[Let's Play] Fighting Fantazine Adventure #2 - Shrine of the Salamander

[SGamerz]

Moving to the fan magazine mini-adventures that haven't yet been hosted here:

Shrine of the Salamander (Issue 2 adventure)

The PC is a junior priest of the Temple of Verlang (god of the forge, patron of metalworkers) in Kakhabad, set out to recover a holy idol stolen by the Horntoads who are in turn ruled by a Salamander.

Although there's no story connection between this adventure and Steve Jackson's Sorcery, this adventure uses a (shortened) version of the magic system. Because the adventure is much shorter than Sorcery, the spellbook is also much shorter - only 9 spells are taken from that book, and like the other book, some of the spells require the right ingredient or item to cast.

This is actually one of the few adventures that can be legit completed with minimum starting stats - although don't make the mistake of thinking it'd be easy, it's only possible if you find the optimal path, and you need to find a couple of vital clues to succeed.

Hand of Fate (Issue 10 adventure)

This is a sequel to The Citadel of Chaos (FF2), the PC is the same protagonist from that book. It also features elements or characters from a couple other books, Temple of Terror (FF14) and Deathmoor (FF55).

But to prevent you from having misguided expectations of this adventure, I will reveal a "spoiler" of sorts (well, you'd find out shortly after starting the adventure anyway): this adventure does NOT feature any magic system. The PC has lost his ability to cast spells due to his spell-casting hand being cut off near the beginning of the adventure, and part of his quest is to recover that hand (and of course, still save the world in the process).

If you wish, we may use the already-generated character from the LP of The Citadel of Chaos that was hosted on this forum, Manstaff Cockbeard, for the sake of continuity. Again, this adventure can be challenging, but it's also not too demanding in terms of stats - not as "easy" as Shrine of the Salamander, but you don't necessarily need double-digit SKILL to win this one (although minimum stats are not encouraged either).

Ascent of Darkness (Issue 11 adventure)

For this adventure, the author took steps to modify the mechanisms of determining the starting SKILL and LUCK to represent the fact that the PC is an established and accomplish hero (so that the stats range between 9-12 instead of 7-12). Additional attributes are also added to add more flavour to the PC, as he must pick a special Heroic Power and also a Heroic Flaw to his character. This is supposed to be an ancient heroic epic that happened before the War of the Wizards, Carsepolis still existed, and the PC is one of the leading warriors of that city. He'd just led a force to victory on a campaign against the Caarth when he received news of the death of his father back in Carsepolis and must hurry back home to deal with whatever crisis that happened there.

Dreams of Darkness (Issue 14 adventure)

Issue 14 of the magazine came out around the time when Joe Dever passed away, so as a sort of tribute, instead of the usual FF-style adventure, it featured a Lone Wolf-style adventure. However, the PC is not Lone Wolf, or even a Kai Lord. Instead he's actually a minor NPC from one of the Lone Wolf books, the personal guard and retainer to Baroness Coryene of Gadorvo, whom Lone Wolf encountered during his quest. The story gives him a background story, part of which is still shrouded in mystery at the beginning of the book, because he had lost the memory of his early life and is just recently starting to receive some flashbacks from bad dreams.

Starting Combat Skill and Endurance and combats are handled similarly to a Lone Wolf adventure, and while the PC doesn't have any Kai Disciplines, he gets to choose from a list of Special Skills. This is mostly a fairly well-balanced adventure except maybe for the final part, and has decent replay value, with 2 general paths.

Barbarian Warlord (Issue 17 adventure)

The last adventure in the series thus far, Barbarian Warlord is a bit of a "romp", with a PC playing a Barbarian chieftain leading his tribe as an invading force into Allansia to try and conquer it. This is clearly not meant to be canon in any way, with the PC potentially able to overrun most of the famous locales in the early books written by Steve and Ian (Fang, Darkwood, Firetop Mountain, Stonebridge, Salamonis, etc), and defeating/killing established NPCs (including the the Demonic Three and the Grand Wizard's 3 Star Pupils) from those books. He's technically not required to conquer every landmark, but there's a point system at the end to determine the level of his success, determined by a combination of how many places he conquered and how (dis)honourably he went about doing it.

