Shadows of Brimstone - Swamps of Death Sessions

Last night was our first game of Shadows of Brimstone. My two sons – Sheriff Venkman (Lawman, Age 6) and Father Thoth (Preacher, Age 9) – prefer the Swamps of Death theme so we played the intro scenario (Fistful of Dark Stone) where I was the Indian Scout, White Feather.

Off we went! The first couple of tiles were uneventful. White Feather scavenged some gold and Sheriff Venkman declined to scavenge after it was explained that bad things might happen. I never expected such restraint in a 6 year-old Lawman, but the 9 year-old Father Thoth compensated for his level-headed brother by scavenging as often as possible.

One of the things I kept mentioning to my sons before the games arrived was the fact that you could travel to other dimensions. I neglected to tell them that some people were reporting no Otherworld sojourns in several games due to bad luck and my major fear was that the same thing would happen during our campaign. Well, we got lucky and on our first encounter (third tile in: two corridors and the room with the hole in it) we drew a gate. I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to ignore gates in the intro scenario, but there was no way we weren’t going in.

Beyond the gate was a long corridor and a corner corridor, and that’s where Father Thoth’s greed bit us. He scavenged an ambush attack (Medium Threat deck for 3 heroes) and we got hit by 3 Hellbats and a Slasher. Due to the crowded tile only Father Thoth and Sheriff Venkman were able to be attacked by the Slasher and Father Thoth drew the short straw. After a couple rounds of fighting Thoth was fairly battered by the Slasher and Venkman had to help me with my Hellbat as this is when my poor combat rolling began. Thoth passed his escape roll to elude the Slasher once the Hellbats were dead and Venkman and White Feather pinned the Slasher and clobbered him. We caught our breath and were in pretty good shape for when we drew the next map card, which was a large room (I can’t remember what any of the room names were). It was a double encounter but neither was an attack. The first was a tentacle in the water and it hit Venkman, who passed the Strength 5+ test (if you fail, roll on the injury chart). Then on the second encounter we had to each pass a 5+ Agility test or get hit by poisoned arrows during a Serpentmen ambush. White Feather passed it easily, but both Venkman and Thoth took wounds and were poisoned (on each poisoned hero's activation roll: 1-2 = 1 wound, 3-5 = no effect, 6 = discard the poison counter).

There may have been another non-combat encounter at this point (I can’t remember), but the next room had an Attack encounter. Since we were in Jargono an Attack becomes an Ambush on a roll of 4-6, so of course Venkman rolled a 4. It was 6 zombies and 2 corpse piles and we were spread out enough that we got 2 zombies each. Venkman dispatched his easily, as did Thoth who had a well-timed crit and +1 damage against undead to boost his non-crit hit. White Feather continued to roll mediocrely. Only one of the corpse piles spawned a zombie so we were easily able to take it down and Venkman rolled a crit to accelerate the corpse piles’ demise.

At this point we were all in pretty good shape. I kept hitting nearly all of my Holding Back the Darkness rolls and Thoth kept healing everyone back to full health. And that’s when my wife started reminding me that it was a school night and it was past 9:30. Truly this was an Epic Level threat that I was unprepared for (the lateness of the hour, that is ). Luckily, the next room had an encounter token with the final clue (I decided we were only playing to 2 clues). The final fight was 6 Stranglers and 2 Night Terrors where Venkman and White Feather blocked the doorway and Thoth was behind us constantly failing to successfully cast his Smite sermon. White Feather kept whiffing and was finally taken down on turn 2 or 3 of the fight and had to use the party’s only Revive token. The Stranglers have a nasty ability where a To Hit roll of 6 counts as three hits, and the highlight (lowlight?) of the fight was when I rolled four 6’s on four dice for a Strangler to hit Venkman. He continued his hot rolling streak and only took 3-4 wounds out of that debacle. This is also the point in the game where Venkman became a wound-dealing death machine. He rolled double sixes with his Peacekeeper Pistol at least twice, and he put 11 wounds on one of the Night Terrors in one turn. He probably rolled 6-8 crits during this fight (at least) and really raked in the Night Terror XP (10 XP per wounding hit plus 5 XP per wound).

None of us ended the first adventure with any injuries, madness, or mutations (though Venkman had only 2 wounds left at the end), so that was good. Venkman came out light on gear and loot (no new items and only $150), but he ended up with 420 XP. White Feather finished with 2 swamp fungus, some swamp salve, a Raptor Claw (Free Attack once per turn, 1 Combat that crits on 4-6), 330 XP, and $275. Father Thoth got a Dark Stone Blade (no combat bonus but Combat hits crit on 5-6) at the very end and netted 315 XP and $250. We might skip the town visit since we can’t afford anything right now so hopefully nothing bad happens during Traveling.

