

I built a miniatures display diorama /book end a few years ago and I'm using it here both to visually display marching order and represent combat.  I have miniatures for most of the monster's appearing in the first book and reasonable proxies for everything else.  It takes a little extra time but the result is very satisfying. Above, the heroes are ambushed in a room by a group of orcs.

Narrative Changes

I do not like randomly entering a dungeon to grind and gain experience points (in fact I abhor the ubiquitous leveling systems synonymous with RPGs). So I have decided that I will roll the "final boss" in advance and put together a story.  This story is a mission or situation with real stakeholders, and piecing together why certain elements are present in the dungeon to tell a cohesive story can be a lot of fun.  Having rolled the final boss in advance, the only thing left to do is to modify the boss / weird monster encounters such that the FIRST thing you do is check to see if it is the final boss.  If it is, then you place the pre-rolled boss instead of a random monster.  You can have some more fun with this as well if you encounter the same type of monster elsewhere in the dungeon as a monster or wandering monster.

Conclusions

I'm having fun with Four Against Darkness.

DungeonsDark

I put together a HeroQuest module in 2015.  It can't be found anywhere on the public internet, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it.

DungeonsDark - Quest book

DungeonsDark - Cards

Note: there may be issues printing the cards.  I will make another post with just the images.

 Welcome to Whitebeard's Workshop!

This blog will cover my various hobby projects and activities.  For the most part this will mean gaming and crafting related to fantasy miniatures wargaming.  In the short term I plan to upload content related to the games HeroQuest, Rangers of Shadow Deep, and Four Against Darkness.  And include crafting content related to booknooks and wargaming terrain.