Apparently, the author originally set out to write some sort of sequel to Armies of Death with an improved Mass Combat system, but eventually decided to switch to a completely independent story instead while keeping the new Mass Combat rules.

Any players interested in any of the above?

[JourneymanN00b]

I will soft vote for the Shrine of the Salamander.

[Thaluikhain]

Barbarin Warlord seems interesting.

[SGamerz]

Poll is ending tonight, so unless there are new votes before then, it looks like Shrine of the Salamander will be the one.

[SGamerz]

Well, we have a winner, so it's going to be Shrine of the Salamander next.

As usual, first we have the standard rules that most of us are no doubt familiar with by this point:

Standard FF Boilerplate Rules

Skill, Stamina, & Luck
[spoiler]SKILL score: Roll one die. Add 6 to the result.

STAMINA score: Roll two dice. Add 12 points to the result.

LUCK score: Roll one die. Add 6 to the result.

SKILL score reflects your expertise in combat, your ability with weapons, and your dexterity. STAMINA is your general constitution and "Life points". LUCK score shows how lucky you are. None of them may exceed their Initial score unless specifically stated.

Testing your Luck: When instructed by the book to Test your Luck, roll two dice. If the result is equal to or less than your current LUCK score, you are Lucky. If the result exceeds your current LUCK score, you are Unlucky. Whatever the outcome, you must deduct one point from your current LUCK score every time you Test your Luck. The more you use your LUCK, the less likely you are to be Lucky.[/spoiler]

Combat:
[spoiler]SKILL and STAMINA scores are given in the text for each adversary that you face.

The combat sequence is then:
1. Roll two dice for your opponent. Add the total rolled to its SKILL score. This is the Attack Strength of your enemy.
2. Roll two dice and add the total to your own current SKILL score. This is your Attack Strength.
3. If your Attack Strength is the higher, you have wounded your opponent: deduct 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA..
If your opponent's Attack Strength is higher, it has wounded you: deduct 2 points from your own STAMINA.
If both Attack Strengths are equal, you have avoided each other's blows.
4. Begin the next Combat Round, starting again at step 1. This procedure continues until either you or your opponent has a STAMINA score of zero. If your opponent's STAMINA score reaches zero, you have killed it and can continue with your adventure. If your own STAMINA score reaches zero, you are dead.

Using Luck in Combat

You can use your LUCK in combat to inflict a particularly serious wound, or to minimize a wound that has been inflicted on you.

Whenever you wound an opponent, you may Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, you have inflicted a severe wound: deduct an extra 2 points from your opponent's STAMINA. If you are Unlucky, you have merely grazed it, and you deduct 1 point less than normal from its STAMINA.

If you have been wounded, you can Test your Luck in exactly the same way. If you are Lucky, the wound upon you was only a glancing blow and you can deduct 1 less point of STAMINA than usual. If you are Unlucky, the wound is serious: deduct 1 extra point from your STAMINA.[/spoiler]

For this adventure, we will be taking the dice as they fall for our starting stats.

SKILL roll 3+6 = 9.
STAMINA roll = 11+12 = 23.
LUCK roll = 4+6 = 10.

There aren't a lot of unique rules to this adventure. There is, of course, the Magic system, but even that would be familiar to anyone who'd played Steve Jackson's Sorcery:

The Spellbook of Verlang

As mentioned before, there are 9 spells available to our character. None of the spells are "new" - they are all taken from Sorcery, using the same 3-lettered codes for names that players are supposed to memorize before they start the game.

I realize that there's no way to really prevent players from referring back to the spellbook (either in Sorcery or the free Fantazine) during the LP anyway, but in the spirit of emulating the original rules of both Sorcery and this adventure, I will have the below spell descriptions, ingredients and costs hidden behind black background once the adventure officially starts.

HOT:

Basically a fireball spell.

Cost: 4 STAMINA
Ingredient/Item required: None

WOK:

Creates and invisible magic shield just under 3 feet across, effective against all normal weapons.

Cost: 1 STAMINA
Ingredient/Item required: a Gold Piece (it will no longer be usable after being used for a single spell)

YOB

Summons a Giant that you may order to fight for you, or perform some feat of strength.

