EDIT: PDF updated on 24Apr2020.
EDIT: Ben was kind enough to supply some excellent maps for those of you using Roll20 (or similar). https://imgur.com/a/AzBagSq
So here's a 51 page PDF that contains:
- An abbreviated version of the GLOG as I currently run it.
- A full-size dungeon and level 0 funnel.
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| click the skull |
First, a lot of the credit for this goes to my patrons. I've asked them what type of content they would like to see, and a majority of the responses revolved around either (a) compiling my GLOG in a single place, and (b) a finished dungeon.
Thank you so much for all the support. And also thank you a little bit for yelling at me. It all helps.
The third group, who answered (c) more Centerra lore, will have to be satisfied with the updated map at the end of this post that shows the location of Lon Barago, where this adventure takes place.
Second, this is not the end of this document. I'm working with some friends and artists to create a deluxe version of the Lair of the Lamb. It will be a proper PDF, with proper layout. It will be available in printed format (somehow). It might get Kickstarted. Who knows? Literally anything can happen in 2020.
Third, this might look like a free adventure, but it is not free. The cost of downloading this PDF is that you must let me know how it goes when you run it at your table. I'm especially interested in:
- What path people take through the dungeon?
- How many secrets did they find?
- Is the Lamb too threatening? Not threatening enough? Did they kill it?
- Were the ghouls killed, avoided, or befriended? Did you have enough guidance to roleplay the ghouls well?
- How much pressure was there for light sources?
- How much pressure was there for ropes and weapons?
Happy crawling!
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> It's not a complete version of the GLOG. You'll probably need GLOG: Wizards to fill in all the blanks, but you're smart enough to put all that together.
ReplyDeleteWell, the combat system is missing too. I dig the new resolution system, but it's hard to piece everything together. The combat system in your blog/documents is based on the previous roll-under system, so it's... something else. I also like very much your ideas on leveling up, but again: there are a lot of scattered (mostly great) ideas here, old and new, working and less so, but piecing them together in a coherent whole is not so easy.
My 2 cents: writing down a coherent system with all basic stuff (character creation, how to do stuff, combat, magic, etc) in a document like this would be a fantastic way to introduce new players and GMs to the game. A nice side-effect would be more and varied feedback on the game mechanics and how they fit together. Also, creating hacks would be a bit easier too.
BTW, I'd love to become a Patreon to make this happen.
DeleteThe newest version (posted) includes rules for combat. I'm working on making the Lamb into an introduction to the GLOG. So consider your recommendation fully accepted.
DeleteI'm going to run LotL tomorrow night
DeleteI echo the sentiments above.
Prep notes:
https://starmonkey.wordpress.com/2021/03/03/glog-lair-of-the-lamb-prep/
This is my new favourite dungeon. But - do some of the magic items appear to be missing from Appendix A (hand mirror of lies and acabus of Vandoh)?
ReplyDeleteAh shit. Version 2 (actually version 15) coming out tonight.
DeleteSo much brilliance in one package! Honestly this is so great, thanks Arnold.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering what this means:
"You can gain templates after level 4, but only if you
simultaneously up your highest template from another class."
I'm probably missing something obvious, but don't get it. Cheers!
I'm reading it as a typo, meant to be "simultaneously give up" but obviously can't be sure.
DeleteThat would make sense.
DeleteAhah, I have subverted your attempts by merely bookmarking it rather than downloading it!
ReplyDelete(Don't worry, I'll still give feedback if I can run it).
Oh boy oh boy oh boy!
ReplyDeleteI agree that there's some specificity to the rules that I would have liked.
ReplyDeleteAre Mastery Points once per dayb once per session, once ever? The last seems a little harsh given how few there are.
The dungeon seems amazing and I will try to run it soon.
P.s. I didn't expect Coramont to be so far away from the Holy Mountain!
Per day. I'll update the PDF tonight.
DeleteWas expecting to see a purple, equatorial landmass on that map and I'm afraid I was disappointed.
ReplyDeleteIt's north of the Red Waste. Zhuul and Charcorra are effectively satellites of the Madlands (hence the color).
DeleteOh, cool. Thank you.
DeleteSo. Incredibly. Stoked. It's great to see this place evolve between versions!
ReplyDeleteGonna start running this on Saturday in my home setting. Will let you know how it pans out!
ReplyDeleteReport from the first session:
DeleteFirst, a couple disclaimers. One, I'm running this in my own hack, rather than with the GLOG (though my own rules steal some notable mechanics from the GLOG with little modification, especially encumbrance and item durability). So I won't have much commentary on the rules part of the text. Two, I'm running it with 1st-level PCs, rather than as a 0th-level funnel, since everyone in my group has some experience with the game, and I'm just generally not fond of 0th-level starts. So, my PCs may be somewhat stronger than the module expects.
The first big challenge I encountered from the DM side was how the fuck to describe the environment to the players when it's pitch-dark and their characters can't see shit. I've never actually been in that situation before, so I feel like my descriptions were a little awkward, though it worked out okay. They evaded the Lamb in the first encounter by sneaking out quiet-like (I don't think it even occurred to them to try and free the other captives). Briefly checked in on the goats, but didn't think to free the live one either. After that, they headed straight for the light. Grabbed the torch immediately, of course, and pried the pole out (I told them it would function as an improvised two-handed club); there was some debate about whether to try and open the iron-banded chest by setting it on fire, which ended with a resounding no, so they took it with them still locked.
Next, they headed south and found the tumblers, which they messed with unsuccessfully for a bit, but didn't trigger the acid trap. Privately, I noted that the Lamb passed through 5 Landing on its way to 9 Fountain while they were doing that, hence why they didn't encounter it on its way there. PCs doubled back for a minute to check out the vinegar smell, debated bashing down the door to 4 Chests but decided against making the noise.
Continuing on, they arrived at the pit and met Akina. There was some debate over whether she could be trusted, but the agreement seemed to be that they'd free her when they found a rope. Checking out the paths forward, they headed for the door to the fountain first, but I told them they could hear something big splashing around on the other side (the Lamb), so they decided to go not that way for the moment. They looked in on 10 Bone Pile briefly, then proceeded through the mural rooms, wisely not touching the pike in 12. Taking the east door from 13 off its hinges, they looked in on 16, then turned back to investigate 15 Crack. Seeing the spiders, they decided that probably wasn't a good way to go. That's where we ended for the night.
Pace feels good so far, resource-wise. I tend to play a little fast-and-loose with exploration movement rates and light source durations; generally, I won't tick turns when the party is actively moving through the dungeon, unless they explore for a long time, but when they stop to examine stuff or debate what to do, I treat that as them passing time and start running down the torch. They have 2 turns left on their current one, and another waiting for them just a room away in 14 Sarcophagus, which feels right considering they've been playing pretty efficiently so far. For weapons, they've got a knife and the torch pole as a club, neither of which they've had call to use yet, but again, it feels like good scarcity to me. They haven't really found any secrets so far, but the only one they've been in a position to find is the crawlspace in the bone pile room, and that'll be more visible from 14 Sarcophagus anyway, so I'm pretty sure they'll find it.
Next session this coming Saturday; I'll have an update then!
This sounds like a pretty solid playthrough. I think both you and your party probably did well.
DeleteOne thing I did to encourage people to free the other captives: give them the character sheets for the imprisoned people. That way they can't forget about them.
I'm excited to run this and to be your patreon! I've GMed very few traditional dungeon crawls and had a few questions about how you would run things:
ReplyDelete1- so the non-spotlighted characters are hirelings with +1 attack and damage to the main PC? Would you treat them like NPCs? or more like pawns? EG could a character use their non-main character to test hallways, as bait, etc? A normal hireling might balk at this..
2- Would Davok fight the Lamb? As written, it appears that he mostly slumbers unless his thrall is bothered by the PCs.. but would he act as artillery against the Lamb, or other monsters? Not sure if that is within the spirit of what is intended or not.
3- What's Akina's deal? A sane woman who has lived in the pit seems interesting.. Could make up myself, just curious about her!
4- Just a note: no entries yet for the ruby ring of wisdom and the jewelled crab bracer
5- also a note: I assume that on page 16 the Red and White Temple are mixed up, as the ghouls are strongly implied to be from the Red Temple
ThankS!
the Secrets page says they were with the White Temple. I believe the captain converted to the Red Temple in the end but they were originally trying to get into the Red through the White
DeleteThe Ghouls are the remnants of an attack squad sent from the Red Temple. I've hopefully cleared this up in the next rewrite.
DeleteTwo questions about the Encounter Die and Recon Die.
ReplyDelete1) When you the Encounter Die rolls "Depletion," does that mean that torches/candles burn down? Or do you just track time for those?
2) "If you roll a 1 on your Recon Die then you get an advantage. If your Recon succeeds on an Active or Passive Encounter, you gain Surprise."
Does that mean a 1 is a "success"?
1. Yep. Two depletions and a torch burns down. Players have time to light a new one as it sputters out. Candles last all day.
Delete2. Yep, in this case. It turns a combat into a case where the PCs typically have a chance to surprise the monsters (unless some other type of advantage makes more sense).
My D&D campaign went on hiatus this week, so I DM'd this with three people from my regular group. One is an OSR veteran, the others have only played 5th Ed. The results:
ReplyDelete4 Peasants and Akina escape alive.