It was a late night so we’ll probably only do the town visit tonight (any suggestions for low-level characters?) and I think the whole thing will go faster next time. Money cards really helped keep things moving, and the Yahtzee Texas Hold ‘Em chips I used to track XP were a godsend (I used mini poker chips for 5 XP) as I could just hand chips to Thoth and Venkman and sort them out later. Even though they’re still kind of fuzzy on the Save system and all of the dice rolling (especially at the end when I was hurrying like mad to finish) they love the loot/XP aspect of the game and we all can’t wait to play again.

Rules I Messed Up (and Might Have):

- I forgot to roll for Night Terror horror hits for a few activations.

- I forgot to have the Night Terrors displace the Stranglers and instead had them wait behind them.

- I forgot to have everyone take their move roll during the fights sometimes.

- I forgot to remind Venkman of his special abilities to the extent that he never used any of them all game. All those crit rolls I mentioned? Every one of them was unmodified by Laying Down the Law.

- I didn’t pay close attention to whether or not I did targeting correctly during the last fight. I just had the 3 Stranglers around Venkman and White Feather and drew a random hero token for the odd Strangler.

- I wasn’t sure if Venkman could heal during non-combat hero turns but I allowed it. I think this game system is robust enough to absorb some rules fudging and I don’t care if it makes things easier if it means my sons have more fun.

After the last mission our posse - Sheriff Venkman the Lawman (age 6), Father Thoth the Preacher (age 9), and White Feather the Indian Scout (me) - avoided any travel hazards and went to town. We were all cash poor so, after getting the event that doubles Dark Stone prices, we paid a visit to the Frontier outpost. I sold one Dark Stone for $300 and bought a Combat Knife, Venkman sold a stone for $200 and bought nothing, and Thoth obtained a Strangler bounty for the next adventure.

Mission 2 is to fully explore and kill all the monsters in a mine purchased by an investor. There are special rules governing the number of entrances on clue tokens and dice rolls to determine whether entrances are closed off or not and what to do once a "dead-end room" is discovered.

The map starts with a T-junction connected to the mine entrance, so we went right and drew a room Map tile where we were immediately ambushed by 4 Hungry Dead, a Corpse Pile, and 5 Tentacles. Sheriff Venkman had a horrendous first round where he was knocked out by an enormous amount of damage from one attack from the first Tentacle, thus immediately depriving us of our only Revive token. Nevertheless, we whittled the enemies down and had a handle on things until I failed a Holding Back the Darkness roll, drew a Darkness card, and subjected us to an ambush by 4 more Tentacles. At this point I decided to use my Dynamite and apprised Venkman that he was going to take damage if my throw went off the way I planned, so naturally I missed my throw. I rolled 2 bounces, and luckily for us the two bounces were into the wall so it ended up going off in the targeted space anyway. I only rolled 3 damage (poor damage rolls were a theme during this adventure) so the Sheriff and I were still surrounded by several 1 HP Tentacles.

I'd promised Venkman that he was in for a pleasant surprise during the mission, so I waited until he was severely wounded during this fight before revealing that he had enough XP to level up and heal his wounds, recover a Grit, roll for an upgrade, and choose a new ability (I leveled up later in the mission, and Thoth leveled up during the final fight when he was close to death).

Father Thoth healed me, I used both of my Swamp Fungus tokens to heal Venkman, and we finally dispatched all of the enemies. Clearing that room took 30-45 minutes and the final count was 6 Hungry Dead, 9 Tentacles, and 2 Corpse Piles destroyed. We collected and tallied our Loot and moved on.

Next we discovered a room that had two Encounters, and beyond that room we explored one that (finally!) turned out to be a dead-end. Thoth rolled well so there was no Threat, and the Encounter was to either search some crates in a room full of undead (draw a Loot for each 6, get ambushed by D6 Hungry Dead for each 1) or ignore them and leave (take 3 horror hits, 2 damage each). We searched and got lucky: Venkman pulled 2 Loot, Thoth got 2, I got 1, and no Hungry Dead were spawned.

We had to backtrack to explore a previous room with an unexplored entrance and we found another dead-end room for which we drew a normal (Medium) Threat. It was for 6 Tentacles but it wasn't an ambush so they were easily dispatched. Thankfully, I kept rolling relatively well on Holding Back the Darkness because it took us a few turns to make the trek all the way back to the only unexplored doorway remaining, at the T-junction connected to the mine entrance.

Beyond it we found a room and flubbed the closed-off-entrance rolls, meaning we had to explore in 2 directions. One led to a dead-end with an easily passed Encounter and no Threat, and the other direction was a room with an Encounter and one exit, and the room connected to that was our final dead end.

And then we rolled a 1 for what was in the dead-end room.

That meant an Epic Threat that turned out to be a Goliath and 6 Stranglers, and this is where we discovered that our posse doesn't have enough damage production to deal with a 24 HP enemy with the Tough ability. Coupled with our ridiculously bad damage rolls it was rough sledding. Venkman and I burned through all of our Grit to kill 2 Stranglers, and due to an earlier Growing Dread card the Stranglers and Goliath were all +1 Initiative and +2 Move. The plan was to have a fighting retreat from the Goliath and chip away at range. Even though we'd still take the Horror hits we'd be out of range of his attacks, but that plan went up in smoke when Thoth failed his Escape test, so White Feather ran up to help him out. Thoth tried to make up for it by leveling up during the fight and choosing the Cleansing Fire Judgment, but he could never get it to go off. In fact, he rolled so badly that it wasn't even worth using a Grit or re-rolling one of the Judgment dice with his Firebrand ability.

