Finally ... A Darkest Dungeon Board Game!

Darkest Dungeon Update

The squire and I kickstarted this video game, as it has a similar vibe to the original Diablo video game.

Here are a couple of examples of play, based on the current beta state of the game.  Looks pretty intense!

Darkest Dungeon CRPG: Cosmic Horror

A brief interlude before posting more Magic Realm play-by-plays...

Darkest Dungeon is currently on Kickstarter.  I don't normally play computer role-playing games, but Darkest Dungeon reminds me of Diablo, one of my favorite computer games, so I just had to back this one.

Check it out!

The Dwellers Under The Tombs

The final page of Jonas Kiles' journal:

"I wonder how Jacob Kiles discovered these subterranean ways?  He did not construct them.They were carved out of dim caverns and solid rock by the hands of forgotten men -- how long ago I dare not venture a conjecture. 

While hiding here, waiting for the time to be ripe, I have amused myself by exploring them.  I have found they are far more extensive than I had suspected.  The hills must be honeycombed with them, and they sink into the earth at an incredible depth, tier below tier, like the stories of a building, each tier connected with the one below by a single stairway.

Old Jacob Kiles must have used these tunnels, at least those of the upper tiers, for the storing of plunder and contraband.  He built the entrance tomb to mask his real activities, and of course cut the secret entrance, a stone door hung on a pivot.  He must have discovered the burrows by means of the hidden entrance at Smuggler's Point.  The concealed door he constructed there was a mess of rotting splinters and rusting metal when I found it.  As no one ever discovered it after him, it is not likely anyone will find the new door which I built with my own hands, to replace the old one.

I have wondered much as to the identity of the race which must have once inhabited these labyrinths.  I have found no bones or skulls, though I have discovered, in the upper tiers, curiously hardened copper implements.  On the next few tiers I have found stone implements, down to the tenth tier, where they disappeared.

Also, on the topmost tiers, I found portions of walls decorated with paintings, faded but evidencing great skill.  The picture paintings on lower tiers were cruder than those of the tiers above, until the last paintings were but meaningless daubs, such as an ape might make with a paintbrush.  One gets a fantastic impression of an imprisoned race, burrowing deeper and deeper into the black earth, century by century, and losing more of their human attributes as they sank to each new level.

The fifteenth tier is without rhyme or reason, the tunnels running aimlessly, without apparent plan -- so striking a contrast to the top-most tiers, a triumph of ancient architecture, that it is difficult to believe them to have been constructed by the same race.  Many centuries must have elapsed during the building of the tiers, and the builders must have become greatly degraded.

But the fifteenth tier is not the end of these mysterious burrows.  The doorway opening on the single stairway at the lowest tier was blocked by stones.  Prompted by curiosity, I cleared away the debris, in spite of the tax it was on my strength, and opened a hole, this very day, although I did not have time to explore what lay beneath.  Indeed I doubt I could do so, for my light showed me not the usual series of stone steps, but a steep smooth shaft leading down into the blackness.

Into what unthinkable pits it leads I do not care to even guess.  For some reason, the realization that the fifteenth tier descent is not a stepped shaft gives me a strange creepy feeling, and led me to fantastic conjectures regarding the ultimate fate of the race that once inhabited these hills.  I had supposed that the diggers, sinking lower and lower in the scale of life, had become extinct in the lower tiers, although I have found no remains to justify my theories.

Tonight I leave this infernal retreat forever.  Nor will I be sorry, for the eternal darkness and silence are beginning to shake even my iron nerves.  I am becoming imaginative: even as I write, I seem to hear stealthy sounds, as of things creeping up from below."

-- Robert E. Howard, "The Dwellers Under The Tombs"

THE Balthazar Strikes Fear Into Our Hearts

Why should Erin Palette have all the fun?  Balthazar, yes, THE Balthazar, strikes fear into our hearts with his review of spooky Cthulhu Dice.

Hold me.

Dungeon Module D2: Shrine of the Kuo-Toa

It's easy to find examples of "bad" Dungeons and Dragons artwork.  One has only to look at the D-series of modules to find it.  Of course, when I say bad, with quotations, I don't really mean bad.  Primitive, yes.  Amateurish?  Fine.  But it is also entirely appropriate, in keeping with the requirements for Dungeons and Dragons art, as separate from Fantasy Art.

Incidentally, some people, big fans of Elmore, Easley and Parkinson, uncritically consider fantasy art (particularly by those three artists) and DnD art to be the same thing.  I will return to why they are not in a separate post.

Having reached the end of module D1, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, and avoided or defeated the troglodytes, bugbears, trolls, dark elves, and assorted other adversaries that dwell in a large subterranean cavern, the party pushes on towards the fabled city of the Drow.  The party continues to encounter Drow patrols and merchant caravans, along with quintessential DnD monsters like the Rust Monster pictured above.

Several other new (for 1977) monsters appeared in Shrine of the Kuo-Toa.  The above Umber Hulk makes his first appearance here in this DnD module.

Above we discover a trio of Ropers, one being put to the torch while another Roper pulls a hapless party-member to his doom.  It's interesting to view these illustrations, and in so doing compare them to the artwork that will come in the mid-80's and beyond.  It's typical of these early illustrations that the party's survival is often in doubt.