Cost: 1 STAMINA
Ingredient/Item required: a Giant's tooth

POP:

Turns pebbles into exploding hand grenades that you can throw at people/obstructions.

Cost: 1 STAMINA
Ingredient/Item required: small pebbles, of course

MUD:

Creates a pool of quicksand that traps and drowns enemies

Cost: 1 STAMINA
Ingredient/Item required: sand (like in Sorcery, we can apparently only collect sand at specific spots in the book for this spell. Maybe it's a special type of sand)

TEL:

Allows caster to read the mind of an intelligent creature.

Cost: 1 STAMINA
Ingredient/Item required: Cloth Skullcap

PEP:

Enhances the caster's strength to double of triple his normal level

Cost: 1 STAMINA
Ingredient/Item required: Potion of Fire Water

ROK:

Petrification, turns living creatures to stone.

Cost: 1 STAMINA
Ingredient/Item required: Stone Dust

HUF:

Creates a strong wind powerful enough blow over man-sized creatures (including off cliffs).

Cost: 1 STAMINA
Ingredient/Item required: Galehorn

Starting Equipment:

Mostly similar to standard FF as well, but since our character is a priest, instead of a sword, we get a warhammer. So we start with:

Warhammer
Backpack
Lantern
2 Meals of Provision (we can carry up to 10)
1 Spell component (to be chosen)

So, before we even begin the adventure proper, we need to vote on one thing: which of the below spell components do we start with? We can only choose 1 of these:

Giant Tooth
Cloth Skullcap
Potion of Firewater
Galehorn

[Queen of Swords]

I'll go with the cloth skullcap.

[JourneymanN00b]

I also vote for the Cloth Skullcap, since the TEL spell sounds vital to know.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, makes sense.

[SGamerz]

One thing I probably should have have mention: most of the spell components seem to be 1-shot and are essentially "used up" once the spell is cast (the Potion has to be consumed, the pebbles are obviously lost once they explode, etc). The Skullcap and the Galehorn seem to be the only exception here, and can be used throughout the adventure multiple times.

On the topic of the 4 spell components, this gives me the idea for the "boons" I will be employing for this LP.: 4 boons, each represented by 1 of the 4 components we get to take at the beginning:

Skullcap - one use, allows the players to "read the GM's mind" and be redirected/rewind to where they first went wrong in the LP and doomed themselves to failure, OR gain access to a piece of information or clue they missed.

Galehorn - one use, "blows" the players back on the course they choose or accelerate them along it - can be used either as a free rewind to any section the players choose, OR to blow them past ONE checkpoint where they fail an item check.

Potion of Firewater - one use, enhances players' prowess and allows them to auto-pass any stat test rolls that they fail within a single section.

Giant's Tooth - summons a servant/scapegoat to take the whatever punishment they triggered: basically if you make a bad decision and incur some penalty (like reduced stats), this boon absorbs the penalty for you. If that penalty is death/Game Over, you rewind back to the section before you made the choice.

Anyway, the Cloth Skullcap gets the unanimous win here for starting spell component, and we now proceed to:

THE STORY SO FAR

At the mouth of the immense Jabaji River, where it exits the Earth End Coastline and flows into the Kakhabad Sea, lie two strange subterranean communities. On the north bank, we find the perilous and paradoxical Daddu-Yadu - the Croaking Caves, of which more will be said later. On the south bank however, lies Daddu-Ley - the wealthy Coppperstone Mines, controlled by the priests of Verlang, patron deity of smelters and metal-workers.

Here. creatures of a dozen different races drawn from across the Verminpit labour in the labyrinth tunnels, extracting copper ore from the very bones of the earth. In addition to their mineral wealth, the forge-priests of Verlang also possess two other valuable treasures. One is their Sacred Spring, whose blessed waters are bottled and traded across Kakhabad. The other is their Holy Idol of Verlang, reputed to have been made by the god himself, from the very same magical clay that Titan used to fashion the world, and fired in a basalt kiln on the Elemental Plane of Flame. Some say the powers of the Idol are the reason that the priests of Daddu-Ley have ruled over this corner of Kakhabad in comparative peace for many years past, and many years still to come.