Causes of death:
The Lamb – 4
Traps – 2
Ghouls – 1
Greed (trying to do the final climbdown with armful of treasure) - 1
Secrets found: The sarcophagus and the secret crypt.
Treasures Found: Ruby Ring, Jewelled Crab Bracer, The Crysmere Blade, The Iron Spellbook, The Orb of Indulgence. 850sp worth of other items.
Path Taken: Explored 1,2,3,5,6, Missed the secret at 7, explored 8, 9, 11 – 15, collapsed 12 to temporarily trap the Lamb, killed the priest in 19, befriended the ghouls in 21, explored 22, scared off by the crushing hall, explored all the crypts, killed the other two ghouls at 27, explored 29-32, ran down 35 to 36, explored 36-40, found the secret entrance to 39 but didn’t go in after spotting the ghoul. Broke down the wall at 44a, hid from the crab and the statue. Ambushed by The Lamb in 44, retreated to room 40 and killed it, escaped via 46.
The Lamb: Killed right at the end before the final escape. The players found the lamb suitably intimidating, and the final fight against it was about the right level. It caused casualties but wasn’t unbeatable once the group had some weapons.
The ghouls: Two befriended, two killed. Fun, good line between creepy and comedy, the players enjoyed interacting with them once they’d been fed.
Light sources: They were quite careful with light sources after their first torch burnt out, until they found the crypt and started burning mummy body parts with abandon. This seemed fun and stopped them gaining favour using the mummies, so I went with it
Rope – The made a makeshift rope from the rugs in the hidden chamber under the sarcophagus, and were lucky with their rolls to use it, so this wasn’t much of a problem. They found two other ropes by the end, so had plenty.
Other general feedback:
What does Akina know? My players quizzed her extensively, a bit more info on what she knows and doesn’t about the dungeon would be useful.
In the crypts there doesn’t seem to be any clues to the location of the secret crypts. It seems like the wall murals would offer some clue, but there doesn’t seem to be any connection, unless I’m missing something. My group would never have found it if someone hadn’t been randomly teleported inside.
The explanation of how encounter / recon dice works seems a bit clunky, and took me a few read throughs to understand. Maybe put a table in?
Does the weak floor in room 23 drop into room 41? I assume so from map position, but it would be useful to have that explicitly clear in the description for 23.
Thanks for the free dungeon, it was a blast to run and players enjoyed it as well.
The clue to the secret crypt is the phases of the moon. It could help to sketch these out for the players as they encounter each one. When you look at the seven phases found in the other crypts it becomes very obvious that there should be one more. I think that and the mapping of room 18 should point the players in the right direction.
DeleteOk, I've run it and even made a temporary account to comment here. Please give us an e-mail or other form of contact to send you our play report, because it's a bit too long to post it here as a comment.
ReplyDeleteUse glogsbody at geemayl dot cawm.
DeleteAnd thank you!
DeleteI've ran the adventure and made a throwaway account to post here. Arnold, if you'd like a full report on it, please let us know how to contact you, because it's a bit too long to post here. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteI ran this for my group:
ReplyDeleteI didn't use GLOG, we used Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I gave them 15 random Lvl 0 (1d8 HP) characters.
- In the beginning they escaped as the Lamb ate 2 of their friends. They got the goat and worked their way to the Pit, talked to the woman but couldn't get her out yet. Went back to the start and confronted the Lamb - one of them got killed instantly so they ran away.
Discovered the secret door to the Sarcophagus room and sent 2 characters down to the hidden crypt below it. They managed to avoid the snake and get the magic book. They had no way out of there for now so they were abandoned.
The group worked their way east towards the shaft. They gathered up wreckage and threw it down the sarcophagus trapdoor to allow the 2 trapped down there to climb out. They were very frustrated about their thirst so they made a plan to get the Lamb out of the fountain.
They wrapped a carpet around the pitch-soaked chest to make it very flammable. They then sent a character into the Fountain to lure it out. As it came out, they tossed the carpet on top and lit it on fire. The Lamb fled into the water and it gave them an opportunity to drink.
They worked their way eastwards and fought and killed the Priests in the pools. They met Vandress and she pretended to be a prisoner as well to avoid dying like the priests. Vandress convinced them to drink the 'milky liquid' and one of them stuck both their arms in it and got them melted off. They still accepted her as a prisoner. They got to the doors that lead to the Ghouls but turned back.
Near the murals they ran into the Lamb again. They fled and used some players as a distraction and knocked the weak ceiling down, narrowly avoiding a few ceiling deaths. While the Lamb was trapped in the rubble they used that time to meet the Chicken Vendor. They got quickly frustrated with him but paid him to send a message out to "Vandress' family".
They activated the code at the Fish Statue and entered the Throne - one player got themselves a Lobster Claw. They then went back to the beginning and smashed down the doors to Davok's chest. One of them opened it and some deaths ensued before they could get it trapped in the box again. One of the player swore loyalty to Davok and polymorphed another player into a giant caterpillar before being beheaded by Lobster Claw. Vandress runs off at this time to go for more Pink Piss and help the Lamb dig out the rubble.
The Caterpillar player crawls down the Pit and makes a tough STR check to let the prisoner hang onto him as he climbs out of the Pit. Together as a group they move to the Ghoul Door, running away from the Lamb. They chat with the Ghouls a bit and feed them the corpse of one of their comrades. We end the session with them slipping into the Ghoul Zone.
Deaths:
3 from the Lamb (2 in the beginning, one in combat)
1 killed by the Priests, dehydrated to death and fed to the Ghouls as jerky.
1 killed by Davok melting their flesh.
1 Polymorphed into a caterpillar by Davok's acolyte.
1 beheaded by Lobster Claw after Polymorphing the other guy.
1 lost both arms in the acid and is now basically catatonic.
1 had a bad drug trip on Purple Lotus and is now just eating everything, but is kind of cheerful about it.
So far they've loved it. I've looked ahead and the Mummy section looks rather confused with labelling and mis-typing things, but the rest of it is solid so far. I collected tons of sounds of Lambs/Sheep and distorted them to play when the Lamb gets near - the players are suitably freaked out by it and want to kill it.
That sounds amazing and I'm glad you had fun playing it. None of my groups have dared open Davok's chest so that's nice.
DeleteAlso, the ghouls eat those priests damn near every time.
Was the fish code too simple?
Also I think the chicken vendor needs to be more aggressively helpful (even while trying to scam them) so perhaps I'll bake that into the next rewrite.
Any chance you can upload the sheep/lamb noises? That sounds great.
I doubt you check this still, and I'm sorry for missing it!
DeleteIn case you do:
This was 3 years ago and I cannot remember anything of the fish code!
But, the players did make it to the surface and survive. Well, some of them did! They finally killed the Lamb in the big cistern near the top. The moneylender player sealed his friends into the dungeon and escaped on his own.
I ran this dungeon as a 1 shot (actually 2 or 3 shot...) adventure while the players were sailing to a new city. I used it as a kind of intro to this city (Turkish vibe) and I was going to have whatever happened in this dungeon impact the wider city setting as a whole. It also gave me time to get the city together.
The surviving moneylender (who learned Magic in the dungeon) eventually became something of their main antagonist for multiple sessions into the future. Ultimately they killed him in the arena in Goblintown (after 'winning' a spot in there by getting the Deadly Stenches for the Goblin Emprah which is another thing I took from your site.
Below is a link to a Google Drive that contains:
- Audio: These are creepy as is, but I like to slowdown or reverse them sometimes to make them weirder. Easy enough to do in the media player itself.
- Pics: Some of my players like to draw their own deaths. There is one getting eaten by the lamb, the poor Chimbley Sweep boy getting dehydrated by some spell, and the Milkmaid wearing the weird elephant skull and melting her face off.
- A recap, which covers the first half of the dungeon.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xufdTBk1_l0B4y85eQCi2M_qqhnahL-9?usp=sharing
I'm working on running this shortly and my immediate comment is that it would be nice to have the information for players (common knowledge, basic GLOG mechanics they need to know, advice for players) all together in one place so I could have sent those those pages to look over instead of copying it all out piecemeal for them.
ReplyDeleteI will fix this in the next rewrite of the Lamb.
DeletePDF Payment Play rePort
ReplyDelete--------------------------------------------------
TL;DR
What path people take through the dungeon?
- BOWLS, GOATS, VINEGAR, CHESTS, LANDING, PIT, BONE PILE, SARCOPHAGUS, SHADRAKUL, BONE PILE, CRACK
How many secrets did they find?
- So far, only Davok.
Is the Lamb too threatening? Not threatening enough? Did they kill it?
- They are perfectly terrofied of the lamb. It killed someone in round 1.
How much pressure was there for light sources?
- At first they didn't prioritize it well enough. They were more concerned with water. Once they got light they started moving faster to prevent it from going out. They kept getting a new torch just as the old one went out.
How much pressure was there for ropes and weapons?
- Once they met Akina they were laser focused on rope. They don't seem to care about weapons. Maybe because they think the lamb is unkillable?
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Some Notes:
I didn't run this with the included version of the GLOG. I ran it with my own GLOG hack. I don't think that will impact the play report much; the only big change is that I use ITO style damage (no to hit roll and armor as DR).
I ran the game more as an intro-to-OSR dungeon than a funnel. I gave my players a bunch of randomly generated characters. I made them "half level" adventurers instead of "zeroth level" peasants. Basically, they each had 1 really niche ability. The only one that came up more than once was Jack Jackson (1/2 level scout) who could spend a turn listening at doors to hear what was going on two rooms away.
