The Waiting Game

Donjonetta frets about the lack of a door but Siouxsie tells her that if she moves the corpse with the particularly large nose she will see that the stone underneath has a lid and is hinged - this is the way the Necromancer comes in and out of this little mortuary.

'This wizard must be strong,' the dwarf observes. 'It's not that easy to flip up stone and body.'

Siouxsie readily agrees. 'The wizard is no book-weaned fop. She has bulging biceps and can toss these bodies about like confetti.'

That doesn't sound too good - someone who can raise the dead and works out every day.

'Can't you scream at her and at least put her off her stride?' Donjonetta enquires of the banshee.

'I wish!' Siouxsie sighs. 'She just casts a 'Gobstopper' spell on me - she's very quick too!'

At this unwanted news, you hear the stone lid shifting and you see Big Nose beginning to rise.

Time to put any plan into operation. Siouxie won't be much help but is willing to be shut up to at least take some of the heat of you two. Donjonetta is climbing up on to the slab one up from the Hooterman, ready to drop down and scissor-crush the Necromancer's windpipe with her quivering thighs, which have been known to end many an amorous aspiration.

And you, my much mutated muchacho?

Trampoline

Unable to think of anything particularly sophisticated, Rocknarrat suggests to Donjonetta that she jumps down the shaft.

'But I'll bust me ankles, ya daft brush!' the clearly piqued draft yells down to you.

'I don't think so,' our rocky hero replies. 'You see, or you will soon, that I have arranged a soft landing for you, dear dwarfette. Go ahead, leap with gay abandon!'

Possibly rolling doubles on CHR, you convince Donjonetta to make a leap of faith...and she does indeed land softly, if not to say squishily, on the pile of corpses Rocknarrat has laid out at the bottom of the shaft. The dwarf extracts her foot from someone's mouth and exclaims 'What the fffff....?'

You are not ready to answer her question as you grill Siouxsie about the presence of these bodies. She tells you that a Necromancer has been stealing them from local graveyards and is planning to raise them as a zombie army on the night of the next full moon.

Sounds a fun friend to make!

Do you want to -

1) Clean up the mess and lie doggo, pretending to be one of the zombies in waiting and make a run for it when the chance arises

2) Make as much noise as you can and hope to bring the Necromancer running

3) Clean up, pretend to be a corpse and attack the Necromancer as and when

4) Try to befriend the Necromancer

5) Try to climb back up the shaft

Halls of the Dead

You pass through the unnatural cold of the now smashed ice ring, feeling the intense chill but matching it with your body heat.

'What's she keeping down there?' yells an anxious Donjonetta.

As you adjust your eyes to the gloom, you see row upon row of carefully stacked bodies, laid out on stone niches cut into the walls. There must be over fifty corpses here, mostly human bit a few dwarves, elves and other common kindreds.

The banshee is drifting down the shaft towards you while Donjonetta whistles tunelessly as you tell her your discovery.

You may ask the banshee any questions you will and you also need to come up with a plan to get the now-fretting dwarf down unless you are content to be parted from her.

Net Gain

There is a little chemistry between you and the spirit. It certainly wasn't magic but you have enough in common to make it worth a second date.

She tells you that her brother was murdered by a trickster, who turned her to spirit and put her beneath the ice, doomed to wail alone across eternity, until she finds a friend. You can understand why she is keen to lock in these feelings of bon homie.

'There is just one way out of here,' she tells you. 'You must descend into my prison and overcome the Guardian on the other side of the door. I have heard it roaring and hissing. It sounds savage but I think the three of us might triumph or, at worst two of us could slip past while the other makes a heroic sacrifice!' She looks meaningfully at the sleeping dwarf.

'I could understand if your loyalty lies with your wife though.'

Then she tells you of the dreadful things she wishes to do to the trickster when she gets out of this place (or more properly, have you do since she has this little intangibility problem). She rants on for a good half an hour and manages to convince you that she is quite mad, poor thing.

Eventually Donjenetta wakes from her reveries and is keen to get out of this rat-pit. She is willing to lower you down in the net and then...her plan doesn't seem to have covered her own escape but perhaps it is best to rely on quick wits and live in the moment.

Are you willing to be lowered Moses-like down into the depths? If so, you must make another L1 SR on CON as you go down; if not, you can try lowering the dwarf which would take a L2 SR on STR.

You are welcome to contribute a third way, of course.

Revenge is a Dish best Served Cold

You, the now puissant Rocknaratt, leap into action, flying like a mighty arrow whizzing from a bow at the lid of the chest, brushing the sluggish Donjonetta to one side. 'Ooh! You've smeared me make up!' she protests.

You are not in the Usain Bolt of lid shutters league and, although your cry of 'Happy House' does give Siouxsie pause for thought, the banshee lets out a snot-wrenching cry of 'Helter Skelter!' as she snakes through the half shut lid and emerges in the only place you can call home.

