Devil's Tomb Play Report

A one-shot play report for Mörk Borg by Pelle Nilsson and Johan Nohr.  Available from Free League Publishing.

...Here Be Spoilers...

Graven-Tosk, 57 years of pain left

We meet our party as rain pelts down, they are Rummage (lobster hand, deep picking nose bleeder and nihilist), Targog (corpulent, ravenous and drooling; forgets important facts and has a problem with authority, very vindictive) and Flöorgle (rotting face, wears a mask, shrewd, also nihilistic and a compulsive shit-stirrer) - they are about to enter a stone sarcophagus, surrounded by graves, mausoleums and crosses, deep in the heart of Graven-Tosk.

Looking back on less miserable times, the group recall the high priest's servants at Galgenbeck where they had delivered to them a one line message "Find the Eyes of the Icon of St Largoth, it sees all."  A few days journey through the wastelands and the constant avoidance of the Blood Cough, had brought them to the vast cemetery of Graven-Tosk with Rummage's wagon, Flöorgle's Donkey and Targog's loving but aloof monkey - a strange sight they were.

The entrance to the Devil's Tomb is found, deep in Graven-Tosk and as they enter, they are glad to be out of the incessant rain and dark clouds, through the sarcophagus and down the staircase they go, their way lit by makeshift torches of femurs and corpse shrouds.

At the end of the stairs, they lower themselves into an entrance hall, a strange, dishevelled human leaps and cavorts, requesting they leave this place immediately, his face is covered in mould and one eye is white and diseased.

The group have no intention of leaving, so the man rushes them and tries to bite Flöorgle.  Rummage kills him by stabbing a dagger in his diseased eye, clouds of spores drift up from it as he collapses.

After a brief rest and careful investigation of the body, they go through a door to the east and across a narrow bridge, the bridge sits above a pit, hellfire can be seen at the bottom, as well as some rooms exposed lower down.

On the other side is a green bronze door "go to nech" is written on it, chains cover the door... they consult, best to keep whatever is chained inside... inside.

Heading back to the entrance, they hear chanting from the staircase to the south, clouds of spores hang in the air.   Rummage goes first, tying a rag over his mouth crawling down the stairs, he feels unwell.  The staircase is covered in vines and blossoms in the shape of angel faces that sing to him, he resists the urge to join in with them, heading back up he now cannot see his companions, but he can hear them ... they try to kick him to his senses, he doesn't like this game they are playing.

Flöorgle decides to journey down, he wraps corpse shrouds around his eyes and mouth, he gets to the bottom, a corridor heads east and more stairs head down, east he sees goblins arguing over a two-handed sword, "Give us Sharpie!".

Flöorgle quietly calls down the others, Rummage is beginning to see indistinct shapes of the others, he keeps close to them.

They consult again, after a pause they charge the goblins, a brief battle, two goblins attack, then a third joins them from the nearby shithouse, blows are traded, the goblins seem to have the upper hand until eventually Targog's monkey leaps and bites out the jugular of one of the goblins, the others shriek in fear and throw down their weapons.

The goblins are placed in chains in the shithouse, the main room opens out into the pit, below is a waterfall sending steam hissing up as it hits the fires at the bottom.

The group take the sword and return, heading further down the stairs, this area is flooded, they wade into an altar room, a strange amphibious creature is dead on the altar, vines and flowers surround it, they toss him off the altar but find nothing else.

Targog is on lookout but fails to spot more of The Drowned heading his way, Targog retreats into the altar room as the creatures roar in anger upon seeing such desecration, Targog surprises the first and bashes in his head, the second is soon dispatched.

They head to the end of the corridor there is a room of pods, and floating debris, a hole in the wall leads to a room of sparkly things AND The Eyes of the icon, wearing the eyes they see more of The Drowned in the pods... they go to the waterfall, above is an entrance in the pit wall, previously unseen but now seen through the wonder of The Eyes.

They head back to the goblin room, break down the shitter door and use it as a bridge to reach the entrance, they go inside and are met by a large pulsating multi-coloured cactus, it's tendrils reach out to try and grab them, Targog and Flöorgle run, Rummage is caught, crying out for his compardres to return - "Rummage's wagon is mine!", cries Targog.  Rummage is swung up into the air and dropped into the mouth of the beast, he struggles, close to death, a final effort and he escapes, just avoiding another tendril is he staggers out of the door.

Covered in plant goo, blood and spores, Rummage, eventually clambers out of the sarcophagus, to come face to face with Flöorgle and Targog, busy loading the wagon.  "Boys, we need to talk about trust and that's MY bastard wagon.".

GM: 

Our usual Call of Cthulhu/13th Age group, decided to run an impromptu one-shot on a system none of us had played or GM'd before, was remarkably straight forward and a lot of fun, the traits, bad habits, etc really brought the characters and the setting to life.  There was an imminent sense of danger for the whole party, goblin's getting the upper hand, only for monkey to roll a crit and bite out one of their throats, then luckily their morale collapsed.   In the finale, Rummage was an absolute gonner until he finally rolled a crit, after rolling like a dog all game.  The omens saved the group a couple of times and finding the Sharpie was a godsend.  We will definitely look to do more one-shots and some great ideas here to put into our ongoing campaigns.  Also, the first time I got some of the concepts behind OSR, especially around eliciting from the group the detail of what they are doing or trying, rather than the more mechanical of "I roll skill X, I roll skill Y".  

On the technical side, we used Roll20 for maps, handouts, character sheets and dice rolls and Discord for voice.  Character sheets were functional and did everything that was needed though it would be nice to have an NPC option for monsiters and I used the Devil's Tomb Map with judicious use of Fog of War, was a little bit painful to make sure I only uncovered room by room but overall worked well.  I added some sonorous chanting for the Angelic Choir, scaring the beejesus out of the players when I gradually introduced it!