Other than some standard subterranean corridors, we are provided with very few encounter areas in D2.  One such encounter area is a river crossing, populated by a single insane Kuo-Toa ferryman.  It is possible that this will be the first of several encounters with this Lovecraftian adversary, prior to reaching the Shrine.

It should be obvious that the above artwork is by Trampier, even without his signature appearing upside down at the top of the illustration.  It features Tramp's not-atypical conceit of framing the illustration from the persective of the monster, rather than that of the adventuring party.  It catches the action at the precise moment of decision and danger, for the madness of the insane Kuo-Toa will be revealed in the manner in which the party reacts to his hail.

Another secondary encounter area features deep gnome miners, foes of the Kuo-Toa, whose reaction and sympathetic gestures towards the party may affect the success of their visit to the Shrine.  The deep gnomes have been scouting the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and have had several military encounters with these fish-men.  The deep gnomes are potentially powerful allies, if the party reacts to them in a fashion appropriate to their motivations.

Finally, we reach the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa.  Like the central subterranean cavern adventure location in D1, there is no requirement that the Shrine be cleared of foes.  In fact, you could, potentially, bypass this encounter location without participating in a single combat.  That is because there is significant underworld traffic through this area, including the traffic of drow patrols and merchant caravans.  Although the Drow and the Kuo-Toa hate each other, they have come to an uneasy accommodation, with rare breaches of that truce.  Other underworld denizens travel to and past the Shrine, so it is not unusual to find over-worlders in the vicinity.

However, there are clues to be gathered at the Shrine, regarding the intentions of the dark elves, and opportunities for other intelligence-gathering and preparation for what lies beyond, not to mention ample treasure and combat for those who wish to partake in those activities.  A smart party will take advantage of their friendship with the deep gnomes, or use subterfuge and cleverness to gain information and treasure here.

Hazarding Exposure To Call Of Cthulhu

I made mention earlier of the inspiration behind my blog title, A Paladin In Citadel. Part of the inspiration is from the classic Sutherland illustration, entitled A Paladin In Hell, from the original AD&D Players Handbook. The "Citadel" part of that blog title is now, hopefully, also clear.

What about the other part of the blog title, namely, being a Paladin? It surely does not stem from Paladin being my favorite character class, as I never played a Paladin, nor had interest in doing so. I always felt that the Paladin, and other specialist classes, paved the way for stat inflation and character-building systems, which both, in my mind, are anathema to the point of the original "old-school" character creation system -- the challenge of playing a character, based on what the dice present you, rather than what you wanted to play.

No, the reference to being a Paladin comes partly from what we played and how we played it. While there were lots of games we played back in the day, including several boardgames and microgames, you would never have described our gameplay as incorporating either "weird" or "horror" elements. As far as RPGs went, we played Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller, straight up. I was in a pretty white-bread gaming group.

Oh, sure, I was acquainted with Call Of Cthulhu, Arduin Grimoires, Tunnels & Trolls and the other alternative rpgs that sprang up in the late 70's and early 80's. But two things prevented a thorough introduction to any of them: one was cash (or lack thereof, I was in my tweens during the late 70's and early 80's and had neither a job nor regular allowance); the other was arrogance (thinking that first-to-market or biggest-in-market meant best). Until the mid-eighties, scraping enough money together to buy even the core D&D books or the occasional microgame was a challenge. Living in (rpg) poverty and being arrogant about your beliefs = Paladin.

Luckily, my brother did have a job, which meant there were boardgames and rpg books in the house, even if I was technically barred from accessing them (good luck with that).

So I did get exposed to a wide variety of games. But one of the few that I did not have the opportunity to experience was Call Of Cthulhu. Trey, the author of the blog From The Sorcerer's Skull, posted an entry recently, mentioning a Call Of Cthulhu monster encyclopedia, entitled Malleus Monstrorum. He, in addition to several other bloggers, are in the habit of posting interesting tidbits about games weird and horrible, of which many reference Call Of Cthulhu and Basic Role Playing.

While my recent trip to The Sentry Box failed to yield a copy of Malleus Monstrorum, I have come into possession of several other BRP and Call Of Cthulhu resources, which I will bravely hazard exposure to, in the name of all that is good, light and true. They are:

• Basic Role Playing: The Chaosium Roleplaying System -- this 400 page tome is (as I understand it) the underpinning for the Call Of Cthulhu game.
• Cthuhlu: Dark Ages -- 175 pages of supplementary material, to allow you to set your Call Of Cthulhu game in the period around 1000 A.D.
• Cthuhlu Invictus -- a 165 page Cthulhu Sourcebook, suitable for use in running an Ancient Roman Empire based campaign.
• Masks Of Nyarlathotep: -- Chevski was sufficiently enthusiastic about this particular 160 page 1920's-setting Call Of Cthulhu adventure that I could not pass on the opportunity, when I discovered it on the used-game bookshelves at The Sentry Box.

Do I need to buy the Call Of Cthulhu rulebook, or is possession of the BRP book and the above supplements and adventure a suitably broad introduction to this game system?