Lortag the Elder, Kakhabad: Its Lands and Peoples, 284 AC, The Year of the Fox, Khare, Axiome Press.

"Thieves! Thieves in the night!' So howled Gulanti, the old High Priest of Verlang, god of the forge. And it was true. The copper-walled cave-temple had been ransacked, the idol of Verlang taken from its rightful place on the rune-embossed bronze altar.

Evidence was everywhere. Numerous great, wet slimy footprints stained and criss-crossed the tiled floor of the inner sanctum. They erupted out of a gaping black hold in the wall, circled the chamber (and grabbed the idol), and ventured straight back from whence they came.

A party of priests armed with hammers and flaming torches ventured into the hole, down a long, winding tunnel that had been carefully burrowed into the rock and braced with driftwood. It opened, via a secret entrance, onto the marshy banks of the mighty Jabaji River, and the priests looked out across a drifting expanse of dark water. There, on the far and distant shore, they spied fires gleaming in the caves that dotted the great cliffs of the Earth End Coastline.

"Daddu-Yadu," breathed the High Priest in fear (for he had accompanied the search party). "The Croaking Caves. Lair of the Horntoads..."

"I don't understand," YOU say to High Priest Gulanti, patriarch of the Copperstone Mines. "Why leave it so obvious? It's almost like somebody else wants us to think the Horntoads did it. It could be river pirates. Smugglers from Khare. By Lorodil! Even the Shield Maidens of Lumle could have done it! Why Horntoads?"

"My fellow priest, sometimes things are indeed exactly what they seem," says Gulanti. "There is no hidden message, no secret meaning. Our Idol has magical powers, and the Horntoads desire those powers for themselves. Hence they have stolen it from us. After all, have you not heard the rumours of the Salamander that has taken up residence among them, in the shrine of Furlakk the Frog God?"

You nod grimly. Only recently, a boat-captain complained to you that the Horntoad raids on river shipping had become more frequent since a Salamander had arrived at Daddu-Yadu and cloaked itself in the mantle of leadership. Salamander meaning of course the bug flaming monsters from the Elemental Plane of Fire, not the small harmless amphibians of pond of lake. Why had a Salamander come to Daddu-Yadu? And how?

"And do you remember the story of the Idol itself?" says Gulanti, as if beginning a sermon. "Verlang fired it in the molten furnaces of the City of Brass, with the help of a dozen enslaved Salamanders, the First-Spawn of their race. Perhaps one of them has merely returned to claim what it rightfully believes to be the property of its people."

"But this is sacrilege!" you cry. "The Idol of Verlang is for the priests of the forge-god alone to treasure! It is our most holy relic!"

"That is why you are here my friend," says Gulanti, with a calm, firm voice. "We need you to enter the Croaking Caves, slay the Salamander, and retrieve the Idol. We need you to do it quickly too, before word leaks out that the Idol has been stolen, and the Copperstone Mines are aflame with open rebellion among the slaves and miners. You are the best at what you do. Go! And may Verlang guide both your hammer and your spells..."

It is true. YOU are an adventuring forge-priest of Verlang, and have undertaken many perilous quests across Kakhabad at the behest of your god. You have stared down the Apes of Mauristatia. You have braved the Beastmen of Tinpang Valley. You have even infiltrated the Necromancers' Guild of Throben. But how will you fare in this, your most dangerous adventure? Will you survuve the Shrine of the Salamander?

Turn to paragraph 1.

As mentioned before, there's no real connection between this story and Sorcery, but as you can see there is a reference to a minor character from that series. Lortag the Elder (who apparently wrote the book from which the extract at the beginning of this section taken from) is one of the leading citizens of Khare, and the sage who can give the protagonist one of the 4 lines of spells that open the North Gate.

At dawn you set out across the Jabaji River on the Schoolfish, a long but narrow coracle with goat-skull figurehead. The boat's crew initially let it run with the current, before cutting back across the river's murky brown water with powerful strokes on the broad-bladed oars. The ferry captain Unzana - a short-haired woman from Dhumpus - is an experienced veteran of these parts and offers you much useful advice.

