Bloodstone Idol actual play. Actually just played. :)

Hi All,

My name is Stu and I'm a big AW fan. We had our first crack at DW tonight using the Bloodstone Idol and I'd thought I'd share. I had every intention of keeping notes for my actual play but got way too wound up in the game and only realised that I'd forgotten once play had ended. Here's the bits I can remember.

The cast.
Rook the Halfling Thief.
Zenu the Human Wizard.
Leavens the Elven Fighter.
Jon the Human Cleric.

The bonds part of our session was a lot of fun with the thief being caught stealing by the rather serious Cleric of suffering and repentance and being rescued by our Fighter who it turned out is a bit of hippy but a wise negotiatior. With a promise to keep careful watch on Rook, Leavens was able to save him from a smiting.

We started off outside the main doors. I decided to have the doors set into the hill opposite another hill where the characters were peering down at the lizardman on goblin action below.

Jon decided to see which side was the more evil via a detection spell and on the basis of his 10+, he decided that the goblins needed to go.

Meanwhile Rook decided that the top of the hill was not a good place to be as it was about to be showered by Goblin arrows. Defying danger to try and get down the hill without being seen, Rook rolled a 7+ and was given the choice between stumbling and taking 2 points of falling damage yet being able to make it down for a backstab this round or making it down without a scratch but having to wait a turn for an attack. After picking himself up, Rook made the stab roll with a 10 plus and took the goblin leader in the back with a long rapier. A rapier long enough to do the deed without having to leave the bushes. :)

Once the leader went down, the others opened up on the goblins...mostly. Leavens decided to attempt to parley via shouting at the precise moment that Rook killed the Goblin he was shouting at. Our Cleric Jon decided to use magic missile as did our wizard. ( I never checked but I hope the move where a cleric gets a single MU spell was a 1st level one) Goblins started to go down. As the players were on the Goblin side making short work of them, I decided that the Lizards were happy to wait behind their barricade for this new fight to finish.

I also decided that the Goblins had brought up a ballista and that they would be using it if the fight wasn't resolved quickly. At this point, Leavens gave up on parley, made his defy danger roll to charge down the hill and attack in one round and took the head off a goblin. A couple of rounds of spells and fighting and sneaking and backstabbing went by and all of the goblins died. Leavens ended up with a ballista bolt in his leg but this wasn't fired, it was thrust into his leg by a dying goblin as it was loading the machine and was spun around as it was hit.

The players then stormed the Lizardman barricade with relative ease and made short work of the lizards behind...which was lucky because our hippy fighter decided to try and negotiate again.

TBC It's 12:30 am here. :)

  

Sounds like a fun session, and looking forward to hearing the rest of it!

About the Cleric casting Magic Missile, it is their Human Racial Move to pick one Wizard spell.  But remember that the Cleric can't cast spells with the "damage" tag until they get a special move to allow that.  Although I don't think the Wizard spells actually contain those tags, they probably should, and I think it would be keeping with the spirit of the rules to prohibit a starting Cleric from picking Magic Missile.

Cheers Glitch. Thanks for picking that up for me. It did seem a little off that the cleric could cast MM. I now know that my instincts were right!

So, onward with the story, The guys made their way behind the doors and met with the ghost beyond. It was pretty funny watching them debate as to what to do about it and settle on stabbing it. This of course had no effect whatsoever. All the way through their debate and whilst they were stabbing the thing I kept its speech going on loop. Good times.

From the under hill room, they moved down the stairs to the vault. I was a bit worried about the time at this point so I removed the monsters from the vault and made it into an armoury full of small sized weapons and armour. To be honest, we were all enjoying the in character chat so much that the exploration was almost an afterthought at times. Bonds/Hx is a fantastic invention.



Rook made short work of the lock and they were in. Whilst searching, they found a small chest with 20 gold in it. Rook, who had marvelous luck all evening checked for traps and rolled 7. I told Rook that he could either leave the chest be or be hit by a poison needle. Rook decided to spout lore and rolled a 10. He spoke about the particular poison in question and informed the group that whilst powerful, the poison in question loses potency after 100 years or so. He willingly took the poison needle hit and got the chest open. He took two damage from the barbed needle.

At this point, everyone was in rather a bad way so the Jon came up with the bright idea of locking the doors and camping which the group did.

Once everyone had rested and healed, the group continued on down the stairs towards the fireflies.

Rook was able to detect the trap here on yet another 10+ roll and everyone got down the stairs safely. The guys wisely decided to leave the fireflies alone after my description of them and crept on through without even looking around. Once again, I needed to hurry as this was a one-shot so I decided not to have another fight at this point.

I laid on the description of the mesmerism room thickly enough that Jon's player immediately asked to disbelieve and did so. The team charged at the three remaining goblins with Leavens cutting one in two, Jon smashing one with his club and Rook crept around and took out the third which I ruled as a missile weapon user. I was pretty cool for Leavens and Jon to be charging the third only to have Rook's rapier explode through its chest from the other side and stop them in their tracks.

Looting never occurred to anyone at the table, all were too excited by what laid beyond so they pressed on to the Parliament and Grunloch which I'll get to tomorrow.

Cheers,

Stu.

FWIW, I'd never thought of ruling MM that way. I might in a campaign, but I certainly wouldn't in a one-off.

That Spout Lore on the poison was great!

Awesome Stu :)

The Bloodstone Idol never ceases to amaze me as a showcase on how differently it can be played out each time. So damn cool. More!

So the group pushed on through to the Parliament which was lots of fun. Leavens said" What is this place?" and the statues came to life with statements like, " well yes, that is the eternal question". I went on for about 3 minutes about living on the backs of turtles and whatnot and everyone was in stitches.

The chaps then moved into Grundy's chamber where he greeted them without looking up and asked Zenu how he had been since Magic College. He and Zenu continued their conversation (which was a lot of fun) whilst Rook defied danger on yet another 10+ and crept around behind Grundloch. All this while, Zenu was pretending to be hammering out the details of an alliance which was realistic enough that the other players, a little blindsided that Grundy and Zenu knew each other, were worried that Zenu was serious.

Rook started proceedings by stabbing Grundy in the back...on another 10 plus....for maximum damage literally more than half killing him with one blow. Rook elected not to be in melee so Grundy immediately got up and fire-balled Zenu killing him instantly

Zenu rolled his "dice with death" and hit on a 9. I immediately switched into the voice of Jon's god and told Jon that he could hear his god too. Essentially, I gave the rather flamboyant ladies man and scoundrel Zenu a choice between final death and coming back...good aligned and with his life devoted to the gods works....under the watchful eye of Jon. (You should have see his player's face. It was awesome!) (Jon's player was pretty pleased too)

Meanwhile Leavens threw a spear and missed Grundy. I really should have made Leavens and Rook swap dice!

Jon threw a magic missile at Grundy and from memory, was the one that killed him. Zenu woke up bathed in light and with his head cocked upward and hands in prayer.

The guys picked up the loot and then we looked at the time...it was midnight and well time to go home. I know I've missed heaps that happened in game. I might record the next session.  

Thanks for making this game people, the experience was one of the best games I've ever played.

Looking forward to the joining the Guild if I may?

Cheers,    

Stu.

Wonderful Stu! Just send an email to Sage and you will be most welcome to the Adventurer's Guild. :)

I love that Grundloch became Grundy!! So Aussie. Sounds like a wicked time was had by all. Such a marvellous rendition of old skool D&D and modern DW story games style adventure. The deal with death was priceless, the hooks generated with the PCs for future sessions are gold too.

Simply Awesome! Bravo!