Topic: [Death Frost Doom] Part 1: Burn everything, and play the organ

Just got back from tonight's first foray into Death Frost Doom.

I was GMing. Playing, we had MINER, COOPER, and MASON, all 0-level commoners, of occupations you can tease out.

For drinks, some Bud Platinum thing and some Abita stuff. For eats, meatloaf cake and fresh ceviche.

I started them at Zeke's cabin. Each of them had something/someone precious to them either taken by bandits or destroyed by bandits. They had nothing to lose, we stipulated, and were seeking the place the bandits were holing up. They were holing up in the DFD mountain. Bad idea. I populated the complex with bandits in various states of dismemberment.

The guys talked with Zeke for a while and got him to lead them up the mountain. Our commoners have 1, 2, and 3 max HP respectively. Zeke gives them the spiel, and off they go.

They scout the house, super cautious like, and proceed to burn everything that's not bolted down.

This may have something to do with running Tomb of Horrors the time before.

They started the bonfire outside the cabin with the magic harpsichord. Then they broke the painting over it and burned it too. Then all the facing-you-when-you-walk-in chairs. Then the time travel clock. And then the big huge book of the dead that Zeke copies out of. Then they figure: you know what? He's probably going to be unhappy about that (n.b.).

The only things they didn't burn were the deer head, the purple lotus powder, and the mirror.

MINER's eyes lit up when he found the lotus powder. He took a spoonful, felt it tickling his nose, and immediately grabbed the mirror and cut out lines for everyone. Everyone else said "You first." MINER said sure.

The random effect was to lose max HP. MINER only had 1 HP anyway; so it's like whatever. Guy's got more HP than sense. He's drugged out of his mind for 15 minutes, and they keep the powder and move on through the trap door. The guys tie a rope around the petrified cabin door to keep things steady and start exploring the complex proper.

They go around stomping on skeletal hands, reconfiguring them on pedestals, pushing open Dead Sign doors with their eyes closed, and finally they come to the big chapel. Poor COOPER. It seemed so legit to start playing that organ, but of course he failed his save. A killer performance. MINER made his save, though: yellow mold? Pfft.

WELCOME TO THE OSR MOMENT: COOPER's player: "I'm dead!? But I have 3 HP!" ME: "It's save vs death. It wouldn't matter if you had 800 HP." Him: "So what do I do?" Me: "Just roll up a new guy." Five minutes later, back in the game.

So they leave MINER's body there and head to the surface to recharge and rest. And then MINER gets to thinking: I bet that crazy mountain man is going to kill us. MASON doesn't want to have anything to do with the killing, but then COOPER's replacement character SMITH comes up the mountain, childhood friends, of course. MINER cues him in on the sitch, and SMITH is like, well, of course we have to kill this guy.

But how to kill Zeke? Zeke would take them in a straight fight no problem. MINER's player asks SMITH's player, "Hey, do you have any bellows?" And, you know what? SMITH's player had already written that down in his gear. So, yeah. They fill the bellows with the remaining powder and blow a big poof in Zeke's face while he's offering them dessert-squirrel. Overdose. Dead. And there's some residual powder remaining in the bellows (n.b.).

Poetically, the trio digs a grave for Zeke and carves a headstone for him. He's the first grave you come to now on the ascent: "CRAZY ZEKE." The party rehydrates some jerky and makes a fine stew. Turns in the for night. Now, back to the dungeon.

MINER of course grabs the cursed items from the altar. He doesn't know their cursed yet. After some exploration of the rest of the available complex, they're at a bottleneck: how to get through the tooth door? MINER cuts his palm with the cursed dagger and offers the blood to the altar. Try again. After a while, they figure they need a fresh tooth. I say yep. MINER volunteers. He's got 1 HP, remember; so why not? He gets SMITH to blow the residual powder in his face, and when he's hallucinating nice and fine (he actually rolled the same result again on the d100 table), SMITH breaks out a tooth with a horseshoe. Drop in the basin, and blam: new area opened.

And that's where we had to quit. I imagine they guys will make it through in one more session. We had an awesome time, and, James, you did a great job creating atmosphere for this thing. The whole way, the "bad scene" vibe was smacking everybody upside the head.