More Accursed Coal Mine Antics
Sep. 4th, 2004 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we finished off the coal mine adventure in fine GURPS style, with most of the party being at highly negative hit points. Except for Don, who was unhurt. I managed to piss off a god, and destroy a place of power. In relatively unrelated events. Go me.
Charlie's familiar insisted on coming along. He told the others that it was a guardian he'd summoned with his nature mojo. There was some worry that it wouldn't be able to wear the emergency gas mask if the air went bad, but Charlie knew it could just revert to spirit form and not have to breathe. He just said, "It volunteered to accompany us," though.
He also saw a ghost making angry faces at JR, and (after failing to bind it -- he got a stag spirit instead) tried to warn him. "Did you have an employee, perhaps one of the ones that died recently, with a limp?" "Yes..." "He seems really angry with you." "Can you ask him what's wrong?" "No, I tried, but the spiritual realm is in flux." "Riiiiight."
So down into the mine they went, in a rickety metal cage supported by an all-too-fragile rope, controlled by a brake held by an aging miner. Everyone kept an eye out for danger, since the other forays into the mines had been slaughtered by terrible luck, and this seemed like a good place for bad luck to strike, but only Charlie was able to see the spirit -- the ghost of another dead miner -- swoop down and sabotage the pulley.
Bob, the elevator man, yanked on the emergency brake to slow their fall, and Charlie drew his rifle and shot a ghost-bullet at the ghost, wounding it, but not enough to destroy it. While Don (thinking fast) jumped out of the elevator (the emergency brake had stopped it at the third level down), the ghost possessed Bob, and had him release the brake. JR tried to wrestle with him over it, but was far outmatched -- and they fell twenty feet to the fourth level, the bottom of the first shaft.
Duncan, meanwhile, started at Charlie, wondering why he'd just tried to shoot Bob. He knew crazy when he saw it, though, and helped JR wrestle Bob to the ground while Charlie performed a quick exorcism, then took his rifle back up and put the ghost out of their misery.
Bob: "What happened?"
Charlie: "You were possessed by an evil spirit."
Bob: "If I beleived in that sort of thing, I wouldn't be down here."
Charlie: "Well, then it must have been swamp gas."
Bob: "Yeah, we should put on our masks."
On the fourth level, they had to walk down a well lit, straight corridor from one lift to the other. This should have taken five minutes. After an hour, they realized they were lost. They tried to follow the sounds of mining, and managed to find their way to some other miners, but a sudden cave-in out of nowher nearly killed JR. The miners gave them directions (go straight, towards that light you see RIGHT THERE), but didn't listen when the party asked them to yell if they wandered off course, so they got lost again. It took seven tries before they finally found the second lift.
The second lift was in terrible shape -- the rope was rotting away almost before their eyes! Don reached into a pocket and pulled out some 'unbreakable wire', but it was also too sharp to easily manipulate, and started to cut through the pulley as soon as it was attached. Don assured them that it would hold for one trip down and back up, though...
At the bottom of the shaft, they were attacked by ghosts -- directly this time, as the ghosts materialized around them and swung with pickaxes! Bob fainted right off.
Most of the ghosts attacked JR, which was fortunate, as JR had some sort of extra defense against them, that absorbed most of their attacks -- by the time he was wounded badly enough to start getting worried, Charlie's gun and Don's wrench had somehow managed to take down four of the ghosts. Charlie yelled for the stag to help them, but it didn't seem to do anything that they noticed.
Unfortunately, at that point the mine's curse really started to kick in, and things turned bad for the party. Charlie, JR, and Duncan were all taken down by the last ghost, as Don took out the second to last, and lie there bleeding while Don and the ghost swung at each other. Somehow, Don was victorious, and finished of the last ghost, then started applying first aid.
Once Charlie was conscious, he did what healing he could, but that wasn't much -- JR in particular had already been healed as much as he dared attempt for that day, especially with the mine's curse laying on them so heavily.
He did see that the stag had held off the remaining three ghosts that would otherwise have attacked them and finished them off, and by a simple count of the number of miners lost, they thought that was all of them, except for maybe one. "If there's nothing else down here to fight us, we might want to press on -- most of the ghosts we 'killed' will be rested before too long, and we'll have to fight them all over again if we retreat now."
So they limped on, despite their wounds. Charlie saw chill tendrils start to extend from the walls to suck out their life, but a triangle-headed, shining spirit appeared and drove them away. "This discharges 97.2 % of my debt to you," it said, "What do you wish for the remaining 2.8 %?" "Tell me your name," Charlie said, planning to summon this... whatever it was and bind it to get more services from it, since it seemed to be a capable warrior. It spat a confusing mess of syllables at him, and vanished.
But then, they arrived at the scene of the breakthrough, where the exploratory tunnel had run into a 'natural' underground cavern. The bodies of the dead miners lay scattered around the entrace, killed by impossible coincidence -- one had tripped and impaled himself through the head on his pick, slung at his hip, another had wandered in front of the drilling machine with gruesome results.