So Thoth and White Feather hunkered down to hold the doorway against the Goliath but I kept taking massive Horror hits from its Unspeakable Terror (now is a good time to mention that my Level Up upgrade roll netted me yet another Move bonus but still no Health/Sanity increase so I was still stuck at 10/10), and Thoth was taking a lot of wounds due to his 5+ defense. Venkman was out of the Goliath's 3 space tentacle attack range but he kept taking Horror hits and couldn't roll hits or damage for anything. We also wasted his Sheriff's Badge ability with bad rolling and I whiffed on my Raptor Claw free attack.

We got the Goliath down to 8 wounds and still may have barely pulled it out if I hadn't failed yet another Hold Back the Darkness and drawn another Tentacle ambush. 4 of them spawned and at that point we decided to call it quits after the current turn. I went to 0 Sanity and was knocked out, and Thoth soon followed suit at 0 Health. The ambushing Tentacles re-targeted Venkman but he survived 16 combat dice from 4 Tentacles to escape the mine unscathed.

I rolled a Madness that has a chance for me to attack adjacent allies and Thoth got "lucky" by rolling an Injury that means no criticals on ranged attacks and he's melee-only. As a result of failing the mission we each had to roll twice for Travel Hazards. I rolled a Flash Flood (we each passed) and Thoth permanently lost 2 Sanity and got a Madness (Scavenging penalty) after hearing a disturbing story around a campfire. A random building in town was also destroyed due to our failure but it was only the Saloon. Thoth sold the Shotgun he found in the previous adventure to me for $300 (I then sold my Carbine for $400) and he also sold his Rawhide Chaps (which he couldn't use due to class restrictions and Venkman wasn't interested) before buying a hat that gave him +2 Sanity to make up for his Traveling Hazard loss. On the second day he went to the Frontier Outpost and secured a Night Terror Bounty for the group.

Venkman stocked up on tokens (he has one each of Herbs, Whiskey, Bandages, and Tonic) and he lucked into a free Specimen Jar at the Doctor's office. It took me two days and $150 to get my Madness healed at the Church and I received a free Aura so, with my 10 Health and 10 Sanity, I chose the Aura of Protection (Armor 6+ and Spirit Armor 6+) for our next Adventure. I wanted to get some dynamite but after rolling a Town Event after the first day and avoiding one on the second I didn't want to press our luck.

This Adventure played much more smoothly than the first with far fewer forgotten rules and as far as first losses go, our permanent debilitations weren't that bad. Other than lacking dynamite I think we're in decent shape for the next mission.

The town stuff sounds like a fun little denouement on the game after a dungeon run.

This is great, really enjoyed reading through the write-ups! I am just getting the minis for the first set put together, envious of you already being able to enjoy it. Guess I better get busy and get mine done.

Are the scenarios all in the book in a listed order or is there some randomization as to which scenarios you undertake?

The first 6 missions in the Adventure Book for each core set are identical. The next 6 are specific to Targa (City of the Ancients) or Jargono (Swamps of Death). There's a randomization table in the Adventure Book but I think it's nothing more complex than a 2D6 roll. None of the missions are really linked by an overarching narrative; the campaign comes more from the character progression.

That being said, I think there's a lot of RPG-lite stuff that could be done with the system. I have an idea for a couple of connected missions that'll have some scripted set pieces for the players, and I'm also thinking of using the towns on the map in the Adventure Book to fill out the story. My missions won't be very replayable once you know the surprises, but I'm more interested in fashioning a compelling narrative around the mechanics that's a little more interesting than, "Find two Encounter Tokens with Clue icons, then face an Epic Threat!"

If I had to level one criticism at the missions that come with the game, it would be the fact that none of the map stuff is used. Something as simple as saying that a certain town is destroyed (if you fail a mission) or that the void gate is near X River, or whatever, would be a fun touch that would add to the game's sense of place.

Cool, I actually like the idea of less-scripted scenarios to increase replayability. I can't remember, are you a WHQ veteran?

I've only played WHQ once but I remember quite a bit about how it plays. I remember how there's an event roll every turn (somewhat similar to the Hold Back the Darkness roll), that most fights are identical to an Ambush attack in SoB, and that there's an objective room that starts the end-game once it's discovered (kind of like the Chamber tiles in the D&DAS games). I also remember it having bullshit town events like getting kicked out of town before you can even buy anything or having half of your gold melt in a fire, both of which happened to me during my only session.