Sounds like a solid playthrough!
DeleteThe half-level thing sounds pretty useful. That idea has legs, I think.
ReplyDeleteRan first session. All players new to OSR.
PCs snuck out of 1 after the Lamb got busy munching and went south to 3, tried to drink from trough. I had them make con saves to drink it. all failed) they argued for awhile about whether the light was safe before the player with the knife said that THEY wanted to go the light and had the knife.
At 5 they took the torch and pole, futzed with the chest for a bit before the random encounter brought the Lamb. They lost initiative so the lamb attacked and ate one of them. the rest of the PCs went south and didn't seem to notice the lamb wasn't following.
In 6 they explored thoroughly, didn't pull the lever. Eventually they concluded they didn't have what they needed and left, opening 5A on the way took the broom and hammer (I said gong was 18” across).
They went to 9, talked to Alina who didn't mention the ring. I found RPing her hard since I don't know who she is. I'm playing her memory as incomplete from the various leavings of the Lamb so she doesn't fully know why she's here or who she is. When they learned she had rags on PCs guessed she was a former sacrifice who got away and is why they now bind the sacrifices and leave them naked, so they can't escape like she did. I haven't decided if that's right or not.
They PCs went north to Fountain. Lamb burst from the water sending them back through pit and then through the mural rooms to 14 where the character with the torch, chose to dive into 15 to escape. I had them make a dex save which they failed so their torch set all the spiderweb on fire burning the PC to death and scaring away the Lamb. The players decided to take the body as bait in case the lamb came back. One of the dead player asked when they would be subbed back in for another peasant and I told them "whenever you free another peasant to sub back in as" at which point the party went "ohhhh" and went back to 1 and untied everyone else and used that rope with to make a larger rope. I agreed that it would be a makeshift rope.
From there they decided to go back to the pit room where the Lamb was. They fled to 10 and tried to hide among the pellets. I decided this counted as “Any amount of searching” so informed them of the tunnel. They crawled through it into 14.
In 14 there was some argument about opening the casket which led to some torch politics. A PC went into 14A and felt around before being bitten and dying.
Everyone else went into 13 and sent a child down 15. I decided that because of the fire the spiders were gone. The attempts to negotiate with Danjo went bad as the PCs failed to lie at him a lot and then left. They think he called the guard. I decided he didn’t because he has nothing to gain from doing so.
At this point they saved alina with the rope. Went to the water. Did not figure out how to save the drowning person and kept referring to the water as “cursed”. After a lot of pointless back and forth they all drank, one of them took the skeleton’s armor. I said there was a usable chain shirt but the PC who took it got the “fear of water” curse.
From there they went to investigate the murals. The rat talked to them but was mostly interested in food. They offered it part of the body they were carrying and it told them the way out was generally east before ripping a finger off an leaving. They then lost a torch and had to go find the flint and steel in 5 to light the backup one from 14.
Then they solved the tumblers room, using the rope to pull the lever just in case. A PC sat in the chair (there’s no rules for clairvoyance btw).
From there they went to CHESTS, leaving the burned body down the corridor as bait and kicked in the door. A PC ate the fruit. I gave him a chance to warn people of consequences of things they were about to do. A PC pulled the first linchpin on the grounds of “headaches aren’t so bad” another refused to pull the second one but fruit PC thought “big skull cool” and pulled it himself. That’s where we ended.
2nd session review
DeleteQUICK NOTES: players never once tried to get a container or proper rope. They managed to hang onto light as long as they did mostly through pure luck. bad depletion rolls would've doomed them.
2nd session opened with the head ripping the flesh off a reserve peasant and then geasing a PC peasant. They opened the small chest and took the stuff then went to 2. Convinced this was all a giant puzzle they killed the goats to look for keys in their stomachs then tried to cook them because they were super hungry. Halfway through trying that the lamb came in but since they had a roaring fire made from the hay it ran. They went to explore 16 and one of them did the exact thing the beta version of the dungeon said gave shendormu's favour so I said fuck it and gave it to them. They went to 18, found the block and tackle then lamb showed up and ate someone. They retreated to 17. got the candle and dagurotype intelligently then hunkered down for a bit until the lamb left. They then collapsed 12 and slept in safe zone. Next day they went to 19, kicked in the door, went to explore 20 and, seeing someone else with a claw and 3rd eye, the PC who sat on the throne chose to wake them up since "same hand! we be friends!" Vandress saw a bunch of naked people with makeshift weapons, one of whom was holding the head of davok (I assume Vandoh hates Davok) and cast wave of mutilation which caused a near total TPK (that spell is GROSS against L0 peasants since its a 20 ft cone from the corner of a 30 ft square room with pools you won't be standing in in the corners and saving for half doesn't help you when any damage is autokill) Davok woke up, the remaining 2 peasants and Alina ran away up the stairs and the session ended.
That sounds pretty great.
DeleteI am going to change up how Shendormu's favor works.
And yeah, wave of mutilation is too imbalancing--I think I'll swap it out for something horrible-but-not-that-horrible.
Was the tumblers room too easy to figure out?
And yeah, many people are mentioning the difficulty in RPing Alina--I think she needs a lot more guidance.
oh wow, I am a month late on this huh. So the last session is "Aline traded the ring to one of the players for their torch so she could try to escape through the blocked off section (I wanted to level the player up so they had SOME chance) and then the last 2 got ate by the ghouls IMMEDIATELY" which didn't super feel worth a report.
DeleteThe tumbler puzzle they figured out pretty easily but they're escape room people so I'm not shocked. It was the only thing they super clicked on what to do with. The only issue they had was if it was 1 2 1 2 or 2 1 2 1 and since they used a rope to pull the level they would have been ok either way (besides the noise)
A few things they asked about that I found myself shrugging about and saying "I dunno" were
A ) what Alina's deal is. I played her as having "survive" as her central drive and being too messed up by the various lamb fluids to really remember much of anything but that was out of necessity. Also her ring's name suggests it should have some magical powers but it isn't listed. I told player it gave advantage on wisdom checks because why not there weren't gonna be any of those anyways.
B ) Does anyone else in the crawl know anything about Shendormoru? (they asked the ghouls, Davok, and Vandress and it felt like Vandress probably SHOULD know but I wasn't sure what the deal was)
C ) What's with all the water/fish imagery? I assume it's part of Vandoh's deal but couldn't discount it being some older god. They asked what they knew about it from common city knowledge and I had to shrug.
D ) What's the geography of 15 CRACK? the way it's described it sounds like it goes straight backwards but the more I thought about the more I realized that makes no sense since the dungeon level they're in is down 2 60 foot flights of stairs from an underwater lake which is itself 60 feet below ground level. I've been trying to wrap my head around it and it makes no sense.
I later gave the players more peasants to do level 2 and they ended up befriending the ghouls, getting caught up in trying to figure out the sarcophagus room and almost immediately solving the ghost gate to a degree that made me wonder how the ghouls HAVEN'T solved it. They offered to shit on the crab to humiliate it. Little else was noteworthy from that section though. Ghouls were very fun to play adn ended up adopting the 9 year old girl who got out with them who calls them all her dads even though 2 are female.
oh! and the sarcophagus room needs rewriting. It goes 25A 25B (25B contains the text for 25B and 25D which is part of the normal text instead of its own section) there is no 25C and there are two 25Fs. It's a real horrorshow
Deletewave of mutilation could require one of your arms to be mutilated and then cause shock
DeleteI'll run Lair of the Lamb question next week, prepping now. Two quick questions. I'm actually feeling anxiety to run this and do it justice!
ReplyDeleteWould you have characters roll to kick in every wooden door, or only the locked ones? Text seems to indicate every door but if they're not locked, why the need to kick them in? It's a really basic question, but this will be important every single door they encounter. I'm leaning to rolling d6 per non-locked door, 1-2 it's stuck and needs a kickin'.
Second one: do you keep track of movement time? Entering a room for the first time and exploring takes 10 minutes, but sneaking down a hallway? Or to the other end of the map? Just fold that into the exploration time of new rooms?
1) Only the locked doors need to be kicked in. The other ones can just be opened. I don't use stuck doors in this dungeon (since locked doors can't be opened by any other method than by kicking, they're essentially stuck doors).
Delete2) Significant actions take 10 minutes. It's up to you what defines significant, but generally the idea is "something that is worth the cost of 10 minutes, most of the time".
I would say that crossing the map takes 10 minutes. Sneaking down a hallway, probably not.
Thanks Arnold, sensible approach. I'll be running part 1 of the lair this Saturday for people new to the OSR and funnels, curious to see what they'll do. Report to follow!
DeleteI haven't ran it yet, but I made a map using dungeondraft for anyone who's interested in running it on Roll20 or another online platform: https://imgur.com/a/s498ZYJ
ReplyDeleteHoly shit. This is really good. Do you mind if I link to it in the body of the post?
DeleteGo ahead. Here's a another version, including one split up to get around upload limits on Roll20: https://imgur.com/a/AzBagSq
DeleteThe whole thing is 60x43 10' squares.
Thank you! Do you just want to be credited as "Ben"?
DeleteYeah, that's fine. Glad you like it, hopefully I'll have a play report to post soon.
