New Year's Dungeon Bash

After this summer's dungeon crawl I was eager to make some tweaks to the rules and run it again. The holidays seemed like an awesome time to get some friends together so we grabbed some beers and dice on New Year's Eve and ran a wintery dungeon crawl. All the details after the jump.

Dungeon Bash, The Rules

I adapted the Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Rules for the first dungeon crawl and used what I learned from that run to make some tweaks to this session of the game. I'll post the rules I used at a later date, but essentially the players kill monsters, grab loot, and level up. Pretty basic stuff.

The Miniatures

While I put quite a few new Reaper Bones figures on the table I also had to dust off some of my older fantasy miniatures. Please excuse the poor paint jobs and embarrassing basing on some of the minis.

The Adventure

I had six players, each chose a character tasked with entering the local ruins now shrouded in the snowy embrace of winter, finding the slumbering dragon within and slaying it.

The adventure opens with the players waking from their encampment on the outskirts of the ruins to find goblin thieves stealing their provisions and ambushing them as they emerged from their shelters.

Goblin snipers take potshots from a mountain ledge

After dispatching the goblins the party chose to follow the tracks of a few that had escaped with their gear.

Entering the ruins they discovered the cowardly goblins delivering their loot to a trio of monstrous cave trolls.

After a furious battle the victorious heroes recovered their loot, but still had not caught the last of the goblins who had scurried through a door the subterranean caverns carved from the bedrock.

The goblin alerted the red skinned orcs who dwelled within...

who were in league with a wicked flame demon.

The flame lord quaking beneath the yellow ring of cowardice

"Hey," says the dwarven cleric, "It says on my character sheet I can 'Turn Evil', which works on Undead and Demons. Can I use it on this thing?" "Huh...so it does. Sure, give it a roll!" One lucky die roll later and the big bad flame demon was cowering in the corner. Despite composing himself a few rounds later it wasn't enough to keep the demonic hell lord from falling beneath the blows of the party.

After collecting the demon's treasure the heroes found a chimney passage back to the surface..

.. where a group of fire worshipping red orcs danced about their Rune Stone in an attempt to summon more flame creatures.

It was a near run thing, but the bruised and bloody the party overcame their foes. Treading over the crumbling bridge they entered a denser area of ruins...

... investigating an enchanted fountain they were ambushed by its undead guardians.

The party frozen in fear from the banshee's howl

Sending the unquiet spirits back to the underworld the party ventured towards a hilltop cavern flanked by charred trees. Always a good sign.

Within the cavern, the serpentine form of a vile dragon, snoozing upon his hoard.

The party crept forward, each step chancing a noise that would awaken the beast. As they drew closer the dragon's nostrils flared, its eyes flashed open and it reared upon it's hind limbs. They'd been discovered! Calling upon the power of the wild, the party druid transformed into a feral bear...

Battle was joined, the dragon giving as good as it received. Heroes were blasted with fire, tossed about by tail sweeps, and gnashed by iron teeth.

Still the combined might wore down the beast's strength. Enraged it burst free from the heroes and flew from the cave, arrowing towards the magical fountain.

Unleashing spells and arrows, the group fell into hot pursuit. Catching the beast proved easy, but downing it was harder. One hero after another fell beneath the beasts flaming breath.

Still, Good prevailed and the party fighter finished off the wicked reptile. Bandaging the wounded, the group celebrated their victory, not to mention the hard won epic loot!

Aftermath

It was a fun game! I still need to tweak some of the loot balance but overall I was happy with how the game turned out. Hoping to play another beer and pretzels dungeon bash soon!