On Sunday our posse – Sheriff Venkman (age 6 Lawman), Father Thoth (age 9 Preacher), and White Feather (me, Indian Scout) - played Mission 3: Seal the Void Gate. The premise is that there’s a gate in the mine spewing out monsters, a posse went in a while ago to seal it using the knowledge from an occult tome, and they haven’t been seen since and the monster attacks are getting worse. Our job was to go in, find the book, and seal the gate.

One interesting wrinkle is that the Depth track moves D3+1 spaces right at the beginning and any Darkness cards are resolved like normal. Venkman rolled a 5 so it moved four spaces on the Depth track and we had to draw 2 Darkness cards. The first was +1 Combat for Void creatures for the rest of the game, and the second was an Ambush that turned out to be 6 Stranglers.

They were handled relatively easily and Father Thoth was excited that he – being in the Initiative 2 slot – was able to clean up some of the Stranglers after some uncharacteristically bad rolling on Venkman’s part. My bad rolling was par for the course and passed without comment.

The next tile was a Short Passage, and the tile after that was the Mining Room. The Encounter Token was an Ambush, so in an effort to speed the mission along I used White Feather’s Tracker ability: once per Adventure discard a revealed Exploration Marker or Encounter card and redraw. This time it was one with a Clue icon, meaning that we’d found the remains of the previous posse along with the monsters that had killed them. It was a Night Terror (yay, Bounty!) and 11 Void Spiders, with Venkman and White Feather holding the doorway. The annoying thing about Void Spiders is that they use their high Initiative (6) to swarm you and prevent you from shooting at anything else. So even though it took the Night Terror two activations to reach us, neither Venkman nor White Feather could shoot him for those two turns because we couldn’t clear the Spiders quickly enough.

On Father Thoth’s second turn, however, he made the first of 3 attacks that would help win the mission for us. He was finally able to successfully cast Cleansing Fire and he targeted the Night Terror and 2 Spiders. Cleansing Fire’s damage roll is 2D6 and he rolled…. a 12. Both Spiders were killed and the 12 damage nearly obliterated the Night Terror, soaking him for 9 out of his 12 wounds in one shot (netting Thoth 55 XP for those wounds alone). Other than failing a couple Hold Back the Darkness Rolls the rest of the fight was trivial. We gained our Night Terror bounty ($150 for each player) and collected our Loot before giving The Book to Thoth and exploring the next tile, which was The Vault.

It had both an Encounter (add a Growing Dread card to the stack) and a Clue icon, meaning that we’d discovered the location of the gate. Whoever was holding the book on the same tile as the portal could make a Spirit 5+ test once per turn where five total successes were required to seal the gate. If a Hold Back the Darkness roll was failed while the gate was still open, there was a chance to add a Low Threat to the fight based on a D6 roll.

The gate was guarded by an Epic Threat, and like a bad penny our nemesis from the previous mission, the Goliath, reappeared. He was joined by 7 Hungry Dead and 2 Corpse Piles. Unfortunately for the Goliath he was higher initiative than the Hungry Dead, meaning that the Corpse Piles and Hungry Dead would be in the back of the room, and the Goliath would be placed in the front. Not only that, but the geography of the room meant that he would start right next to us so we could hit him hard right away. Father Thoth and Sheriff Venkman were still stinging from our previous defeat and were itching to exact some revenge. Before the fight started (and after resolving the Growing Dread cards, collectively canceling one) I double-checked all of our abilities to insure that we wouldn’t forget anything for the start of the fight.

Thoth and White Feather held the doorway and Venkman stood just out of range of the Goliath’s tentacles so he could safely make ranged attacks. White Feather dealt a few wounds and on his turn Venkman activated his Sheriff's Badge (+2 Shots or +2 Combat on a Hero's next Activation, their choice) before he and the Goliath each did a couple wounds. It was then Thoth's turn and, after getting 3 successes on his gate-closing roll, he slammed him with a 5 Combat attack and a successful Smite (D6 damage, ignores defense). On our next turn I failed the Hold Back the Darkness roll as well as the summoning roll, so we added 4 Tentacles to the fight. White Feather hit for a colossal amount of additional damage such that by the time it was Venkman’s turn the Goliath had only 6 wounds remaining. Venkman dealt four wounds and he immediately used his Tonic Token to gain a Grit and spend it to activate his Frontier Justice ability (+3 damage to a hit) to finish off the Goliath in less than two turns.

Then it was Father Thoth’s time to shine again. He easily rolled enough successes to close the gate before demolishing 3 Tentacles with another successful casting of Cleansing Fire (120 XP for the Tentacles and 30 XP for Cleansing Fire). We still had several Hungry Dead to deal with (they’d been spawning somewhat regularly since the fight began), but once a few of them were destroyed Thoth and Venkman were able to get close enough to the Corpse Piles to start hitting them from range. The Darkness marker got within 3 spaces of escaping but I hit enough HBTD rolls at the end to give us enough time to finish off the last of the undead.