DeleteBrevity is bullshit. Here's my review & session log for the Lair of the Lamb in 5th edition:
ReplyDeletehttps://thethingswedoforxp.blogspot.com/2020/05/module-review-lair-of-lamb.html
In brief: great dungeon, even works in 5e although Light as a cantrip will prove annoying next session. Players are absorbing some lessons (improv equipment), others not so much (run from fights, exploit info found). Added another milestone (drink water) and turned the sites where you can become a warlock/wizard/cleric into milestones.
They ate the funky god moss. It's all going to shit next session and I love it.
Water as milestone might not be a bad idea.
DeleteAnd yeah, there's a lot of things in the dungeon that can sort of snowball into something mad at the very end. I'm glad it's working as intended.
You bet! Some quotes from my players:
Delete"Great experiment, would definitely play more of this"
"Old school FTW!"
"Very cool and nasty >:)"
Hey, hey , big fan of your work here. here's my full review of the first run of Lair of the Lamb :
ReplyDeleteDisclamer : i have played a little on 3.5 and since then quit a lot on 5.0 DnD. mostly as DM but sometime as player.
So here's the deal. i gather up 6 player, 4 veteran DnD player and 2 beginner.
Gathered the goons on roll20, made up the map using dungeonpainter studio (i'll throw it in here free of right). ask some of my player to do custum the lamb noise, and art (i'll ask them if i can throw it in there) and started the game. Let's go point by point.
1°) The GLOG : i seriously don't know why you are trying to do here. im not against home-brew, but there is a reason so many people worked on DnD like system : it's hard to balance. i love a lot of your published content (extended wounds and bosses are huuuge). And i can also see the legendarium being a thing. but seriously, that Glog pdf ? the combat system is NOT understandable AT ALL. like wtf is the defend action ? how many action per round ? i can understand that fight is not important for lvl 0 character and i love it. but after that, you need solid mechanic, for the kind of player that like tactical fighting. some people just love strategic combat dude, don't let them down ! and from what i understood you claim the GLOG is an easy to go rullset. but honestly, it took me less time to explaine DnD5e system to my player than the GLOG, and it felt less lackluster.
2°) Lair of the Lamb :
The dungeon feel weird, on one part it was full of action, puzzle and tension, but on the other part it lacked a clear imagininarium built around, and it felt more like random room stitch together more than one full builded dungeon were every room as a reason to be there. The lamb feel amazing in this dungeon tho.
3°) My player first session experience :
they unlocked prisoner on 1. then went for 5>8. encountered the lamb (unlucky) try to fight him and lost 1 guy. they rushed to 11>12 see right away what the pole was for and Brock the ceiling. They went 14>14a (lots of laugh when the chubby little boy smashed the serpent with his torch) into 15 (very very bad experience for the player, they asked for help and tough that it was not logical for the merchant not to help them. this one need reworking to my opinion). Then 16>17>18 then they went back to 10>9>6 whent nope into encouter with the lamb they run to 3>2>1>4 Then end of session 1. (5 hour play-through with roleplay) They managed to kill the woman in the pit thought.
4°) Recap :
player enjoyed the module, but felt that the combat system was lackluster. I as the DM liked most of the room individually but to me it was like the rooms didn't had a shared story.
Anyway, it was still fun time, with lot of laughter and that's in part thx to you so ty for that.
1) Yeah, the old GLOG PDF is pretty incoherent when attempting to mash it together with the newer stuff. I guess I need to transition from "blog full of loose ideas" into "coherent system+adventure" but it's a lot of work.
DeleteOne action per round. I don't have a lot of combat rules because I don't want the emphasis to be on combat. Still, any good tactic is probably worth a +4 to the relevant roll, so players should still be motivated to fight intellligently.
2) In my imagination, it feels coherent. But yes, I can see where you're coming from. Which rooms felt the most incoherent?
3) Did the merchant ask for treasure? He'd love to help people in exchange for something valuable.
4) I will pay more attention to creating a coherent story with the rooms. Perhaps more history about the Lamb or Vandoh?
And I'm okay with the combat system being lackluster. Interesting combat comes from the environment and inventories, not from having combat maneuvers and character abilities. (I can probably do a better job expressing that, though.)
Hey thanks for the answer ^^.
Delete1°) yup i felt that, your GLOG, your rules goblinlord. just try to clarify the one action defend action ? i just didn't understand how it work.
2°) to me room 1/10 felt really, really good and coherent, i can see 11/12/13 be okey since it's probably a nice hall the priest used to go the elevator 18. it's also necessary in a gameplay point of view. It's really room 16/17 that had me like : what the hell did shendormu is doing in this place. so if you could throw a DM a bone and help me get some idea going, would be nice :D
3°) yeah the merchant got greedy all right, they ripped and sold him the painting on the wall (i said they were painting instead of mural mb) for some water, but they kept insisting he would go get help from the guards insisting that it would be a coherent thing to do (maybe i didn't put enough emphasis on the lawless and temple mafia thing) anyway, it was frustrating for them.
4°) yup more background story would be helping you poor dm fellow a lot.
I started the game explaining them that they got hit behind the head, woke up on the dungeon and told them that it's not uncommun for people to disapear in this city, rational people think it's because of criminal mafia activity, while more "pationate" people believe the rumor about a boogy man, like jake the reaper that take people to eat them alive. Anyway as people progressed (one of the pc was a nun of the white temple) they started recognizing symbol of the white temple order, triggering discussion about why the white temple would have kidnapped them.
I really do feel that a good mistery is important in dungeoncrawling.
So yeah, more story about the lamb would be really cool, and then more story about vandoh, or the white church mafia.
Maybe a story opener, for those that want to keep the game going after escaping the dungeon. that way you can stay open for "howdy, darn, we are in a dungeon again" the sequel (pretty please ? XD <3). But then i'll have to take back my good'ol DnD combat system because i kinda didn't like the glog one (but then again, i tried it only once lol and killed a pc lol). it's a shame tho, i loved what you did with the pc archetypes.
Also for those who want to get some extra goodies to run the game (map for roll20/custum the lamb sound and art for token) im letting a MyAirBridge link to download it (not permanent link tho, i'll think of something else). it's all free of right. https://mab.to/iDJByRtoC
DeleteHello again, so the campaign ended last night (2nd session) :
Delete1°) Seance wrap up :
Player reached 7 throne and one received vandoh blessing. They unleashed the skull of davok which eventually kill a PC and subdue an other one (which then offer him to the merchant in 15 thus setting it free...) they heard the lamb in 8 pit, and proceeded to throw the chest from 5 (after setting it on fire) into the pit severely burning the lamb. they eventually fought him again in 18 and killed the lamb (after he crushed 2 of them to death).They then proceeded to 19 where they brutally murdered the priest, and rushed to 20 where they easily defeated the high priestess and take her hostage they asked for a way out, and she agreed to bring them to 5 and wait for Father bastoval to come check on the lamb. bastoval unlock the steel door (to extract the chosen of vandoh) but they managed to kill him and the two follower on the spot (they rolled pretty well). they then proceeded to leave the temple through 5 (successfully sneaking up outside the temple). so yeah they kinda skipped the whole half of the dungeon. only 6 survived.
Feedback from player :
- The lamb : it felt terrifying enough for them, they enjoyed it. killing it was hard enough for them, and rewarding enough.
- The marchant in 15 : people were quite annoyed with him. they only used him to sell random items they found in the dungeon for light sources. Basically the only time they had fun with him was then they gave him the davok that failed his spell and decided to burn him down.
Archetype : they ALL went for the Acrobat that they judged much stronger than the other classes (not my opinion). they also made a case for thief ability to be "way to weak for a one shot" especially the lvl 1 (i kinda agree on that point).
The Ending : I tried to stay logical, since Vandress didn't want to die, she tough that maybe she could take them down with the help of father bastoval (or at least try). They told her that they killed the creature (the lamb) and she also had to make sure the one blessed with vandoh could escape. the player were quit satisfied that their plan worked, and that they could defeat the dm so it was a all right closure for everyone. Quiet interested to know what you think about that...
Final tough : Mostly everyone had fun in this dungeon, but for long time dnd player they felt the combat system was clucky and not working how they intended which made combat situation messy and unenjoyable for them (their words). The light situation felt nicely balance for them, always finding new torch when the first one was over. (until they discovered candles that was basically infinite light, but that was near the end anyway). The Lamb gave them the chill and was instilling fear and chaos so i'd give it a 5/5 . once they level up tho it was not the same, since they couldn't die in 1 hit and had quit a lot of weapon/armor they killed the priest very easily. I don't know if that's an issue since i could not even do the rest of the dungeon (which profoundly pissed me off XD).
If you have any question on how they handled a situation feel free to ask.
p.s : i believe vandress "cone of mutilation" spell is not in the glog.
I was running this with six players, so I increased the peasant count to 16 (15 once the Lamb eats someone immediately) because I was afraid of someone having to sit out after a couple of deaths. I'm not sure if this was the right move - by the end of the first session only 4 peasants had died, but they are yet to defeat the lamb or get to the heavy door.
ReplyDeleteSession 1 Pt1:
Bowls - left while the Lamb ate a bound prisoner
Goats - Collected the twine from the dead goats, took the bell off the live one and brought it with them
Vinegar - Tried to drink the vinegar, decided that breaking down the door to chests would make too much noise
Landing - Came to the landing found the torch, removed the steel pole, took the oily chest
Pit - They were a bit distrustful of Akina but told her they'd come back if they found rope. The dice came up as an encounter here, the Lamb burst in from the fountain and killed someone.