"The caverns of Daddu0Yadu are split into four areas," she tells you. "The Horntoads (she pauses to spit over the side of the boat) live in the main central caverns - the proper Croaking Caves. Off to the left, you've got the Under-Temple of Throff, the earth goddess. Her priests are sometimes friendly, sometimes grumpy. Up on the cliff top are the Crystal Mines. These are guarded by Dark Goblins who pay tribute to the Gaping-Maw Clan of Orcs from the town of Zuzbeck."

"And the fourth?"

"The Tunnels of Ooze. Monsters and quicksand! Best avoided if at all possible!"

After a short while, as the sun slowly rises to shine weakly down on Kakhabad through thick grey clouds, the Schoolfish is brought ashore on the coarse orange sand that makes the Earth End Coastline. You leap off the prow of the boat and on to the beach. Before you lies tall rocky cliff-face, riddled with caves and hollows. Somewhat to your surprise, Captain Unzana gives the order to relaunch and head back to Daddu-Ley.

"We can't remain here," she shouts across the widening stretch of surf at you. It's too dangerous! If - no, sorry, - when you finish your mission, light a beacon at the top of the cliffs, and we'll come back and pick you up! One last thing - watch for the grem..." But her words are lost on the wind.

You light your lantern and consider your options. You also notice plenty of material on the beach that is useful for casting spells. Add any of the following to your Adventure Sheet if you wish: three small pebbles, stone dust, and some sand. Then, choose - where will you go first?

The Under-Temple of Throff
The Crystal Mines
The Tunnel of Ooze
The Croaking Caves

There's no reason not to take all of the available spell components. The issue is that this section actually serves as a sort of "central hub" that the PC will return to after visiting each of the 4 areas, and it's not clear whether or not we're allowed to pick up more of them each time we return to this spot. My interpretation is that we can (although I'd admit it's weird that we can only pick up exactly 3 pebbles each time), and that the stone dust and sand are only sufficient for one use each time we pick some up here (in this case, my headcanon is that we don't have the container to hold more than one use of each).

Anyway, which place do we visit first?

(And as usual, feel free to give a name to the PC.)

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: ???
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 23/23
LUCK 10/10
Equipment: Warhammer, Lantern, Cloth SkullCap, Small Pebbles (x3) Stone Dust, Sand
Provisions: 2
Gold: 5
Boons: Galehorn, SkullCap, Giant's Tooth, Potion of Firewater
[/spoiler]

[JourneymanN00b]

I half vote to check out the under-temple of Throff, and full vote for John Constantine.

[Queen of Swords]

Crystal Mines, and I'm fine with the name John Constantine.

[SGamerz]

If there's no tiebreaker by tonight, this will be determined by randomizer.

[JourneymanN00b]

If there's no tiebreaker by tonight, this will be determined by randomizer.

My vote for the under-temple of Throff is a half one, so the Crystal Mines would win the vote if nobody else votes, though.

[SGamerz]

If there's no tiebreaker by tonight, this will be determined by randomizer.

My vote for the under-temple of Throff is a half one, so the Crystal Mines would win the vote if nobody else votes, though.

Oh, sorry, I seem to have missed that. In that case, I will proceed with visiting the Crystal Mines first. Thanks.

To get to the entrance of the Crystal Mines involves clambering up a steep path that winds its way through the boulders and yellow clumps of spinifex bushes that dot the cliff-side. Nearing the summit, you suddenly hear voices and freeze. Peering cautiously over the rim of the cliff-top, you see two bored Dark Goblins - small, pale-skinned, big-eyed folk with spears and shields - on guard duty outside a mine entrance close to the edge. You could fight them, or cast a spell:

POP
TEL
HUF

One thing that this book differs from Sorcery in the usage of the magic system is that this adventure doesn't waste any sections on "fake" spell choices. All the spells listed here are legit, although we may not have the necessary item to cast some of them or they may be completely inappropriate for the situation.

Fight, or use a spell? Which spell do we use if the latter?

[Queen of Swords]

We can't use HUF because we don't have a Galehorn, and the Goblins are small enough that we could probably fight them sans magic. Try TEL.