Father Thoth’s final XP tally for the mission was ridiculous: 870. He leapfrogged both Venkman and White Feather and had enough to reach Level 3. He did suffer a new mutation that gave him -2 Health and +1 Max Grit (for a new max of 4), so it could have been worse. He also found the Cavalry Saber (2 Combat, and the hero can also make a ranged attack in the same turn) which he sold to Venkman for its selling price of $600. Otherwise, Venkman’s loot was money, Dark Stone, and 2 Whiskey Tokens to go with the one he had. I got a lot of money and Dark Stone as well, but I did manage to get a belt from Targa that increased my carrying capacity weight limit by 2.

The trip to town was uneventful and once there Thoth went to the Frontier Outpost and Venkman and White Feather went to the Blacksmith. Thoth whiffed on his Bounty roll so we don’t have one for the next mission. Venkman and White Feather each bought Dark Stone Inlays (re-roll one To Hit die per attack for a Hand Weapon) for our weapons. I put mine on my Tribal Hatchet and he put his on his newly-acquired Cavalry Saber.

I think we’re in good shape for Mission 4: Rescue Mission. Venkman and White Feather are relatively close to leveling up so it’ll be like starting the mission with 3 Revive Tokens. However, other than Father Thoth we’re all cash strapped so we’ll see how well we do without a lot of Tokens to fall back on. Hopefully our newly modified weapons and mid-Adventure leveling will give us the edge we need.

metalface13 wrote: Cool, I actually like the idea of less-scripted scenarios to increase replayability. I can't remember, are you a WHQ veteran?

The scenario selection is identical to WHQ, but where WHQ had 5 scenarios with 6 variations, this just has 12 scenarios. I don't see that as a problem because they're still random and you can just bash in to a random mine and see what happens without the book telling you what to do.

Recently our posse (9 year-old Level 3 Preacher Father Thoth, 6 year-old Level 2 Sheriff Venkman, and me, the Level 2 Indian Scout White Feather) decided to tackle Mission 4: Rescue Mission. It's pretty simple; all you have to do is rescue one of the townsfolk who's been kidnapped by a monster and taken into the mines. You have to roll for one of 3 different people it can be and we got the farmer's son.

During previous missions we'd had some disagreements between the boys regarding which of them would draw Threat/Map/Encounter/etc. cards, so for this session I decided to assign them decks for which they'd be responsible. Father Thoth was in charge of drawing Mine Artifact, Darkness, Growing Dread, Mine Map, and Encounter cards, and Venkman would draw Threat cards, roll for enemy Elite Abilities, and place and reveal Exploration Tokens. I handled the Gear, Loot, and Scavenge decks as well as placing monsters and administering the fights, money, and XP.

With everyone's responsibilities settled we delved into the mine. White Feather easily made it to the edge of the Mine Entrance with his +3 Move ("Fast" Ability + Leveling roll + Adventure Boots) and looked through the door, Thoth was a couple spaces back, and Venkman rolled a "1" and decided he'd rather have the Grit than the extra move. Venkman revealed an Encounter (Attack), so he drew a Medium Threat (for 3 players) that called for 2 Low Threats. They were a Slasher, a Night Terror, and 3 Void Spiders.

Since we were now a Level 3 party (thanks to Thoth), every enemy would now get an Elite Ability. Venkman rolled for each enemy type and the Night Terrors' Terror (2) was upgraded to Unspeakable Terror (2), the Slasher's Fear (2) was upgraded to Terror (2), and the Spiders' To Hit of 4+ improved to 3+. Not too bad, all things considered.

The Spiders activated first and attacked each of us, doing a few wounds. I moved so I could be adjacent to and attack 2 of them during my activation (I didn't roll for my Escape test since I thought I could move as long as I remained next to the Spider targeting me but I've since learned I have to roll a successful Escape test to leave the space I'm in, regardless of adjacency) and I killed them both. Venkman killed the other Spider before the Slasher activated and attacked Thoth, and then the Night Terror activated and advanced. Thoth had chosen the Holy Strength upgrade after attaining Level 3 and he used it to good effect to slam the Slasher with 5 wounds before using all of his Faith to heal 3 of his wounds. During the next turn I landed a critical hit with my Shotgun to finish off the Slasher, Venkman landed one Hit and one Critical hit to deal 7 wounds to the Night Terror, and Thoth finished it off with a Hit and a Critical Hit.

The Loot was pretty mundane except for the character-changing Artifact that Venkman acquired: it was the Orb of Ro'Kal and it gives your attacks +1 damage per Corruption point you have, but it gives you a Corruption Hit for every enemy you kill. This did not bode well for Venkman, especially if we happened to encounter any more enemy swarms.