Bones - Glanced around the room and left, they seemed to feel this was the Lamb's lair and didn't want to linger. Once the lamb went back to the fountain they past the pit and to the murals.
Crab - Tried to pet the rat, headed south. (I wasn't sure whether this was supposed to be a regular rat that was unusually friendly, or a talking, sapient rat, but I played it the former)
Abacus - They talked about tying the goat twine to the pike to pull it out as a trap for the lamb, but moved on without disturbing it.
City - They noped out of the spiderwebs hard despite guessing that it might lead to the surface and even escape (and I don't blame them, personally I'd rather be eaten by the lamb than go into that).
Mould - Were suspicious, but then the lamb attacked them again, they all managed to escape by throwing the live goat at it.
Shaft - A peasant rolled really well and climbed the wall, discovering the ledge and the portcullis.
Ledge - They lowered the rope and crammed the PCs up there, and with the torch saw the knight's corpse. They made a lasso and dragged it closer to scavenge. The last person down untied the rope and tried to climb, but fell to their death. They took her corpse with them to serve as bait.
Altar - On their way they poked at the mould with their iron pole. They similarly open the yellow rot chest with the pole.
Sarcophagus - Spotting the crawl space they deduce that it links up with bones, but decide against clearing the path as it would make too much noise. They examine the sarcophagus a bit but can't work out how to make the bottom open. On their way back, they toy with the idea of tying the corpse of their friend to the pike to try and get the Lamb to bring the ceiling down, but ultimately move on.
Session 1 Pt2:
DeleteAkina - Getting Akina out from the pit, she is able to point them in the direction of water. (I agree with another commenter here that I was unsure what Akina knows about the place, whether she is a willing worshipper of the Lamb, whether she even knows what it is. I went with that she is a punished acolyte of the White Temple, so knows the basics of the situation, but doesn't know anything about the dungeon other than the fountain, the pit, and the landing.)
Fountain - When they see the lamb, they immediately throw the corpse of the peasant that they were lugging around into the room, and the lamb pauses to eat it. The first peasant to step into the room has the drowning vision (one player immediately says "it's haunted) but the other peasants ignore them as they rush around the eating Lamb and to the water (The player who is "pushed" in get's pulled out and lives). The lamb finishes eating and kills another peasant, but they establish it's wary around fire, and while it's eating they escape. They notice the fish statue but given the other things to worry about I didn't give them a pattern to the drips, and they didn't find the skeleton.
Tumblers - They immediately recognise the fish statue from the fountain, and deduce that there is a correct combination that will open the door. They also guess that the wrong combination will lead to acid and death. Nevertheless they enter in a combination that they convince themselves is related to Vandoh, tie the rope to the lever, and pull it from outside the room. Once the expected happens, they collect the rope and move on (now as makeshift rope die to acid damage).
Chests - Someone eats the lambfruit. Their vision shows that the wooden chest seems to be harmless, but that removing a pin from Davok's chest caused the person who did so to clutch their head in pain. Naturally, they don't tell the others this and convince two players to open the chest while everyone else waits outside the room. They pull the pins simultaneously, pause, and then open. One peasant melts, and the other willingly does what Davok asks, without resorting to geas.
And that's where we ended that session, session 2 will come next week.
I only have 2 sessions booked in to run this, so depending on what happens next time, I may have them escape at Heavy Door -> Daylight (whereupon they'll all level up).
Session 2:
DeletePart 1
The session begins with the Players making a list of all the passages/doors they haven’t tried (their designated mapmaker is very thorough) and picking the door to the Priest which they kick down. One peasant is incinerated en route for damaging Davok, who geases another.
Priests - A priest is lassoed out of his pool, beginning the fight. A bit unsure of the threat/hostility of the old disorientated men, they waste their initiative round and priest 1 kills a peasant with a punch, priest 2 fails to cast his spell, and priest three teleports the peasant carrying both remaining torches and the fire striker to a random room (42). The priests are then cleared up (with Davok’s help) before Vandress can enter the fight. The Peasants light the candle off the smoldering priest corpse, which becomes the only light source they use for the rest of the dungeon.
(Sunken Gallery - the teleported peasant fumbles around before winding up in Sunken Shrine, where they are killed by the apparatus. Immediately after, I realised I should have taken control of that peasant and just given the player another to play - there were no meaningful choices for that player to make, and no real way they could have survived.)
Pools - Outnumbered, Vandress backs down and tries to extract as much info from the Peasants as she can without revealing anything. The players don’t trust her but aren’t interested in killing without provocation, so move on up towards Heavy Door.
Heavy Door - They hear Jasper and Luntz, but go ahead and unbar the door anyway. At this point I give all six PC Peasants a level (which everyone is very excited about). They decide the Acrobat is broken so 3/6 players pick that template with the others only forgoing it for roleplay reasons.
Mushroom - The ghouls were fun to roleplay, and the players liked them despite fearing them. I think they were a good comical ray of light in an adventure which was thus far a grim horror. The PCs brought some corpses up which satisfied the ghouls enough to tell them a bit about the place, mention the other two ghouls, and ask them the remaining two favours. One Peasant picks the mushroom, hoping to have an excuse to eat it later. They jamb the Crush Hallway switches down, and one by one run the gauntlet to Coffer.
Coffer - The Peasant with the mushroom picks this other, and hearing the bootsteps and humming, go the other way.
Traverse - Time was ticking in real life, so I was pretty thankful they decided to go this way so I could wrap things up this session. However, the player carrying Davok decided that they couldn’t/didn’t want to risk crossing the traverse, so they went back toward the other ghouls. They do test the depth by dropping a glowing mushroom, and note the water below from the slight sound.
Stage - Before the Peasants can investigate, Gerdith spots the light and calls them to halt. Both ghouls approach, and after a bit of back-and-forth, the peasants (getting a little trigger-happy with their new level) start the fight. With the help of Davok (who still manages to keep an MD) they drop the ghouls before they have a chance to react. They pick up the Chrysamere Blade which levels up an unleveled peasant.
Games - The players love the games room, but don’t hang around.
Ballista - The peasants begin to drag it through to the crypts, but abandon it in the first room.
Crypts (25E-A) - They rush through here without investigating, assuming the sarcofagi are the ghouls’s sleeping quarters (or if not, contain vampires). The designated mapmaker player is puzzled that there is not a passage leading to the room they saw through the portcullis on the Ledge (18A). As their Peasant wouldn’t have had that bit of spatial info however, they move on without investigating.
Mushroom, Again - Here Jasper and Luntz recognise the plate armour of the other two ghouls, and attack. The well-equipped Peasants chop them down before they get a turn.
(continued)
Part 2
DeleteWeak Floor - The Peasants break down the door, and one seems to ignore the warning signs and walks out into the room. They hilariously fall to Sunken Shrine, where they discover the body of their previous peasant (this makes the time wasted on the previous teleported peasant worth it, for me). A makeshift rope to get them out breaks, and the apparatus kills their character again.
Traverse, Again - The peasant with Davok at this point spends some time making a harness to carry his master across the chasm.
Isopods - The peasants are uninterested in the Isopods, but the real-life evening is getting late so they are becoming more hasty and less engaged. They make their way along the Tricky Hallway without investigating the switch and the secret door.
Tricky Hallway - One peasant really wants to push the ceiling button, assuming it has something to do with a trap like in the last hallway. However, they move on.
Table - The mushroom peasant picks their third mushroom, and they all move on to the next room.
Chewed Bones - The Players find the teeth chattering reeeeeaaaallly creepy, and those that have started to disengage (it’s firmly past our usual session-end time by this point) switch back on. They take a brief look at the guillotine next door, but move on to Ghost Fence.
Ghost Fence - I’d had Jasper tell them that the fence would kill if touched or crossed so the peasants were appropriately wary (and further creeped out). Eventually one used their halberd to knock the fence apart, and because this wasn't a literal touch, I took it as they were unharmed.
Daylight - I’d realised a couple of rooms before that there was no way I could fit in the Cistern, and felt it appropriate that the stair after Ghost Fence lead straight to daylight. The peasants make a human pyramid to get up to the stair, and hoist each other up with their rope.
Escape - They make their way up the tower, and down the rope to their freedom. The peasant that was collecting the mushrooms is unable to contain their curiosity and eats one at the last minute. In the end 7 Peasants and Akina survived, with only one PC peasant from the beginning. Rushing the last portion and truncating it somewhat robbed it of some triumph I fear, but was a generally satisfying conclusion.
DM's thoughts to follow.
Absolute cracker of a "starter" module imo, balancing challenges & classic elements well. Question about the map: does a "H" indicate a Heavy door or a Hidden door?
ReplyDeleteHi! There seems to be some error with the crypts names. No crypt 25C, 25D is not bolded and 25F is named twice.
ReplyDeleteMy players were very cautious. They also split the party a lot. They went 1, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 9, 13, 16, 17, 18 (climbed to and looted 18A), 14 (finding the necromancy book), collapsed room 12 on the Lamb at the cost of one peasant. They tried to run the lamb around the pit in 8, but one of them failed the movement check and the Lamb ate them. They avoided interacting with the priests in 19 and 20. I straight up forgot about Akina and so they never met her. One of them went and opened the secret door to the throne but decided not to sit on it. They interacted with Jasper and Luntz through the heavy door and bought 4 chickens from Danjo to placate the ghouls. They figured out the secret crypt puzzle and the mummy puzzle. There was pressure for light and rope but I was still new to the rules so I forgot some. They did not bother with the crush hallway. They found 34 cache and looted that, put one of the isopods in the guillotine in 38, then bowled it into the ghostfence. Before they left, they lured the giant crab up and stabbed it with the harpoon. They used the table as a boat and were able to out paddle the Lamb and escape. I think I was too easy on them because 8 peasants escaped.
