The Gaming Den

I don't even. That 'fight' is ridiculously easy, but also unnecessarily long in that rolling for each of those enemies adds up fast. Was there some reason that they weren't fought as an aggregate? Is the intention to shock the reader by making them imagine each individual tiny life we snuff out? I feel like this is actually some sort of moral choice moment badly disguised as a combat encounter.

I can't tell if we can expect to gain anything from fighting, if they're so desperate as to fight a relatively giant murder machine, they probably don't have anything. And while they are clearly deranged and dangerous to other children and drunkards, I can't discount that maybe after we win the book they could go on to have better lives?

Escape.

Holy shit.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Was there some reason that they weren't fought as an aggregate?

1. To portray being dogpiled.
2. To allow for non-binary outcomes of each round.
3. If it had been difficult, for Luck burning to have a greater effect.

We have skill 11 and three rations, but we could have had skill 7, zero rations, and a wound track longer than longcat from the encounter with the guards (and maybe some skill/health loss from nighttime activities if they are not immediately fatal). Kill those little fuckers.

Fight.

The second group of young ruffians moves in to fight you. Fight them as you did the first group.

Fourth MURDEROUS URCHIN SKILL 5 STAMINA 4
Fifth MURDEROUS URCHIN SKILL 4 STAMINA 4
Sixth MURDEROUS URCHIN SKILL 5 STAMINA 6

Combat Log:
Urchin D 13, Holden 20. Urchin E 9, Holden 17. Urchin F 14, Holden 19. Attack Urchin D, Urchin D is at 2.
Urchin D 10, Holden 22. Urchin E 11, Holden 19. Urchin F 8, Holden 17. Attack D; Urchin D is dead.
Urchin E 10, Holden 19. F 15, Holden 21. Attack E, Urchin E is at 2.
Urchin E 9, Holden 18. Urchin F 8, Holden 21. Attack E, Urchin E is dead.
Urchin F 11, Holden 22. Urchin F is at 4.
Urchin F 10, Holden 23. Urchin F is at 2.
Urchin F 12, Holden 15. Urchin F is dead.

(Sextuple Flawless for Holden! They should call us Nam Orphanslayer.)

If you win, you search the bodies, and find they had only 3 Gold Pieces between them. Record this booty on your Adventure Sheet.

Abnormally large rats are gathering in the shadows. Some of the heaps of fetid much seem to be moving of their own accord. You think it is time to leave.

You return to the grocery stall and survey the array of cold meat pies and small loaves of crusty bread temptingly displayed in the open air. A single Gold Piece will buy enough for three meals; or, if you are feeling desperate or daring, you might be able to filch enough for one meal while no one is looking.

If you want to buy three meals
If you try to steal one
If you would rather leave the Merchants' Quarter of Neuburg, you can go to any part of the town you have not already visited. You could either make your way down to the river, walk across town to the Temple Quarter, or go up Castle Hill to Neuburg Keep.

Adventure Sheet
Holden McGroin, a.k.a Fukkerjack
SKILL 11/11
STAMINA 18/19
LUCK 8/9
WILLPOWER 11/11
Equipment: Sword, Armor
Provisions: 3 (+4 STAMINA each)
Gold Pieces: 8
Running Total of Deaths: 1

EDIT: One thing I should probably clarify: buying meals also leads to a separate section than just leaving would. The way I'm formatting the book into a LP might not make that clear. So our choices are:
Go buy three meals
Try to steal one meal
Leave for Riverside
Leave for Neuburg Keep

Go to the river. I was promised an ancient weapon, and I ain't leavin' 'til I'm sure it's not here. Yeah, it may be full of thugs, but fuck it, they want to get up in the business of a man covered in orphan blood, I feel like that's their problem.

Buy meals.
(edit: to clarify, I'm all for exploring the waterfront, but

you can go to any part of the town you have not already visited.

we aren't getting back here, and meals are always useful).

Agreed. Buy the meals. Then go to the waterfront.

-Username17

'Best meat pies this side of Kelther!' the burly shopkeeper assures you, as he wraps your selection in a scrap of parchment. You hand over 1 Gold Piece and place the three meals in your backpack. Make a note of this exchange on your Adventure Sheet.

As you make your way through the crowds back towards the market-square, you notice a tiny, rickety stall that appears to be laden with junk, rags and useless knick-knacks. The proprietor, also tiny and rickety, is small and bearded enough to be a Dwarf; but then again, he's ugly enough to be a Goblin...

He notices you staring at him. You glance away, and see the two robed swordsmen again, still shadowing you at a distance. You look up at Neuburg Keep, shrouded in grey mist above the roof-tops. And when you look again at the aged stall-holder, he is smiling at you in a curiously knowing way. He beckons you with one spindly digit.

'If you have money to spend, my friend,' he says, 'I have an antique curio which may help you, if you are having difficulties with our southern neighbors.'

If you are interested in buying a piece of old junk from this street-trader
If you have no money, or would rather not spend what little you have, you continue on to the market square

Adventure Sheet
Holden McGroin, a.k.a Fukkerjack
SKILL 11/11
STAMINA 18/19
LUCK 8/9
WILLPOWER 11/11
Equipment: Sword, Armor
Provisions: 6 (+4 STAMINA each)
Gold Pieces: 7
Running Total of Deaths: 1

Examine his wares.

We tell the Dwarf:


Since apparently all our allies speak to us in LOLCat, I figure Holden should start picking up the local lingo.