The next tile was the Track Stop room and I used White Feather's once-per-Adventure ability to discard the next Exploration Token (Encounter x2), and the next one drawn was an Encounter and a Clue. The Encounter was a Cunning 5+ test for one player (our choice), we chose Venkman to take it (Cunning 4), he passed, and as a result of passing it he gained the Encounter card which he could turn in for a benefit to the posse later in the mission. White Feather discovered another room and it had a Growing Dread, an Encounter, and a Clue. The Encounter was an attack and it turned out to be 9 Zombies and 2 Corpse Piles. The Zombies' Elite Ability was that heroes on the same Map Tile as a Zombie or Corpse Pile are -1 on their To Hit rolls (ouch), and the Corpse Piles' Elite Ability was that they had 10 HP instead of 6 HP.

White Feather killed a Zombie with his Shotgun, Venkman killed 2 (and gained 2 Corruption due to that Orb), and Thoth killed one with his Smite Judgment. The Zombies advanced and did very little damage, and on our next turn I killed another Zombie, Venkman killed one (and gained another Corruption), and Thoth cast Cleansing Fire to try and hit the 2 Corpse Piles. He was successful and rolled an 11 for damage (someone kindly pointed out that he needs to roll damage separately for each affected enemy but I didn't know that at the time of this session), landing 9 wounds on each Corpse Pile for a total of 110(!) XP. White Feather looked on in barely-concealed disgust and envy.

I then failed a Holding Back the Darkness roll and triggered a Darkness card that turned out to be an Ambush of 7 more Zombies. I completely missed on my next attack roll but due to the Ambush Venkman was finally able to put his Cavalry Saber to use. He killed 1 Zombie with the Saber (another Corruption point gained, putting him at 4 and 1 away from mutating) and rolled 1 Hit and 2 Critical Hits with his gun, killing 3 more (and avoiding a mutation by saving all 3 of the ensuing Corruption Hits). Thoth's hot rolling continued and with the help of Holy Strike he rolled 2 Critical Hits and healed 3 wounds from White Feather.

On our next turn White Feather was finally able to contribute by rolling 2 Critical Hits and killing 2 Zombies, but Venkman's luck finally ran out (sort of). He killed an adjacent Zombie with his Saber and failed his Corruption save. Fortunately for him, he rolled for the "Fangs" Mutation that allows him to make one free combat 1 attack per turn, using the D8. After resolving his Mutation roll he dealt the final wound to each Corpse Pile with his gun before Thoth finished off the final two Zombies. White Feather discovered another room (the Excavation Chamber) and Venkman revealed 2 Encounters on the Exploration Token. The first was the Prospector encounter (Venkman passed both tests), and the second was...what's this? "Mangled Remains"? Mangled Remains says that if you're looking for someone, your posse has just discovered all that remains of them. The mission is considered to be a success and you can either immediately go back to town with the news, or you can press on and try to complete the mission and exact a measure of revenge.

We were in great shape and I think we could have finished the mission easily, but 1) I also knew that our luck could take a 180 degree turn at any time and, more importantly 2) Venkman had that Orb and we didn't want to risk any further Corruption Hits. So it was with that anticlimactic encounter that we ended the mission.

Venkman rolled a Hellbat attack Travel Hazard (you have to roll for each piece of Dark Stone and Dark Stone-infused gear you own and if you roll a "1" you lose it) but the only thing lost was a single piece of Thoth's Dark Stone. Thoth went to the Frontier Outpost to roll for a Bounty but his bad luck at the Outpost continued as he rolled an event that destroyed it for the remainder of our stay. He didn't buy anything else because he's saving up for the Book of Armageddon. Venkman and White Feather went to the Blacksmith (and rolled the -$50 discount event!) where Venkman purchased some Dark Stone bullets and White Feather, at 3 Corruption, bought the Dark Stone Buckle (lets you roll twice on the Mutation chart and choose one of the results).

White Feather barely achieved Level 3 after getting the Mission reward. He chose the Battle Scout Ability (once per Adventure he gives the other heroes +2 Initiative for one turn and recovers 1 Grit) and rolled a +2 Health bump (finally!). Sheriff Venkman leveled up to 3 during the mission and chose the Man of Action ability (roll two dice for movement and choose one) to synergize with his Max Grit of 3. He also improved his Lore to 3 and his Health and Sanity to 16 each. Father Thoth didn't level up but he leads the posse with 550 XP and $2,360, Venkman has 315 XP and $885, and White Feather's bringing up the rear with 50 XP and $300.

Both boys did a good job catching some rules that their father missed. Venkman reminded me to keep checking the Posse Marker on the Depth Chart, and when there were only 2 Zombies left Thoth realized that we'd forgotten to roll for the Zombies' Fear Effect the entire Fight. Venkman is also getting more comfortable with the saving throws to prevent Health and Sanity damage.

Next up, Mission 5: Escape.

Next up for our posse (9 year-old Level 3 Preacher Father Thoth, 6 year-old Level 3 Sheriff Venkman, and me, the Level 3 Indian Scout White Feather) was Mission 5: Escape. The objective is simple – escape the mine – but there’s a twist: the posse is not allowed to quit the mission by running away, they have to play it through to the bitter end. The posse starts on a Cross Passage (which the Adventure book calls a “Cross Path” for some reason) and the further the posse is on the Depth Chart, the greater their chance to discover the Mine Entrance after a Clue is discovered. There’s also a chance of a big bad waiting for you at the Entrance if you have a bad HBtD (Hold Back the Darkness) roll.

