1st time DCC GM report: Portal Under the Stars (complete)

[bighara]

So I finally took the plunge and started the players in the sample funnel from the back of the book. I ran sets of pregens from Purple Sorcerer's site for simplicity. There were 4 players with 4 PCs each.

We hand-waved a lot of the start-up, glossing over some of Old Man Roberts' deathbed speech. One PC had randomly received 10' of chain as equipment and promptly got 10 gp in trade for it (Worth 30gp!!) to stock up for the dungeon. Obviously the hayseed village didn't have lots of arms or armor, but he got some general gear (rope, oil, etc.).

They made it to the stones and found the portal without trouble. One of the players eventually figured out that the crystals need to match the sky outside the portal, but not before one PC got blasted after trying to smash a crystal off the door.

Once at the spear statues' room, A wainwright took a running start and shoved his haycart (tied by a rope for easy retrieval) into the room. Two spears flew and one impaled him (two PCs down, each a different player's). Another player had one of their characters use the cart as a "turtle" to scoot into the room underneath it. I granted them AC equal to banded mail, but no Ag bonus. The next two spears flew and both got 17's! Scratch another PC, but now the statues had all shot. The PCs collected the armor, helms and spears. They also had redistributed the fallens' loot amongst each other.

The war-wizard's statue room gave them fits as they tried to figure out how fast the statue could rotate and how close they could get to a door without getting torched. Two PCs got singed, but lousy damage kept them up & limping. One stole a funeral "monkey mask" from the alcove room and fled when the bones started to rattle. He promptly put it on and tried to command the statue. Nothing happened. Another PC climbed the statue and lashed a rope to its arm hoping to immobilize it. It slowed the turn enough for a PC to enter the pool room without getting hit, but then the rope snapped (had been lashed to the iron statues in previous room. Eventually, the statue had fired its five shots. By then the PCs were scattered through different doors.

One group met the snake. A squire hurled a sling stone at it but missed. Ssisssuraaaaggg punctured his throat and he died. Another player's PC grabbed the squire's sword and went in swinging with a handy crit. A round or two later and the snake was dead. The horn was intriguing so they kept it. They spent a few minutes looking at the tablets and searching the throne, but moved on fairly soon.

Another cluster of PCs went back to the burial chamber and got the less-rusted axes & chainmail, and crushed one skull in the process.

One group encountered the crystal statues, but didn't start combat. They left the crystal men in a corner, staring at a lit torch. They began to pry out crystals, but not enough to send the pool crashing down (though they can see its leaking). Soon after, the other groups joined them. The remaining PCs discovered the spiral stairs, but have not yet descended.

Overall, a good time was had. I wish that more of what makes DCC special came up in 0-level play, but the PCs are –by nature– pretty generic. I hope that I can convince the group to try leveling up post-funnel (I'm going to just award the 10 xp to the survivors) so they can see some of the fun stuff that they'll have in store.

For wizards (and elves), my plan is to use the snake horn as a way to Bond/Invoke a demonic patron (Azi Dahaka). The bronze rod is covered in weirdly shifting runes. If used like a cylinder seal (coated with ink and rolled out on parchment) it "prints" a random 1st level spell. After that it only prints gibberish. If they pursue the hook at the end of the adventure re: the second half, it will also yield a 1st level spell.

[bighara]

Session 2:

The party pressed on down the spiral stairs, reaching a long hall-like room. Inside were several shelves of clay figurines as well as tables with miniature terrain to simulate battles. A war room of some kind it seemed. Near the other end of the room was a door.

When they found one of the figures was silver, Iago the halfling begin smashing the clay ones looking for more. Wilfred pressed on and opened the far door.

Inside was a large tiered chamber lit be a pulsating orb at the far end that rested above a rocky throne on a dais. Seated on the chair was a life-sized clay figure in the form of a savage warlord. Standing in front of him were seven more figures, clad as generals. The center of the room was lower than the rest, with several ranks of clay soldiers standing at attention. The warlord's arm moved and the front rank of the soldiers lurched into a semblance of life, moving toward the door.

Wilfred slammed the door to, and another character upended the tables as a barricade. As the party decided began to retreat upstairs, {PC NAME} heard a groaning crash and the rush of water. When they reached the pool chamber, they could see that the water was rushing through a hole that had broken through the pool's bottom from which they had prised the crystals. Hearing heavy steps below, they spiked the door to the stairs shut.

Once the pool had more or less emptied, they secured a rope to a pillar and carefully lowered one character into the pool to look through the hole. Below he could see the room with the clay soldiers. Many had been damaged by the cave-in, and the rest of the ones in the lowest tier with dissolving in the water. A few were still able-bodied enough to hurl spears, though. He took one in the head and was killed instantly. The party recovered the body (and the weapon!) from the hole. Juke also tricked the crystal statues into the pool with a torch and they resulting cave-in of some more floor dropped them on the soldiers in the water below. The crystal statues seemed less affected by the water than the clay ones as they ended up fighting one another. A few decoy swings with the corpse through the hole yielded another spear for the party's arsenal. But then no more spears flew.

One PC tried lowering himself partway, but found that –while the soldiers had fallen– the generals stood high and dry. He shimmied up the rope with his companions pulling mightily, but a spear still found its mark and he was killed. Now, though, it appeared the clay men were unarmed. A few moments later, there was pounding on the stairwell door. Apparently, not all the clay soldiers had melted. For the moment though, the spike held. Juke the Beekeeper tricked the crystal statues into the pool with a torch and they resulting cave-in of some more floor dropped them on the soldiers in the water below. The crystal statues seemed less unaffected by the water and fought the generals when they were attacked.

The party retreated to the room with the fire-blasting statue and rigged a trip-line in front of the door. It wasn't long before they heard the wood splinter inside the room. The door opened and one clay man fell over the rope breaking off his left arm at the elbow, with two more behind him in the doorway. A furious melee ensued and the clay soldiers were shattered.

Returning to the room with the crystal pool, the party could see that the hole had been enlarged by the crystal men falling through. The warlord was still visible on his throne. While cooler heads planned a missile volley, Wilfred bulled down the stairs and charged the unarmed leader statue, but his neck was snapped but a porcelain punch. A volley from above finished off the warlord statue shortly after that and the party went back downstairs to investigate the scene.

The pulsing orb turned out to be a crystalline globe on a pillar behind the throne. The elf forester found a secret door on the dais. Behind it, a short hallway led to a burial chamber with mystic symbols on the floor. Inside, the party found numerous strange artifacts, and a long entombed corpse. After retrieving anything that looked valuable, two of them set fire to the body with oil and rags, shutting the secret door behind them as they left the blaze.

The surviving members of the band left their dead and wound their way out of the chambers where they had seen so much death and danger until the returned to the portal. Beyond, the sky was beginning to gray with false dawn. As they stepped through onto the grass of their own world again, the corridor visible through the archway wavered and vanished, leaving only the grass beyond to be seen. Shouldering their burdens of plunder, they began the walk back to Tambrake.

8/16 PCs died in the delve. I went ahead and let them level the survivors to 1st.