Intro
I just picked up a copy of the White Box: Fantasy Medieval Adventure Game, but I’ve been reading the PDF version while waiting for my paperback copy to arrive. The rules are so simple and appealing that I had to throw together a completely random party (3d6 in order, no swapping) and do a little exploring. That ragged band of misfits is above, and the adventure starts below.
Random Quest Generation
The party consists of six strangers, brought together by the opportunity for some easy money. Each was passing through the village when they saw the notice posted ~500 gold coins for anyone who can retrieve a flask of the ambrosiac water from a certain subterranean spring to break the curse strangling the town.
Ill-equipped but confident, the six head out into the wilderness and eventually arrive at a dark hillock set in the midst of a forest. No trail leads up the hill, but they head up until they find an entryway cut into the soft earth, shored up with stones. Within lies a staircase.
They light their torches and head into the darkness.
The Dungeon
Rolling on the Scarlet Heroes tables, I’ve decided that this will be a cavern area with 9 rooms. My goal is to find a certain spring somewhere within the cave complex.
Reminder: You can find links to every one of my solo session game reports on my Campaign Logs page.
Room 1
Feature: Unnatural mists or darkness
Contents: Monster only (3 zombies), no surprise
The stairs end in a room filled waist-high with a chilling, clinging mist. As the party’s torches fill the room, three figures rise from the mists and advance upon the party.
The zombies are upon the party before they can act. Ragar is clubbed badly as he fumbles for his sword [-2 hp], but then Ashura wades forward with her cross held high and the zombies wilt before the might of the lord [makes turn roll] and are soon beaten to pieces.
The party takes a few moments to search the room, but there is no treasure to be found.
Turn passes
Room 2
Feature: Dead end
Contents: Monster only, 2 gnomes, both surprised
The party creeps along a northern corridor until they emerge suddenly into a small chamber. The tunnel looks like it continued onward, once, but now fallen stones block all forward movement.
Two half-sized men stand in the room, surveying the ceiling. Both shout in surprise as the party enters.
Reaction roll: 9
What do they say? hostile-capture-allies
They explain that they are explorers, mapping out this part of the world for the great gnome-atlas. One of their members was surveying this hill when something grabbed him and pulled him inside. They are searching for him now.
Will the gnomes travel with us? 50%: no
They semi-politely decline to travel with six thunderous humans, but they say that they’ll be much in our debt if we find their friend and return him here.
Turn passes
The party takes a few minutes to search the room, but they find nothing.
Turn passes
Room 3
Feature: Underground Pool
Contents: Treasure only
Note: This is too soon to find the pool according to the SH rules, so I’m going to make something wrong with it–this isn’t what we’re looking for.
The party backtracks to the entrance and takes a tunnel heading east. It emerges after a short trek in a large chamber dominated by a smooth, round pool, now dry. A crack at the bottom of the pool hints at deeper caverns below.
Turn passes. No wandering monster.
The party takes a few minutes to search the room [no check needed since the treasure isn’t hidden]. A moldy chest sits in the center of the pool, where it must once have been covered. The party drags it up to the level ground and opens it, where they find…
Terrible roll
a hoard of 18 gp, 270 sp, and 4500 cp. The party splits the gold and silver but leave the copper to return for later.
Turn passes.
Room 4
Feature: Stalactite maze
Contents: Empty.
They spend a few minutes meandering through a twisting maze of jagged stalactites. Kimral of the Black’s torch begins to gutter out, so he lights a new one.
Turn passes. No wandering monster. New torch.
They search the room, but find nothing of note.
Turn passes
Room 5
Feature: Wide gallery
Contents: Trap + Treasure
Trap Type: Fear Curse
The party passes into a wide gallery. The ceiling rises out of sight overhead, and countless small cracks lead off deeper into the hill. A foul wind blows up from the darkness beyond their torchlight.
Small figures of worked iron reside in small niches against the back wall.
Turn passes, wandering monster! A level 3 magic-user.
As they are examining the small gods, they hear footsteps coming down the hall. A man enters, bearing a torch and dagger in his hands. He stops on seeing them.
Reaction roll: 7, neutral
Response: mysterious-lies-treasure
“So. They told me you would be here. After my treasure, are you?” He suddenly begins chanting the words to a spell!
Conjurer: HD3, HP 11, AC 10, Atk: +0, Dagger (d6-1), Spells: Hold portal, read magic, web.
Round 1
Suddenly, a sticky web sprays from his fingers and binds the party’s hands and feet together.
Save to avoid being bound completely: only Brother Fidelious and Kimral succeed.
The cleric charges forward, bringing his hammer down hard upon the mage’s upturned arm, cracking the bone even as the wizard tries to roll away [-6 hp, 5 left].
Round 2
The hit gives Kimral time to catch up. The priest and wizard strike together, slaying the wizard.
Does the wizard have his spellbook with him? +2: yes
The cleric works on freeing his companions as Kimral collects the wizard’s grimoire and rifles through his pockets. He comes up with a decent haul–a few daggers, two torches, 90 gp, 720 sp, and a copper arm band worth 20 gp.
Turn passes
Several minutes later, Fidelious has burned away the webs and freed his companions. They return to their investigation of the small iron figurines.
Overturning one, they hear a strange howl burst out of the thing’s crooked, almost-human-looking mouth [fear spell].