The first tile we discovered was the Storage Room. It had a Clue and an Encounter and in this Adventure if the Exploration Token has a Clue, an additional Threat card is added. The Enemies were 8 Zombies and 2 Corpse Piles, and oddly enough, Venkman rolled the exact same Elite Abilities for this Threat card as he did last game: -1 for the Heroes To Hit HD (Hungry Dead) on the same tile as a Corpse Pile/HD and +4 Wounds for the Corpse Piles. Unfortunately, the Encounter was one of the worst in the deck, and it’s particularly bad when paired with HD (due to their low Move). It was A Crack in Space: Each Hero makes a Spirit 6+ test or else take D8 Sanity damage, ignoring Willpower. The worst part is that a Hero ending their move on this tile has to take the test again, meaning that you might have to subject your Hero to some horrendous Sanity damage to destroy the Corpse Piles at the far back of the room.

To make things worse, White Feather botched the HBtD roll and triggered a Darkness card that was an ambush by 3 Hellbats and 1 Slasher. Now White Feather and Venkman (with his Spirit of 1) were trapped on the tile affected by Crack in Space unless we could fight ourselves free of the ambush. Thankfully, the Elite abilities for the Hellbats (+2 HP) and Slasher (Heroes take 2 Horror Hits) weren’t too bad. White Feather landed a Critical Hit on the Slasher and rolled a 6 for Damage to kill it in one shot (I’m embarrassed to note that I don’t think I’ve EVER noticed their “Chiton Plating” ability that means their Critical Defense is 2 rather than 0; no wonder we always thought they were pushovers. Oops. At least we played the final group of Slashers correctly.) as well as killing the Hellbat targeting him. He passed the Crack in Space test, and killing the Slasher meant Venkman could step back off the affected tile and shoot.

Another advantage we discovered on Thoth’s activation was that the two Corpse Piles were within range of his Smite Judgment Sermon. So we spent the next few turns trying to whittle down the HD while Venkman kept casting Smite and Cleansing Fire to try and burn out the Corpse Piles from afar. It didn’t help that the Piles kept spawning HD (there were 10 on the board at one point), and rather than chance the HD gaining another Elite Ability (if we had to spawn one and none were available), Venkman took a chance and moved on to the Crack in Space tile so he could attack with his Cavalry Saber and Peacekeeper Pistol in the same turn. Miraculously, he passed Crack in Space with his Spirit of 1 before retreating on his next Activation. Once Thoth destroyed a Corpse Pile the tide turned rapidly and we finished off the HD as quickly as we could. This Fight had taken several turns to resolve (and about 35 minutes of real time) and already the Darkness Marker was fairly well advanced on the Depth Chart.

We backtracked and the next tile revealed was the Track Stop (I think). White Feather botched yet another of many HBtD and revealed a Growing Dread (which was immediately played per the Mission rules) that was 2 Horror Hits with D6 Wounds (ignoring Defense) per failed hit. The Encounter was an Attack by 6 Stranglers (Elite Ability = Heal 2 Wounds at the start of each turn). Due to their Elite Ability, White Feather spent a Grit on Savage Attack (1 Grit = +2 Combat once per turn) and waded into their midst, getting adjacent to three of them. He killed one with his Raptor Claw (1 Combat Free Attack once per Fight, 4-6 = Critical Hit) and the other two with his Tribal Hatchet. Venkman killed 2 more on his activation and Thoth easily finished off the straggler.

The next room had another attack, and this time it was 8 Void Spiders (Elite Ability = +2 Damage) and 4 Stranglers (+2 Combat against anyone carrying one or more Dark Stone, including Items). Venkman had taken a pummeling all game but he was able to heal quite a bit (his Silver Buckle Item = Heal 1 Sanity or Wound every time you kill an enemy) when he tore through the Void Spiders with some hot rolls. The final Strangler went down hard (due to our bad Damage and To Hit rolls), but the fight was relatively easy. After this Fight White Feather got one of the few pieces of non-Dark Stone, non-money Loot for this Mission: a plain Pistol. He passed it to Venkman to give him the option to dual-wield if he was in a spot where he couldn’t use his Saber.

The next Fight was after yet another failed HBtD roll where we were ambushed by 7 Hungry Dead triggered by a Darkness card. Their Elite Ability was that they were 3 Move and 3 Initiative, but the +1 Initiative for Undead Growing Darkness card was already in play, so combining those effects with their +2 Initiative bonus for the Ambush meant that for the first turn we would be facing 6(!) Initiative Hungry Dead. Venkman had earlier gained an Encounter card that confers a +3 Initiative bonus to the party when discarded, so he used it now so White Feather and Venkman could get first strike on the HD. It worked okay, but not great. White Feather killed the two adjacent to him, Venkman whiffed, and Thoth took a ton of damage from the 3 next to him. Thoth came within one failed Defense roll of going down, but on the next turn White Feather went over to help, Venkman took out his HD, and the Fight was over relatively quickly.