ReplyDeleteGoing to be running this next week: I don't have any serious experience running GLOG or other OSR systems, but I'm excited to try it out! One thing I noticed was that, especially with the cursed fountain, some traps heavily rely on knowledge that the peasants would have (curses due to ghosts requiring the body to be put to rest, ghouls being reasonable enough when they aren't hungry) but the players definitely wouldn't, since they're mostly used to 5e. I know that's what the backup peasants are for, but it doesn't feel like much of a puzzle if someone starts drowning and all they see is a corpse at the bottom of the pool (which could reasonably be a product of the cursed fountain, rather than the cause)
ReplyDeleteSo I'm going to try and add a "tall tales / rumors / fables" section to each sheet, containing useful information that the peasants would have heard tales about. Info about the ghouls and curses(and maybe a couple of other useful hints), as well as a bunch of stuff that isn't remotely useful for the module. Does that seem reasonable enough? I feel like this would make the fountain encounter a lot more reasonable, although it might be an information overload...
I ran the first session of this last night. Great fun was had by all. We've all been gaming for a long time, but mostly in a more narrative 5e game (plenty of PC agency, but there is an overarching plot they can interact with), so they were down for the OSR style play.
ReplyDelete* Bowl Room: They saved the bowl of people that were not being chewed on. This beefed up the party enough that the "extra lives" reduced threat considerably. I'd reduce the number of folks here if I ran it again, or somehow make having too many people in one spot a liability.
* The party was really keen on getting light, so they hugged the wall until they saw some dim light from the landing and went there. They were looting the landing when they encountered the Lamb.
* They were horrified, since Lamb won initiative and chomped one of the party immediately. The PC's had just pried open the chest with the iron rod, and so had access to oil. They tossed it on the Lamb and lit it, and it ran off to the Fountain to douse itself.
I won't go through the entire narrative, but the dungeon did what it said on the tin. PC's were blind, they looked for light. They were thirsty - they looked for water. They heard the Lamb somewhere, they got scared and moved on. The interactive elements were played with.
Oh, and they released Davok, even after the nosebleeds. The PC who did so was wearing the helmet (which I had described as a full-helm with low visibility), so I had Davok consume the nearest unhelmed party member.
The only thing that was a little underwhelming was when they decided to take on the Lamb. I haven't run GLOG combat very much, so I'd probably do it a little differently next time.
There were 11 or so party members initially (and only 3 PCs) and 4 of them with makeshift weapons of various varieties. Lamb was down to 10 HP (1/2 original roll) after the first two rounds. A PC crit and a few lucky rolls, and down it went.
It was chomping a PC a round, but with so many in the party even rolling for victims there wasn't a level of risk that was too visceral.
[OK I didn't read carefully enough. I thought the crush attack was only after a successful bite, but it's just a 2nd attack. Lamb would have been much scarier with 2 attack around, even against a large party]
Anyhow, sometimes the PCs do just gank your cool monsters. Great stuff.
--jt
Hey! So, you've mention Warlocks a couple times, and they're mentioned in the LotL pdf... is that a thing that exists? Rules for Warlocks? Did I miss that post???
ReplyDeleteHi Arnold, I adapted the first act to my own system and table. Made it into a one pager for my convenience. Hope you don't mind. Find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/onePageDungeon/comments/iog1oj/lair_of_the_lamb/
ReplyDeleteKindly, Roy
Hi, I'm running this in roll20 next week and thought I'd colorize the Lamb. I'm hardly a gifted artist, but I thought you might want to see it.
ReplyDeletehttps://i.imgur.com/n1mR5QG.jpg
This was my first time DMing, and first time playing OSR-style (I've played ~5 times non-OSR style). I've been reading blogs for awhile. I mangled the rules into a GLOG/Knave hybrid with 3 stats, but I'm not sure how important that is.
ReplyDeleteI also reskinned some things (the Lamb became a giant cow, the pools are of milk, the chicken vendor is instead a badger's sett).
High-level points from session 1:
* The players really wanted to fight the Cow. They did some fleeing, but did not really accept that every time they tried to fight it without a big advantage they would die
* I think they got lucky with the random encounter rolls, so maybe they would have learnt better if they saw it when they had a torch
* They had light for awhile, then lost it. I think I wasn't making the lack of light annoying/scary enough. I basically let them navigate OK by touch -- they were still able to feel shapes and objects.
* They got Akina's ring
* They were keen to find weapons and found some rope, which was good
* They killed themselves trying to swim the tunnel
I gave them each some characters in a spreadsheet, and had them each pick their favourite.
After one of the characters started being eaten (and a little prompting) the characters left, went to goats, killed the friendly goat and drank its blood. They made skirts from the hay and the twine. One used the rope from a freed character to tie the knife to the back of his hand to get two free hands.
Then they went to the landing, grabbed the torch and the pole. They tried to see if the chest is flammable, and I made it clear it would catch if they kept trying, but they ended up leaving it (planning to maybe use it as a bomb later).
Then they went south, sharpened the broom into a stake, took the hammer, wore the gong as armor. Took the hammer. Went to tumblers and one got sprayed to death by the acid. So they went back to free one more character (they decided they only wanted one character each).
Their torch went out on the way. They banged the gong as they ran "to scare things away", and so the Cow was coming for them when they got to the bowls.
They conducted quick interviews of each of the player's remaining characters to choose the one they liked the most, and then freed them. They tried to fight the Cow, and died. When they saw what they needed to roll, they complained and I had to explain that they might not be able to beat it in a straight fight. They freed another character and fled.
They made it to the Pit, and Akina heard the soft jangling of the gong-armor, and begged to be free. They couldn't make a person chain that was long enough to rescue her. Akina couldn't remember much after her long stay in the pit, but knew there was water to the north
They headed south to bone pile, and found a rope straight away! Returning they, rescued Akina who gave them the ring for a level up! She stayed with them as a hireling.
Heading North (several of the characters still being dehydrated and Akina), they had Akina enter first, who flopped to the floor. They heard the splashing of the Cow (still without light) and closed the door. They asked Akina if it could open doors and she explained that it could break them.
They fled to Crab Mural, and the rat catcher identified the rat in the dark. Distracting the Cow with it, they fled back to the fountain. They saved the character pushed into the water, and had Akina hold the rope and swim around (though she was getting annoyed with them at this point). She found the passageway. One of them tried swimming down it, and we stopped hearing from them. They all decided to try swimming down it (apart from Akina) ... the level 1 character got some Strength checks to try and swim back, but didn't make it. TPK.
Akina is still loose, and might try and free some more of the characters.
So I ran this last night. And boy you screwed up big time. (/s totally joking tone) The PCs made too much noise from the get go and the Lamb ended up eating two of their "extra-lives". They finally figured out they should leave and after looking at the goats went straight to Landing. After grabbing torch and chest they went to the fish statue and being wary of the milky liquid discovered it was acid. They used the acid to eat the hinges off the small chest and once that worked they used the gong from the hall closet as a bowl to splash acid on the steel door and escape. 20 minutes in and they escape. No treasures, no milestones, just naked and afraid peasants outside of the dungeon. I didn't see this coming, but being a not-quite-still-novice DM I'm comfortable improvising entire sessions if needed as long as I have some tools to hand.
ReplyDeleteI gave them a 5 min bathroom break and panicked (/s). The premise for this game was that they are tribal warriors in something like the Northern Chaos Wastes of Old Warhammer so their tribe turned them over to a neighboring tribe as slaves to be sacrificed to their god (Lamb). Anyone who escapes is greeted back home as warriors, the rest good riddance. So I googled the layout of a medium large church building to use as a map for the temple they were now in. There was a service of some kind going on but they entered from the office/living quarters of the building up the stairs from the Steel Doors. After incapacitating two old women in the kitchen, grabbing knives, and removing dehydration debuff they moved on the to living quarters of Blastoval. He had two plain ish rooms and a personal shrine room with a crystal ball (treasure) and Davoc's chest (I couldn't resist).
The previously cautious PCs opened Davoc's black iron prison and tried to pick him up. The poor PC's flesh was removed in spectacular fashion in a matter of seconds and Davoc's voice rang out in joyous laughter. Davoc cast geas on the next PC who saved (first successful roll up to this point) but in breif conversation they realized the enemy of my enemy is my friend and agreed to carry Davoc out of the temple of their mutual enemy. Davoc commanded them (non magically) to bring him close to his enemies. In prep I didn't know what to do with Davoc since I didn't want him to run off with a PC or hijack they whole party into obeying so I made him a God after your recent post on augury and oaths etc. He favors decisive action and confrontation. On their way out to the sanctuary Davoc ignited the kitchen, killing the two incapacitated women and then began shooting flaming beam from his eyes into the crowd once they arrived. Blastoval grabbed a great sword from next to the pulpit and it was on. After polymorph and a brief skirmish Blastoval was squished like a worm (poly) and the PCs escape, burning temple behind them.