One ghost hoverd inside the cavern, studying a ziggaraut covered with fetishes. "Ah, more people to come and stay with me forever," he said in a pleasant voice, as the tunnel collapsed behind them.
Talking with the ghost revealed that he bore them no particular ill-will -- he was obsessed with studying the 'place of power'. It would be simple to disarm its protection, he told them, simply enter the room and remove the fetishes. Charlie did so, the last line of defense failing to strike him dead where he stood, perhaps because of the protection against such magic he'd put up... or maybe he was just lucky.
Once the fetishes were all removed, Charlie had a little chat with the ghost, and tried to convince him to be bound into an object so that he could use him as a consultant and teacher in the many and varied ritual and magic arts he knew. The ghost was not willing -- he wanted to stay and study the place of power. So Charlie tried to force the issue, and bind the ghost to his will.
This went badly -- the ghost was under the protection of a god of knowledge, which appeared and set a burning paw on Charlie's chest. He surely would have been smitten if he hadn't tripped backwards and broken one of the fetishes, blinding the god long enough for them to get away (as Don had already repaired the digging machine to get them out past the cave in). Bless - don't leave home without it.
The curse *was* lifted, and the remaining ghosts free of their compulsion to attack. Charlie took custody of the fetishes to 'purify and dispose' of them, but didn't really fool anyone -- of COURSE he was going to keep and study them.
Even with magic, it looked like it'd take a week or so for them to heal. Hopefully, nothing else would go wrong in that time.
Well, other than the destruction of the ancient place of power, which was mysteriously and brutally vandalized before JR could install a door to protect it.
last week | next week
I feel sort of cheesy playing this character -- he has something like 40 points of disadvantages that rely on random occurance rolls or GM manipulation to have any effect. Most of which I was told by the GM to take, so I don't feel *guilty*, but it'd be nice if he'd remember to actually ever roll for them sometimes.
At any rate, today I went to get comics and found GURPS 4th edition had come out. They fixed a lot of stuff, and made it more consitent... it looks like it has a *shot* at not being the cheesefest that 3rd edition GURPS is. For instance, IQ and DEX cost double ST and HT, because they're way more important -- that was a house rule a different GURPS group I was in a while back applied. Of course, if you buy up your IQ for skills and then buy it back down for perception and will, it costs the same as ST or HT, so... well, I'd have to try it, I guess. We probably won't for this game, since we're using a lot of expansion books that were designed for use with 3rd ed, and our characters wouldn't be anywhere near the same point value.
Charlie's familiar insisted on coming along. He told the others that it was a guardian he'd summoned with his nature mojo. There was some worry that it wouldn't be able to wear the emergency gas mask if the air went bad, but Charlie knew it could just revert to spirit form and not have to breathe. He just said, "It volunteered to accompany us," though.
He also saw a ghost making angry faces at JR, and (after failing to bind it -- he got a stag spirit instead) tried to warn him. "Did you have an employee, perhaps one of the ones that died recently, with a limp?" "Yes..." "He seems really angry with you." "Can you ask him what's wrong?" "No, I tried, but the spiritual realm is in flux." "Riiiiight."
So down into the mine they went, in a rickety metal cage supported by an all-too-fragile rope, controlled by a brake held by an aging miner. Everyone kept an eye out for danger, since the other forays into the mines had been slaughtered by terrible luck, and this seemed like a good place for bad luck to strike, but only Charlie was able to see the spirit -- the ghost of another dead miner -- swoop down and sabotage the pulley.
Bob, the elevator man, yanked on the emergency brake to slow their fall, and Charlie drew his rifle and shot a ghost-bullet at the ghost, wounding it, but not enough to destroy it. While Don (thinking fast) jumped out of the elevator (the emergency brake had stopped it at the third level down), the ghost possessed Bob, and had him release the brake. JR tried to wrestle with him over it, but was far outmatched -- and they fell twenty feet to the fourth level, the bottom of the first shaft.
Duncan, meanwhile, started at Charlie, wondering why he'd just tried to shoot Bob. He knew crazy when he saw it, though, and helped JR wrestle Bob to the ground while Charlie performed a quick exorcism, then took his rifle back up and put the ghost out of their misery.
Bob: "What happened?"
Charlie: "You were possessed by an evil spirit."
Bob: "If I beleived in that sort of thing, I wouldn't be down here."
Charlie: "Well, then it must have been swamp gas."
Bob: "Yeah, we should put on our masks."
On the fourth level, they had to walk down a well lit, straight corridor from one lift to the other. This should have taken five minutes. After an hour, they realized they were lost. They tried to follow the sounds of mining, and managed to find their way to some other miners, but a sudden cave-in out of nowher nearly killed JR. The miners gave them directions (go straight, towards that light you see RIGHT THERE), but didn't listen when the party asked them to yell if they wandered off course, so they got lost again. It took seven tries before they finally found the second lift.