But now the Depth Chart was our primary adversary, and we were losing. The poor HBtD rolls continued, triggering Darkness and Growing Dread cards that kept sapping our Health/Sanity and advancing the Darkness Marker. This was also when we drew 3 passages in a row, and in White Feather’s hurry to find another Encounter Token with a Clue (we’d only found one so far) the other members of the posse took their first-ever Voices in the Dark Horror Hits.

The next room finally had a Clue and an Encounter. The Darkness was only 3 spaces away from escaping, so if we were going to succeed we needed to hit our roll to discover the Mine Entrance. We missed it. An automatic Threat was added due to the Clue (we forgot to add it after the Encounter caused an Attack but it didn’t end up mattering), but we failed the Encounter which triggered a one level-higher Threat. It was 3 Slashers and their Elite Ability was that they add +2 Damage to their already hefty D6 of base damage. We retreated a couple of steps to keep them away for one turn, but it didn’t make much of a difference. With their Chiton Plating it was hard to put wounds on them but Thoth more than pulled his weight with his Judgments. We had the final Slasher down to one or two Wounds remaining when (yet another ) failed HBtD revealed the final Growing Dread. It advanced the Darkness Marker the final space, the Darknes escaped, and we immediately lost the Mission.

The penalty for failing the Mission was to discard an Item with a value of at least $200 or suffer a stat penalty. I don’t even remember what the stat penalty was since it was so punitive that I never even considered it. Thoth discarded his awesome Poncho (+1 Health and +1 Sanity, plus ignore Weather effects), I got rid of my +2 Damage axe, and Venkman lost his Vicious Axe (+1 Initiative and +1 Damage, I think). Thoth gained another Mutation (Enlarged Arm - he can’t equip Clothing-Glove Items) this mission, plus 4 more Corruption. Venkman’s Corruption of 1 was unchanged, but White Feather took his final 2 points of Corruption and mutated. Thanks to his Dark Stone buckle he got to roll twice and choose one on the Mutation Table, and he picked Barbed Tail (+1 Combat but one less Corruption to Mutate) over Extra Head.

The mission took a long time due to bad Map Tile and Encounter Token pulls, but this game habitually runs long, anyway, and I’ve decided that unless we have the house to ourselves and can start at 6:30 PM or earlier (not including setup) this will be a game we only play on the weekend. I also had a forehead-slapping moment after the Mission where I realized that not only had we never applied the effects of Venkman’s Dark Stone Ammo, but he’d also never used his Bite mutation Free Attack (Combat 1 once per turn, uses the D8 to hit). I already know I need to give his character sheet extra attention to help him remember stats and abilities but I just dropped the ball this time.

Tonight we’re going to travel to town where I plan on selling some Dark Stone and I’m going to try and talk Thoth into doing the same, plus maybe a trip for him to the Church to heal some Corruption.

After that it’s Mission 6: Blow the Mine.

Great writeups.

A couple of questions:

-Do you find the levelling to be too quick? From reading other group's sessions, it seems a tad faster than I expected.

-Do you find the Indian Scout weak in comparison to other classes? I had my eye on him (and the Darkstone Shaman when he's released), but most people are saying he's very weak and not too fun to play.

It's starting to sound like there is a lot of stuff to keep track of. Character abilities, items, mutations, etc.

charlest wrote: -Do you find the levelling to be too quick? From reading other group's sessions, it seems a tad faster than I expected.

-Do you find the Indian Scout weak in comparison to other classes? I had my eye on him (and the Darkstone Shaman when he's released), but most people are saying he's very weak and not too fun to play.

It doesn't feel like we're leveling too fast but we're also only 5 missions in. I think mission length has a huge effect, that if you play several long missions in a row then the potential is there to amass a lot of XP quickly. I have a couple ideas for how to slow down XP gathering (if it proves to be a problem):

1. Shorten the missions. Remove some non-Clue Exploration Tokens from the stack (or the bag, we've switched to drawing ours). It might make the missions easier, but the rewards you get for completing a mission are dwarfed by the XP available in a Fight.

2. Increase the mission failure penalties. Some have mentioned halving any XP gained, but I think making someone lose an item would be a particularly nasty variant that would really slow people down.

The Indian Scout is hard to use well. Most of the Indian Scout's abilities and upgrades are situational and more about manipulating map tiles and card/token draws rather than damage production. The only reason I played him is because I thought he'd be interesting to play rather than being good, and my son insisted on playing the Preacher which was my first choice. Even though the Preacher is equivalent to a Mage, the Indian Scout seems to be more of a support character than the Preacher is. Upgrading to 4 Combat dice will help a lot, but most of his damage-enhancing abilities and equipment were hard-won and I think the Indian Scout can't bounce back from a bout of bad rolling as easily as some of the other character classes.