ConQuest 2012

[gentleman john]

Just a brief note to any UK subscribers on this list (I know you exist).

ConQuest is on again in Derby on 14 April. I'm going to be running two games this year, one of which is a Labyrinth Lord game. Yes, the goblins are back ...

http://www.con-quest.co.uk/index.php/games/morning/in-the-belly-of-the-beast/

The second game is going to be an expy of the Tomorrow People using the Starblazer Adventures rules.

http://www.con-quest.co.uk/index.php/games/afternoon/the-mercy-question/

If you want more information on the con in general, the home page is at: http://www.con-quest.co.uk/.

[gentleman john]

Well, today was the day of ConQuest 2012 down in Derby. I was down to run two games: a Labyrinth Lord game ("In the Belly of the Beast") and a Starblazer Adventures game ("The Mercy Question"). The first of these games was a straightforward dungeon crawl located in the digestive tract of a leviathan. The second game was an expo of the 1970s tv series "The Tomorrow People". I got to run the Labyrinth Lord game. Unfortunately, that was the only game I got to run.

Still, there were five people up for the Labyrinth Lord game. This game was a follow-on from the game I had run the previous year. The PCs were all goblins, minions of the Wizard Chernos - a recurring villain in my con games. Following recent events (which were alluded to in the prelude to the game), Chernos had been forced to leave the city and depart for parts unknown on the first ship out of town. Of course, he was accompanied by the goblin minions: two shamans, a warrior, a thief and a wokani (monster magic-user). The characters had been generated using a mixture of the AEC, The Orcs of Thar and the D&D Cyclopedia. The rules for the game were pure Labyrinth Lord.

The game opened with the PCs and their master cornered on the foredeck of a galley during a storm, confronted by the crew who were determined to throw them overboard. The goblins briefly debated whether they should let their master be thrown overboard, but decided to defend him when the caption of the vessel demanded that the goblins go over the side as well. As the sailors advanced, the goblins decided to fight. Use of the Light and Faery Fire spells caused a number of the attacking sailors to flee in fear. The remainder were defeated by a combination of an Entangle spell, a Sleep spell and some deft sword work. However, the goblins' victory (and looting frenzy) was very short-lived as the galley was swallowed by a leviathan.

Fortunately, the PCs ended up being stuck in the leviathan's mouth, while their master was sucked down into its bowels - literally. The goblins decided to go exploring. The warrior decided to explore upwards and into the sinus cavities, where she encountered some parasites and got covered in spermaceti. A fit of curiosity caused the leviathan's blowhole to open, flooding the sinus and sending the warrior down the gullet. The rest of the goblins shuffled around the mouth cavity, where the damage they caused attracted the attention of some flying antibodies. As the two shamans and the thief fought the flying antibodies, the wokani escaped via the gullet and headed down the digestive tract. The rest of the goblins followed suit after they decided to cook a victory meal in the leviathan's mouth.

The stomach proved to be an interesting place. It was filled with a pool of digestive acids, and was home to a sea-troll that had been swallowed a long time ago and which was eking out a living by scavenging the detritus from the stomach acids. Part of its haul was the goblins' master, Chernos the Wizard. As the goblins explored the stomach, they got burned by acid, lost most of their belongings, attracted more antibodies and confused the sea-troll. The highlight of this combat was one of the shamans using a scroll that had been randomly determined t the start of the adventure. The scroll turned out to be for the spell Summon Elemental. So, armed with an acid elemental (well - it seemed like a good idea at the time), the goblins freed their master, defeated the sea-troll and managed to find a replacement for their wokani who had been killed by the flying antibodies.

As time was running short, the last part of the adventure was mainly narrated. The players were given a choice as to how they were going to get out of the leviathan. They decided that the goblins would head down and try to follow the digestive tract to its natural conclusion. This was a valid, if disgusting, way out for them and they got a narration describing how they made their way down through the guts and out, ready for further adventures.