-Username17

With much gesturing, the little old being invites you into a tumbledown lean-to hovel behind his stall. Inside the windowless shack, you can hardly move for bric-a-brac: rusty weapons, broken furniture and cracked pots take up virtually all the available space. Pausing only to light a candle, the stall-holder begins to rummage with surprising energy in a particularly cluttered corner. With a triumphant cry he pulls something from a pile of rags and brings it towards you. It looks like a small garden fork! It is very rusty and it has no handle. You begin to wonder whether the old stall-holder is demented. You are even more worried when he demands 3 Gold Pieces for it. (We have another chance to not buy, but I'm pretty damn sure we want to buy this.) Deduct 3 Gold Pieces from your Adventure Sheet.

The old Goblin—for by now you are fairly sure that's what he is—takes your money, inspects it by the light of the candle, bites each coin in turn, and then throws the coins over his shoulder to add to the heaps of debris. He hands you the broken fork, and you can see that it is the head of a weapon—a three-pronged spear of blue metal, with vicious barbs and intricate inscriptions overlaid with copious amounts of rust.

'Even cleaned up it won't be of much use without its shaft,' the Goblin tells you. 'But if you can find its handle it should make a prodigiously powerful weapon against those southern scum and their horrible pets. I've kept that spear-head since before most of the buildings in this town were built. I was told it was broken in the battle fought on Castle Hill itself, before there even was a Neuburg or a Keep. The Southerners were defeated and fled. The legends say that their unnatural allies were swallowed up by the ground on which they stood, and that the spear-shaft went with them. They were mortally afraid of that spear, the stories say.'

You put the spear-head in your backpack and make your way to the market-square, still wondering whether you have wasted your money.

By the time you arrive at the wet and windswept market-square, you have managed to elude your shadows. Your adventures in the Merchants' Quarter have not provided many answers to the puzzle of what is going on in Neuburg—so where will you try next? You can go to any part of the town you have not already visited.

If you want to go down to the riverside wharves
If you decide to venture up Castle Hill to visit Neuburg Keep
If you walk into the Temple Quarter

Adventure Sheet
Holden McGroin, a.k.a Fukkerjack
SKILL 11/11
STAMINA 18/19
LUCK 8/9
WILLPOWER 11/11
Equipment: Sword, Armor, Three-Pronged Blue Spearhead
Provisions: 6 (+4 STAMINA each)
Gold Pieces: 4
Running Total of Deaths: 1

Having found the weapon, I no longer give a care about the wharves. I strongly suspect that having had a helpful and a (roughly) neutral encounter, the wharves are going to be a purely negative encounter.

Take us up the hill.

After a successful Luck test and two offers to not buy, I'm pretty sure the fork is genuine.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Having found the weapon, I no longer give a care about the wharves. I strongly suspect that having had a helpful and a (roughly) neutral encounter, the wharves are going to be a purely negative encounter.

Take us up the hill.

This.

The road winds up Castle Hill towards the brooding bulk of Neuburg Keep. The few townspeople you meet shake their heads and avert their eyes; they obviously believe you are either recklessly brave or completely senseless. The path becomes steeper, the houses are fewer and are little more than stone-fronted caves, and the black towers of the Keep's curtain wall loom over you. The path you are on appears to lead directly to the castle's main gate-house. There is a smaller, overgrown path that leads off to the right.

If you want to stay on the main path
If you would rather take the right-hand trail

Following insane ramblings has paid off so far - take the right trail.

Indeed.

Hacking at brambles with your sword, you follow the path around the hillside in the shadow of the battlements. The path veers to the left and disappears into a clump of bushes at the base of the wall. You push aside the prickly branches and discover a small door, which you have some difficulty in opening as there is just as much undergrowth on the other side. You cut your way down a flight of stone steps, and find yourself in an untended kitchen garden. The vegetable patches, herb beds and fruit trees are wildly out of control and it is impossible to see across the garden. You can make out that the garden is square, is surrounded by walls, and has the remains of a gravel path around its edge. You are at the mid-point of one side. Will you turn right or left?

(Yay uninformed choices! How I've missed you.)

Right, 'cause I' assuming we're right handed

The coin agrees with OgreBattle.

You reach a corner of the garden. The path and the wall turn to the left, and in the corner a gap in the wall forms a rough doorway into the base of one of the battlement towers. The interior of the tower is dark and silent. The path continues uninterrupted alongside the garden until it reaches another tower at the next corner. Do you want to enter the base of the battlement tower? Or will you continue to the next corner of the garden?

Dark silent basement in a horror story? Seems legit. Let's check it out, see if it has a handle for our ancient spork.

I'm getting a flashback to my first playthrough of Demon's Souls where I entered exactly that setting. It involved arrow traps and a giant katana skeleton.

Lets go into the tower.

You step into the darkness of the ground floor of the tower, and you notice that the air is warm and musty. As your eyes become accustomed to the gloom, you realize that this room is used to store the garden compost. Everywhere there are vast heaps of decaying leaves and rotting vegetables. There is no sign of any other door from the room, or any access to the upper floors of the tower. You can investigate the compost heaps with the tip of your sword, or you can leave the tower and continue towards the next corner of the garden.

Why wouldn't we stab their otyugh compost pile?

By the way, if these guys are so evil, why do they compost? I sort on envision nightmare castles as being more trash burner type affairs.

-Username17