SO now that the main driver of my campaign is Davoc's will, I plan on him disappearing after rewarding the PCs and becoming a god they can communicate via augury and oaths etc. wtf is the benefit from Augury? There appears to only be a downside (don't do it if terrible omen).
Thanks for great adventure! I wish I could have ran more of it.
I know this is ridiculously late but it's been bugging me. If the acid didn't eat through the gong then why would it eat through the steel door?
DeleteI ran this recently; the rules were my own homebrew, and I adapted only the first half of the dungeon. Here are some noteworthy things:
ReplyDelete-Of the 12 sacrifices, 5 escaped
-Light sources were tight, but lasted throughout the dungeon
-They solved the code, but didn't want to sit in the throne
-Most of the combats were one-sided; the lamb fights pretty much just ate a sacrifice and ended, the priests died very quickly
-They rescued Akina, who was a good way to give information about the dungeon to the players
-They didn't really dig through the bones; I'm not sure if they realized the potential for items in there (I gave them something to try and hint at it, but they didn't take the bait)
-The chicken vendor ended up not being a major player; I don't think they realized the potential to buy things other than chicken from him, and I probably didn't play him up enough
-I totally forgot about them being dehydrated; they barely touched the fountain
-They didn't interact with the Lamb that much, it basically showed up on an hourly basis to eat one of them
-The lamb got trapped in the southern portion of the dungeon in the end
-They found the body on the opposite side of the portcullis (on the ledge), but didn't think of a way to get to it.
-The way I ran the sacrifices was that they were basically always a room behind the party, to serve as extra lives, but mostly just kept to themselves
-They escaped through the heavy doors, which led to an abandoned smuggler's cove
Hi! Wasn't sure what the best way to get in touch was, so I am leaving a comment here.
ReplyDeleteI have long wanted to try the various iterations of GLOG, and Lair of the Lamb provides me with an excellent way to do so. I have put it towards my players as one of the systems I want to test run in the coming weeks.
I do have one concern as I was reading the document. Within the list of occupations is "gypsy", which seems out of place, seeing as it is a reference to a real life ethnic group (and is sometimes considered a slur, at that). I replaced it with "fortune teller" in the copy of the rules I gave to my players, and I would encourage you to implement the same change in the main document.
Hey, is math really ok for acrobat ? I mean he can achieve Def of 16 compared to Def of 6 max for other classes ? It seems kinda ridiculous like he would autosucceed at defending everything up to level 4 of enemy. Is this intended ?
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great piece. I ran it for a group of friends who are new to OSR games.
ReplyDeleteDue to intra-group conflict, I don't think we're finishing unless I can get at least one replacement.
I'm disappointed, because I was very interested in what they were going to do next. But here's my notes on about 80% of floor one:
This was my first time running or playing an OSR game. When I have run dungeon crawls in the past, the dungeons were better-lit and violence-oriented.
This was also my first attempt at running a dungeon-crawl over the internet. No one had any interest in mapping, and honestly I think I'll just show them the map if I ever try it again.
I had to make myself some tools to track time and light. Rigid timekeeping for light was good, it added tension and interesting decisions, even though they never quite ran out.
The GLOG 2020 rules/rolls/stats were favored by all my players, even those accustomed to ad&d. Consider them adopted.
As for the adventure, the players really latched on to some things and glossed over others. They rarely did what I expected, and the dungeon was resilient enough to keep them engaged.
I love the opening, great mood-setting and the players were invested right away.
The players took well to not fighting the lamb head-on after the first encounter. At least one thought it was invincible.
Still, they set the lamb on fire, attempted to use the acid trap on it, knifed it in the side once, and dropped the ceiling on it. It has one hit point left, which is my fault because I gave it d8s for hit dice.
There was zero interest in the fountain statue that dripped the answer to the other puzzle. No interest in the sarcophagus. No one seemed to notice the pattern that the hazards only happened once.
They were very fixated on the locked door. As soon as they felt safe (having dropped the ceiling on the lamb), they ran back to it.
Then they went back to investigate the rooms to the East.
Davok's chest was opened by unanimous vote. It ate the flesh of the only person with a level (from Akina's ring, awarded to the player who insisted on helping immediately and came up with a plan).
Thanks to a series of lucky rolls, the peasants did not flee, and saved against Geas. We decided they had simply exhausted their capacity for terror for the day.
The party threw Davok back in the box, and latched it.
Two players have given up all their equipment in order to drag around the box of demon, "in case we need it later". No one thinks this a bad idea at all.
In addition to the noise of dragging the chest, they're going to run out of torchlight from moving so slow.
I was looking forward to an encounter with Bastoval, if only to see if they really try to dump a demon head out of a box as a solution.
A total of five peasants remain, plus Akina and the goat.
I think I'm going to muck around with it and try it with another group when and if in-person life resumes.
Great adventure! We're still in the midst of it (adjusted for captured 7th-level characters), but my 12-year-old responded to the first encounter with the Lamb by first drawing and then making this:
ReplyDeletehttps://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=129465.msg1657959#msg1657959
We've now completed the adventure. Their route through was perhaps unusual: they gathered acid from the priestess's room and used it to dissolve part of the portcullis (I'd ruled that the bowl they found was ceramic-lined). Then they managed to slip a slip of an elf through the gap to the winch.
DeleteOur party consisted of 7th-level Basic/RC characters, so they were considerably more powerful than those the adventure is designed for. But they were stripped of all the gear accumulated over a year of daily play, and I amped up the monsters accordingly; I gave the Lamb 200 HP to make it more of a threat, and the first few encounters with it were suitably terrifying; it was driven off with fireballs, but returned scorched and angry.
The torch/candle thing worked well. Half the party had infravision, but the sighted-leading-the-blind thing only added to the tension, with some of the best fighters unable to see and shouting for light. The torch-timing system in the scenario is EXCELLENT.
They befriended Jasper and Luntz in an uneasy way, but played off Gerdith and Molina against the pursuing ancient engine of anguish (who was ballista-bolted for his pains). The party eventually slew the Lamb when it caught up with them at the stairs in 46; half the party had reached the stairs, leaving a terrified few to battle the beast. Fortunately, it was badly wounded by this stage.
All in all, the party lost two valued henchmen and Akina, but ended the scenario with everyone at real risk of death. The best fighter was down to 1HP, the magic-users were out of spells and escape was a hard-earned relief.
Many thanks for a brilliant scenario - very much enjoyed by all at this end!
My friend is running the adventure with me, my brother, and another friend as the lucky peasants. It's fantastic, we're having a terrific time, scary monster, spooky place. Thank you for making this.
ReplyDeleteLove the dungeon, but not I sure I understand the recon die. What determines if the recon die is a success?
ReplyDeleteSession Report 1
ReplyDeleteThe party awakens and escapes the lamb by wounding one of the bound peasants and fleeing while the lamb is distracted eating.
2 people explore Goats while the rest wait at the intersection and listen to make sure the lamb doesnt sneak up on them. Party takes goat and bell and leave.
Party goes down 1B, turning towards landing and takes the torch. Investigates chest and takes firelighter. They hear the lamb approaching and take the chest to the corridor, hoping to set it alight to dissuade the lamb. They abandon this plan and retreat, taking the chest and fleeing towards 6 tumblers. They briefly loot the broom cupboard and move on.
Party ends up in tumblers, followed by the lamb and cornered. They hold it at bay with the torch and by lighting the broom on fire for one round, before the lamb kills the torchbearer. One of the party pulls the lever and melts all but one (DM Fiat to prevent TPK and ending the game) who hides under the poor goat as it melts. This one person returns and frees the surviving peasants.
Party heads down to 1c and splits up to investigate 3 vinegar and 4 chests. They take the wine bottle and reconvene at locked door to chests. They decide to take the door off its hinges with their knife and I ruled this gave them enough space for children and Afner to squeeze through, which they do and then unlock the door from the inside.
Party loots wooden chest and contemplate Davok's chest. In a stroke of pure luck/brilliance, one decides to take a bite of the lambfruit as they kick the chest open. I describe Davok ripping their flesh from their body and killing them, before rewinding time to just before they kick the chest open. They promptly rebind the chest and leave.
Party retraces their steps to landing and continues east to pit. They meet Akina and after a quick interrogation decide to strip nude and tie all of their clothes together to make a makeshift rope (aided by one being a sailor) which just barely works. They get Akina out and I level up the sailor, who got Akina out and was the sole survivor of the TPK. that's where we left it.
Everyone is having fun, will keep you posted on the next session.
Would love some more info on Akina, I riffed that she was thrown into the pit to be a “bride of the lamb” by the white temple, so she knows about the temple, Vandoh and the lamb, but not much else. Would love some more info on Akina.
I would also love to know how the white and red temples fit in with Hesayan faith, as I think this game might have legs and i've always loved your worldbuilding. I was under the impression that the Hesayan Church is fairly omnipresent, would this make the white and red temples one of the prisoner gods of Zulin? Or are they Zala Vacha and Lon Barago is free of the church?
Paying the price:
ReplyDeleteCrew: 6 players, 3 were brand new.
-What path people take through the dungeon?
This group had basically no problem splitting up so the path is confusing.
Half the group went east and hid with the live goat until the Lamb went for his bath then tried various shenanigans with the goat (attempted to milk it to avoid dehydration, then considered drinking its blood, then decided they had already bonded with it and made it a pet.) They then went south, east into the light, and south into the acid room where they essentially half-TPK'd from the trap. AoE damage to HP 0 peasants who are dehydrated was pretty nasty.