Save to avoid effects: only Torba succeeds
Torba, the great barbarian, looks on in shock as his companions quake in their boots at the howling noise. The panic-striken party refuse to move for [d3x10=30, yikes] fear of what awaits them in the dark.
At leas they found…700 more silver coins of a strange and ancient make in a niche beneath the cursed figurine.
Rather than count turns, I’m going to make 10 wandering monster checks (1 every 3 turns since they’re in one place, and I’m going to burn 5 torches).
After rolling, I learned that they will have two wandering monster encounters over the 5 hours they have to wait. After the second random encounter, I will fast forward to the end of the five hour period.
Encounter 1
Creature: 2 adepts (cleric level 2)
Are they evil? +2: yes, but… not necessarily looking to fight.
Reaction roll: 6, unfriendly
Torba can do little to motivate the other five from their cowardly huddle around their dim circle of light, but even his bravery doesn’t extend to going further in the cave alone, so he has little to do but settle down until the obviously addled group gets their wits about them.
Surprise check: only the clerics
They hear footsteps in the dark and see a light approaching around a distant tunnel. Afraid but no fools, the party stuffs the torch behind a large pillar and move as far from the accursed idol as they dare. So it is that they are flanking a corridor when four clerics in chair armor over strange, dark robes enter the chamber.
Acolyte: HD2 (7, 9, 8, 7), AC 14 (chain), to-hit: +0, mace d6, Special: spellcasting
Loath to use Kimral’s only casting, the party falls upon the clerics with violent intent as soon as they enter the chamber. Ashura’s disgust at seeing the corrupted symbols on their cloaks strengthens her arm, and her mace knocks one down long enough for Bathir to shatter its skull with her club [both hit, killing one]. Their momentum is short lived, though, as the other clerics soon take up fighting positions.
I got lucky and none of the priests had anything but Detect Law memorized. Apparently they were preparing to go out on some dark errand where they thought they would have the element of surprise.
Ragar and Brother Fidelious form a shield wall against the maces of the first two clerics, but the third steps over the body of her fallen comrade and brings her mace down on Bathir’s head as the thief looks away [6 damage kills her].
A second cleric goes down to a hail of blows, but the two remaining dark priests call upon their hate to strengthen their arms and pummel Ragar and Fidelious nearly to death [both drop to 2 hp].
The blows shake the two adventurers and spur them forward. The party trades blows a few times longer before beating the two clerics down.
Torba finds a handful of gold coins (12) and a set of chainmail that seems to fit and isn’t too blood-stained, and he swaps it out for his leather armor.
Also on the clerics, they find a wicked-looking staff and a pair of scrolls that the clerics recognize as Raise Dead (this wasn’t GM fiat, just super lucky rolls for each cleric to have a magic item). Even in deepest shadows there must be light–now the party has hope for Bathir, if they can survive the dungeon and get her body back to the village.
Encounter 2
Creature: 5 dwarves
As the party nurses its wounds and probes at the edges of their invisible jail, they hear the sound of heavy footsteps and clinking armor. A warband of dwarves enter their cavern, shields at the ready and demanding to know the party’s business.
Reaction Roll: 8, neutral
They are wary upon seeing the dead clerics, for they have little truck with the vagaries of human religion. Still, they don’t really feel the need to start trouble when there’s likely trouble enough further down below, so they pass on in peace.
Finally, the four shaken adventurers feel the supernatural dread fading. They take up Bathir’s corpse in their arms and make their way back out of the caverns and into the light.
6 hours, 40 minutes spent in the dungeon
They return to the small village and take a pair of rooms in the inn where they will divide their plunder and rest and recover before their next attempt to find the magic spring.
But first…Ashura and Fidelious take up one of the scrolls of Raise Dead and pray over it, asking for the One Who Is True to take the taint from the spells of one of the False Ones. Then, they read the spell.
White Box: FMAG doesn’t have a ton of rules for Raise Dead other than to mention that characters with low CON may not survive, and anyone who does will be out of commission for quite a while anyway. I’m going to make this a simple CON test (roll =< CON on a d20), but modified by the caster’s spell casting bonus–in this case, +1 to CON because Fidelious has a WIS bonus. Bathir has to roll a 9 or lower or be forever lost.
Raise Dead roll: 1! It works better than expected–no residual illness
The magic takes effect immediately. The scrappy thief bolts upright on the bed, swinging her arms as though she were still fighting. It takes a few minutes to calm her down, but eventually they catch her up on everything.
Finally, the party settles down to count their loot and plan out how they’ll prepare for their next expedition.
Wrapping Up
Treasure:
108 gp
270 sp
720 sp
700 sp
20 gp arm band
Unidentified Staff of Striking (2d6 damage, 5 charges, ignores armor)
2 scrolls of raise dead
12 gp
309 exp
Exp:
3 zombies (90 exp)
conjurer (60 exp)
4 clerics (120 exp)
270 exp
579 exp
Thus, each adventurer receives a measly 96 exp, modified by their stat bonus if applicable. They come out of the experience with enough coin to keep themselves fed and housed in the inn and to maybe pick up a few trinkets that can help them in the dungeon, but mostly they’re in pretty much the same pickle as when they started. Oh well!
Adventure Materials 