[JourneymanN00b]

Sure, I vote to use the TEL spell since the Cloth Skullcap is reusable.

[SGamerz]

Deduct 1 STAMINA point. Do you have a Cloth Skullcap with you? If not, return to 125 and choose again. If you have a Cloth Skullcap, you cast your spell, close your eyes and concentrate, trying to detect whatever thoughts (if any!) are currently passing through the feeble minds of the Dark Goblins. Apparently, they are bored, hungry, and fearful of their 'boss' - a big Orc who lives inside the mine they are guarding. You learn one other important fact that is deeply ingrained into both their memories - anyone entering the maze of tunnels that forms the mine itself, must first turn left and then travel in a clockwise direction if they wish to remain safe. You open your eyes. The Dark Goblins are still unaware of your presence. Turn back to 125 and make another choice.

Other than learning some useful information, another benefit to this spell is that it doesn't alert them to our presence, so we have the option to cast another spell.

Do we want to use POP, or just go straight into combat?

Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: John Constantine
SKILL 9/9
STAMINA 22/23
LUCK 10/10
Equipment: Warhammer, Lantern, Cloth SkullCap, Small Pebbles (x3) Stone Dust, Sand
Provisions: 2
Gold: 5
Boons: Galehorn, SkullCap, Giant's Tooth, Potion of Firewater
Notes:
1) Anyone entering the maze of tunnels that forms the mine itself, must first turn left and then travel in a clockwise direction if they wish to remain safe.
[/spoiler]

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to go straight into combat to conserve resources.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, make with the stabby stab.

[Queen of Swords]

Agreed, combat.

[SGamerz]

As soon as they see you scramble over the edge of the cliff, the two DARK GOBLIN guards level their spears and charge towards you screaming battle-cries! You quickly get to your feet to meet their assault head-on.

First DARK GOBLIN SKILL 5 STAMINA 5
Second DARK GOBLIN SKILL 5 STAMINA 5

They will both attack you at the same time. Roll for your own Attack Strength and roll once for each of the two creatures. If your Attack Strength is higher than either of theirs, you may choose which creature you inflict the wound on. If one of their Attack Strength is higher and other one lower, you will wound the lower one, but be hit by the higher one. If both their Attack Strengths are higher, they will both wound you. If you wish to flee the Crystal Mines and Escape, turn to 100. If you defeat both the Dark Goblins, a quick search of their corpses reveals 3 Gold Pieces which you may take if you wish. Turn to 75.

Despite being Dark Goblins, their stats are apparently no different from your standard Goblin.

This mass combat system is a bit different from what we see in most FF books - we don't have to pick a target in advance, instead we automatically hit someone as long as our Attack Strength is higher than one of them, which simplifies things a lot, and puts things slightly more in the player's favour. Not that we're likely to need it in this case.

COMBAT LOG:
Dark Goblin#1 11, Dark Goblin #2 11, John Constatine 15. DB1 is at 3.
DB1 15, DB2 12, JC 17. DB1 is at 1.
DB1 14, DB2 13, JC 15. DB1 is killed.
DB2 8, JC 15. DB2 is at 3.
DB2 15, JC 17. DB2 is at 1.
DB2 10, JC 14. DB2 is killed.

The Crystal Mines are a series of rocky tunnels hewn into the hillsides where the uplands of the Vanti-Bak Wastes meet the Earth End Coastline. Three tunnels leading onwards are marked with crude scrawls by a Goblin or Orcish hand. Where will you go? Bear in mind you cannot return to any place you have already visited, no matter how briefly.

The tunnel marked "Boss"
The tunnel marked "Mines"
The tunnel marked "Gear"
Or will you leave this area?

From the way the text is worded, we can infer that we will probably be referred back here after going through most of them, but can only enter each once, so order is important here...

[Queen of Swords]

The mines sound like a maze of sorts, so let's leave them till the end (if we enter them at all). Try Boss first.

[JourneymanN00b]

I say we visit the Gear door first to get any essential items that might be needed for the other two doors.

[Queen of Swords]

Oh, that’s a good point. Changing my vote to Gear.

[Thaluikhain]

Gear makes sense. Unless they mean cogwheels.