The second lift was in terrible shape -- the rope was rotting away almost before their eyes! Don reached into a pocket and pulled out some 'unbreakable wire', but it was also too sharp to easily manipulate, and started to cut through the pulley as soon as it was attached. Don assured them that it would hold for one trip down and back up, though...
At the bottom of the shaft, they were attacked by ghosts -- directly this time, as the ghosts materialized around them and swung with pickaxes! Bob fainted right off.
Most of the ghosts attacked JR, which was fortunate, as JR had some sort of extra defense against them, that absorbed most of their attacks -- by the time he was wounded badly enough to start getting worried, Charlie's gun and Don's wrench had somehow managed to take down four of the ghosts. Charlie yelled for the stag to help them, but it didn't seem to do anything that they noticed.
Unfortunately, at that point the mine's curse really started to kick in, and things turned bad for the party. Charlie, JR, and Duncan were all taken down by the last ghost, as Don took out the second to last, and lie there bleeding while Don and the ghost swung at each other. Somehow, Don was victorious, and finished of the last ghost, then started applying first aid.
Once Charlie was conscious, he did what healing he could, but that wasn't much -- JR in particular had already been healed as much as he dared attempt for that day, especially with the mine's curse laying on them so heavily.
He did see that the stag had held off the remaining three ghosts that would otherwise have attacked them and finished them off, and by a simple count of the number of miners lost, they thought that was all of them, except for maybe one. "If there's nothing else down here to fight us, we might want to press on -- most of the ghosts we 'killed' will be rested before too long, and we'll have to fight them all over again if we retreat now."
So they limped on, despite their wounds. Charlie saw chill tendrils start to extend from the walls to suck out their life, but a triangle-headed, shining spirit appeared and drove them away. "This discharges 97.2 % of my debt to you," it said, "What do you wish for the remaining 2.8 %?" "Tell me your name," Charlie said, planning to summon this... whatever it was and bind it to get more services from it, since it seemed to be a capable warrior. It spat a confusing mess of syllables at him, and vanished.
But then, they arrived at the scene of the breakthrough, where the exploratory tunnel had run into a 'natural' underground cavern. The bodies of the dead miners lay scattered around the entrace, killed by impossible coincidence -- one had tripped and impaled himself through the head on his pick, slung at his hip, another had wandered in front of the drilling machine with gruesome results.
One ghost hoverd inside the cavern, studying a ziggaraut covered with fetishes. "Ah, more people to come and stay with me forever," he said in a pleasant voice, as the tunnel collapsed behind them.
Talking with the ghost revealed that he bore them no particular ill-will -- he was obsessed with studying the 'place of power'. It would be simple to disarm its protection, he told them, simply enter the room and remove the fetishes. Charlie did so, the last line of defense failing to strike him dead where he stood, perhaps because of the protection against such magic he'd put up... or maybe he was just lucky.
Once the fetishes were all removed, Charlie had a little chat with the ghost, and tried to convince him to be bound into an object so that he could use him as a consultant and teacher in the many and varied ritual and magic arts he knew. The ghost was not willing -- he wanted to stay and study the place of power. So Charlie tried to force the issue, and bind the ghost to his will.
This went badly -- the ghost was under the protection of a god of knowledge, which appeared and set a burning paw on Charlie's chest. He surely would have been smitten if he hadn't tripped backwards and broken one of the fetishes, blinding the god long enough for them to get away (as Don had already repaired the digging machine to get them out past the cave in). Bless - don't leave home without it.
The curse *was* lifted, and the remaining ghosts free of their compulsion to attack. Charlie took custody of the fetishes to 'purify and dispose' of them, but didn't really fool anyone -- of COURSE he was going to keep and study them.
Even with magic, it looked like it'd take a week or so for them to heal. Hopefully, nothing else would go wrong in that time.
Well, other than the destruction of the ancient place of power, which was mysteriously and brutally vandalized before JR could install a door to protect it.
last week | next week
I feel sort of cheesy playing this character -- he has something like 40 points of disadvantages that rely on random occurance rolls or GM manipulation to have any effect. Most of which I was told by the GM to take, so I don't feel *guilty*, but it'd be nice if he'd remember to actually ever roll for them sometimes.
At any rate, today I went to get comics and found GURPS 4th edition had come out. They fixed a lot of stuff, and made it more consitent... it looks like it has a *shot* at not being the cheesefest that 3rd edition GURPS is. For instance, IQ and DEX cost double ST and HT, because they're way more important -- that was a house rule a different GURPS group I was in a while back applied. Of course, if you buy up your IQ for skills and then buy it back down for perception and will, it costs the same as ST or HT, so... well, I'd have to try it, I guess. We probably won't for this game, since we're using a lot of expansion books that were designed for use with 3rd ed, and our characters wouldn't be anywhere near the same point value.