The other half of the group....were uninterested in the light and stayed in the dark. They made it into room 4, unlocked Davok who was obviously glow-in-thedark who killed a PC and gaes'd another. They then made a lot of noise and drew the attention of the lamb. One party member tried to use its rope to lasso/ride the lamb like a bucking bull. He then was smashed into a wall. The others hid in the dark until the Lamb lost interest and wandered off.
At this point, a bunch of secondary characters concocted a plan to lure the lamb into the acid room and spray it with acid but per the module the acid is depleted after one round so....down another character.
Meanwhile, he player who was holding Davok went off by himself, ignored the pleas of Akina, and found the water room where he hydrated up and ventured into the water (replaced ghost trap with slightly different encounter that involved him finding a scroll and a weird helmet that fused to his skull.) The dripping puzzle was never solved by the PCs and this may have been my fault. If I were to run it in the future, I would describe the dripping as drip, drip-drip, drip, drip-drip, as it seemed like an infinite sequence when I presented it.
The survivors then rescued akina by tying all their bindings together (there were 16 original characters each with a few feet of rope plus some rope that had been found), did a cursory examination of the bone pile but didnt want to spend time sifting through, pulled the spear to collapse the ceiling, and wandered the south section for a bit. They did not solve the elevator but did make it into necromancer crypt and recover the book.
part 2:
ReplyDeleteThey tried to bargain with the merchant for a pickaxe intending to mine their way out of the temple (they thought the lamb was permanently trapped to the north) however they gave the Davok statue to the merchant and now a gaes'd merchant is searching for Davok's body.
At this point they had been reduced from 16 original characters down to 7 (including akina.) 1 PC fell asleep for d3 hours by smoking the purple lotus powder. While she dreamed, the rest of the group concocted a plan to slay the lamb by luring it into the water room and dousing it with lamp oil. This more or less succeeded despite half the group hiding instead of fighting.
At this point half the characters (the two level 1 characters and two peasants) ventured into the sleeping priest rooms. One grabbed the bracer - the PCs split their damage and all priests survived to cast their spells. This teleported 1 PC to the gazebo room, put 1 to sleep, and killed 1 of the remaining peasants. The last guy alive tried to flee north....right into Vandress.
We decided to call it there as only two PCs left and 1 was asleep for another hour.
-How many secrets did they find?
They found Davok, the necromancer's book-room, the crawltunnel to the boney room
-Is the Lamb too threatening? Not threatening enough? Did they kill it?
The lamb seemed fine. If I were to rerun this, I think I would rig the acid trap to kill 2 PCs max.
-Were the ghouls killed, avoided, or befriended? Did you have enough guidance to roleplay the ghouls well?
TPK'd, essentially, before the ghouls.
-How much pressure was there for light sources?
This ended up not being too big a deal. They ended up finding many torches and the candle
-How much pressure was there for ropes and weapons?
Rope not so much (probably my fault - I imagined the bindings in the bowl room as rope) but weapons were a true challenge.
The convo at the table during the session, ending with 7! peasants down:
ReplyDelete"I want my mommy."
"Being the skinny, caring burglar she is."
"I have a knife, come with me."
"I told you my name."--"I don't want to get into that shit."
“This place is fancy—they have broom closets.”
“We probably shouldn’t hit the gong."
"The unpleasant bugs on the broom."
"This woman is skinny, hungry, and dehydrated."
"Who would name their girl 'Grub'?"
"She feels terrible, but she's in survival mode."
"You want some goat?"
"I start licking the floor."
"We've been to the wet markets."
"Go after the haunch."
“It’s good to meet someone as passionate as I about locksmithing.”
"What are we gonna do with vinegar."
"I have an iron rod, so don't mess with me, motherfucker."
"That's the post-meal gag of the lamb."
"Being the shit-digger she is."
"I should negotiate with this thing."
"He's beefy, so he'll take some time to eat."
"That was a big waste of goat blood."
"Parlay."
"It is the greatest thing in the world--a double-headed torch."
"When part of your finger disappears, that's not ideal."
Run a second and third time (3 short/1 medium sessions).
ReplyDeletePath for Group #2: [death], goat room, torch, closet, acid lever, pit (afraid of Akina), regurgitation room, sarcophagus (afraid), burn spiderwebs, up crack, convo with Danjo, mold room, "gazebo," moldy chest [death] daguerrotype for wine and chicken ("wait, what, it's live, not cooked?!") so thirst slaked, pike room w/lamb encounter, pike pulled [death] lamb trapped, sarcophagus investigated, Shadrakul (goblet shattered, poison saved, book retrieved), end so far. (There's another death I'm not accounting for.)
Group #3: [death, death], frightened by goat's bell & do not enter, torch room, "let's go toward the smell of death" pit room (scared of Akina & theorize correctly from spoor about regurgitation room & avoid), ah water [death] & swim in fountain, return to pit (offer Akina scrap of rope to rodeo herself out on Lamb back) & lamb appears (chase around pit & slide chest in its way, getting a '20' stomp), mural room & one kicks hole in door & one spots pike ("Hey, we need that scrap of rope back now, lady!"), one on fountain draws away lamb ("I'm hoping it can't swim") [death] ... and that's where we left it, a Halloween work-time one-shot, almost certainly.
Ran the Lair for some friends - it was my first time running an OSR-style game. (I've previously GMed 5e and Mothership.)
ReplyDeleteI just got done running Lair of the Lamb for the first time and, although I don't have the path memorized, I wanted to share the feedback of my friend who lost 3 of his 4 characters. He, like me, started with OD&D. He said, at the conclusion of tonight's game using the Shadowdark ruleset, that this is the best dungeon crawl he'd had since he was a kid. My group plays 5e together, and is a collection of teenagers, two college students, and two old folks (2/3 of the teenagers' father, me). They loved this as a change of pace, and all would play again! I would run this adventure again in a heartbeat! Thank you for giving us an evening of unforgettable fun.
ReplyDeleteMy lamb, for what it's worth, would moan "Sins of the Father! Sins of the Father!" as it creeped around the dungeon. The players all found the lamb terrifying.
The PCs left room 1 without the others. They found room 5 first and took the torch. In room 6, one of them pulled the lever killing 3 of them. The rest found themselves back in room 1 as bound captives. They asked if they could have spent the thirty minutes gnawing through their bonds and I ruled yes.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, the PCs were in the dark again. They checked out room 4 and freed Davok. They agreed to take him out of the dungeon, no geas required. One of them ate the lambfruit. He asked in his precognition what would happen if he stabbed Davok. I couldn't find guidance about how many HD Davok should have… maybe 3 based on his spells? I decided one because he seems physically pretty fragile. In his vision, Davok died to a lucky stab, but they decided not to go forward with that.
From there, they progressed to room 3, then the pit. They were unsure whether Akina would be sympathetic to escaped captives, so they tried to bluff that they were "inspectors". Eventually that fell through and they threw Davok's head at her. Davok found that disrespectful, so he cast geas on the nearest person, which turned out to be Akina.
The party heard the lamb in the fountain room, so they backtracked to the western area and investigated room 2. They eventually devised a plan where they used the hay from room 2 to absorb the acid on the ground in room 6 to safely get the firestarter they'd left there. That let them light the torch from room 4.
They proceeded to room 11 and got really paranoid about the crab mural. In room 19, they learned from Akina that the pools were full of lamb piss. Since they were still dehydrated, they debated whether piss or vomit would be a better source of water. Akina cautioned them that they might not have as much immunity to the vomit as she.
One of the PCs drank some urine and got into the pool. This awakened the priests. The PCs won initiative (I ran initiative as Wis test for all heroes to go first), and they killed two priests. Vandress entered the room and cast wave of mutilation, killing all but two of them. Not sure I could have had her go for that immediately, but they did kill two priests before she could act. I also didn't allow them a Dex save, which maybe I should have? I reasoned that half damage would still leave them dead.
Davok used his remaining magic dice to incinerate Vandress. Vandress used her remaining magic die to cast confusion on Davok. The PCs finished off Vandress. In his confusion, Davok demanded that the PCs throw him in a pool, which they did. They experimented with taking him out, but whenever they did he demanded to be put back in.
The PCs' torch went out, but they found the pool of liquid light and filled the wine bottle from room 3 with it. They went back and grabbed the treasure from room 19, levelling up one of the two remaining PCs. Then, they went and checked out room 21. They heard the lamb approaching, so they opened the door and went through.
Jasper and Luntz were great fun to play. They lead the PCs back to Gerdith and Molina and the ghouls attempted and failed to take the PCs by surprise. The PCs killed two ghouls by a combination of luck and having one class template each, and one ghoul both failed a morale check and succeeded on a charisma check to overcome her hunger and flee. (By the way, what is a monster's charisma supposed to be? I defaulted to using their level.) The remaining ghoul finished off the PCs, ending the crawl.
The lamb was not particularly deadly. It was threatening enough to keep the PCs moving, and a few times it kept them from checking out something that they might have benefited from.
One technical comment I have is that the first section, with advice for the players, has a few mentions of details about the lamb, which I'd prefer not to show to the players. First, the part about running away mentions the lamb's speed. Second, I'd like to share the random encounter rules, but they mention the topography of the dungeon at the end. I opted to redact those sections with a marker before handing the packet to the players.