She glides towards the startled Donjonetta, evades the dwarf's attempt to punch her lights out, and whispers a sweet nothing in her ear. Donjonetta collapses in an unsanitary heap amidst the slain rats.

Then Siouxsie turns to you and whispers in your ear (your attempts to push her back convince you that she is indeed spirit and presumably had no reason to come through the ice before - even banshees can catch colds - and your twists and turns do not allow you to escape the attentions of this spiritual chanteuse)...

Make a L1 SR on both WIZ and CHR. If you fail the WIZ SR you must attempt a L1 SR on CON.

The words you hear as she whispers in your ear are '...help me, help me...'

Breaking The Ice

Like a good little fellow, you do as your new playmate suggests.

As luck would have it (no saving roll or jacket required!), a punch of rats come out of the rat holes as you turn round and your gorgon-gaze kicks in, no questions, this time. Harvesting rock rats like a veteran with help from dwarven hands, the pair of you do some bonding by huzzing rat bombs down on the ice below.

Crrrr-ackkk! Kerpow! And more gratuitous sound effects per the early Spiderman's I've been reading). The ice is no match for your ratzkrieg and it is soon fit only for cocktails and other poultry applications.

What you have uncovered is not immediately apparent because floating up from the depths of the box-shaft comes a wailing banshee! It rises quickly to a reggae beat as it moans and groans its most miserable lamentations at you.

You can:

-wail right back with a L2 SR on LK and CHR

-stick your fingers in your ears (L1 SRs on SPD and INT)

-give it an old fashioned look with your wig-wizardry (L1 SRs on WIZ and CON)

-slam the lid down sharpish (L2 SR on SPD)

-throw the dwarf down on top of the Siouxie (L2 SR STR)

-something completely different of your own devising

(Boy, I'm glad I don't have to write all this up as solo paragraphs!)

Give 'em Enough Rope

Although there is no rope to be found in this deslote room, a net gain accrues, quite literally, from opening that middle chest which contained, as you no doubt, remember, a net.

There is little difficulty (for you realise that your STR is appreciably greater as a stone-skinned rat-man) in hoisting the delightful Donjanetta up and out of the chest/shaft. As well as telling you her name, she says that she comes from a rich and loving family who will doubtless wish to reward you if you help her get out of this place, preferable laden down with booty.

She asks your name and to hear  something of your life story for she percieves you to be an intereting fellow. She also wonders if you might be able to turn rats into lump of rock she could use as bombs to break the ice.

She looks up at you expectantly...

The City of Porttree

Now communications of Khaghtch'an, the Kraken continent, are a might more primitive than they are in our world - but then we're not so hot with instant magical fixes so we shouldn't brag. The lack of cell phones and the like mean that spellings are rather less fixed, txting aside, than they are for us. Any person or place is likely to have several variants on the name  if there is a degree of fame or notoriety.

I had been spelling Porttree on the extreme western edge of the continent with just one 't', perhaps thinking of the Isle of Skye and past holidays out of England, I realise now that it should more properly have two 'ts' because it is named after a sentient and long-living tree around which the port was very sensibly built.

Krakens dominate the western oceans and it is this tree that, in its annual audience with the krakens, prevails upon the monsters of the deep not to flail away at the settlements on the coast - shipping is fair game but not the land,

I had always believed that spelling is important and now I am more convinced than ever.

Back to the dangling dwarf soon, I hope...

Taking The Plunge

The dwarf is charmed by your ability to out-cuss her and suspects you might even be worth drinking under the table one fine day.

'What kept ya, Peaches?', she bellows, trying to be seductive. 'You look cute with that toupee but remember, bald is beautiful!' And with that, her own wig slips off her head and falls down to the waiting ice.

'I guess you got zapped here too. Did ya open them other boxes. I bet ya did - that's how you got the headdress, ain't it? Say, what are you any how? Can't say I could put a name to your kind. That don't matter none...

'I can't reach this blamed ice to hack through it. It's got to be the way outta here or at least to some major booty. How about you haul my sorry ass back up and I lower you down, Your look as though you're gangly enough to reach the ice. You can whack away and I'll keep you from a cold bath. What do you say, handsome?'

You should feel free to respond to your garrulous and dazzling comrade in chaos, either in words or actions or a cunningly conceived combination.

First Impessions Are Important

The dwarf stops her vituperative violence as you retort with frenzied taunts. Perhaps you have shocked her or maybe she is just taking in a few new cuss words for her repertoire. In this frozan moment in space and time (no, the gorgon wig is not rocking her world), things can go one of two ways: you may win the heart of fair lady with your diatribe or you may rather make the sort of chemistry normally reserved for senior alchemists in basalt chambers with a 2' thick cast iron cauldron and a 3' alibi for when the experiment takes out the local manor.

Hey ho!

Make a L1 SR on CHR and devil take the hindmost...

A Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On

Plenty of splatted rats decorate your lonely room-tomb. Tose whose teeth remain intact bugger off down the holes in the wall to boldly seek out new aqueducts where no rats have been before.

You, in your stoned state, approach the last unopened box and, perhaps because you are one pretty tough dude now with your rocky hide and your snazzy hairpiece, flip the lid without a moment of anxiety and therein lies...

Not lies, to tell the truth, but rather hangs the cause of the shaking. It is a frenetic dwarf suspended on a rope in a shaft trying desperately to smash her way through ice barely within reach at the bottom of the shaft, employing a pick axe.

As you open the chest, the surprised dwarf drops the pickaxe as she looks up and then begins cussing viciously in your direction.

How do you respond to this turn up for the books?

Bad Hair Day

Slapping the gorgon wig on is undoubtedly brave [and must be worth 50 APs if anyone is that way inclined] but Someone up there is not amused and takes offence, in fact. There is a sizzling sound as the wig destroys your hair (permanently, I'm afraid, with no chance of follicle grafts, much less natural regrowth].

Your baleful look does not turn the on-rushing rodents to stone but instead your inner eyes renders you a living ratman statue, still capable of 1/2 speed movement but definitely on the clunky side of the reaction tracks.

I have heard tell of rat gods but never of rat dentists. If one there be, he or she or it will be kept busy, if these unfortunates have a health policy, as the little guys break their incisors, molars and indeed jaws on your instantly hardened form. Make  a L7 SR on DEX. If you miss it (and many will hope you do) the amount you failed by indicates the number of stomped on little bodies you have to add to your rat fricassee recipe.

You are now the undisputed monarch of this room, having seen off both rats and baboon. However, there is still no way out,of here, as the joker said to the thief, and in all the confusion your only relief would seem to be to either:

- do what you are now probably very good at and wait stock still for some delvers to show up and then either ambush them or try to cajole your way into their party

- finally face the terrors of the the still shaking left-hand box...

Good Job There's No One Looking

Well, the wig fits nice and snug and there are no ill effects. I suppose I should add the magic word 'yet'...

Now it is a little known fact that rats, while looking up to the big guys in their community, do not like tomfoolery (or jerryfoolery for that matter and it does not escape my gimlet eye that our main commentators are cartoon characters) and so, when a bunch of rats emerge from the holes in the walls, they take umbrage at the cross-dressing shenanigins unfolding in this dark recess of their underground playground and surge towards the gorgo-ratman, whose attributes are unraveling before our eyes.

You could:

- fall on your knees and beg forgiveness (hmmm, L4 SR on CHR)

- hope the wig will turn them to stone if you fix them with a confident glare (L1 SR on WIZ)

- run in circles about this room to make them fall into a dizzy stupor (L3 SR on SPD)

- hoe into them as they're just a bunch of under-sized rodents and their sharp little teeth and ravenous appetites are nothing to one so high and mighty as you

In a multiverse such as the one Trollworld forms a not inconsequential part of there are undoubtedly many other things you might do but to be quite plain you do not think of any of them unless you make a L5 SR on INT in which your father has a brother named Bob...

Alternative Universes

As the sickly, cloying gas roils about you, something strange happens. A wizard named Occam turns to his friend Schrodinger, who is stroking his cat. 'I think it is time to slice this fellow up with my razor. You know! The one that Victor Kyam liked so much that he bough the company who makes them.' The cat is disturbed by the prospect of Occam slicing things up like salami and it disappears into the forest where, because the inhabitants had their ears removed by Mr Kyam as soon as he acquired the company, only the trees hear the cat's pitiful mewlings.

Occam finds his razor and, looking down into the great scrying stone that is his shaving basin, halves every last electron in your body (the gas is no impediment to him).

This is where it gets really strange.

Two 'yous' emerge from this electron mutilation. One, operating under the great scientific principal we shall call 5.5, sucks in smoke in spades, gives up the ghost and dies. So much for string theory. The other, operating far more soundly on a grand unifying theory we shall dub 7.5, is undoubtedly troubled by the heavy, poisonous chemical soup that the atmosphere has become - there is no protective ozone layer to destroy in capricious and cavalier fashion here - digs deep within, general relativity combining with quantum mechanics to take care of big and small alike, and stands, alive still, as the smoke drops to the floor, contact with which renders it non-toxic. It is good at times like these to take a moment to appreciate that seldom lauded commonplace feature, the dungeon floor. After all, what adventurer would be without one?

Once the musing on a death so narrowly averted abates, you see what the box has hitherto concealed: a writhing wig of snaky locks. It kinda looks like it would fit on your head and those snaky locks are not the sort of snaky locks that could bite if handled, that much is clear.

So what next, Einstein?

Another dollar, another box

Moving cautiously to the right hand box, you take on the risky task of opening it, backed by the voice of logic.

Of course, potentially lethal objects are released from the holes as soon as you atttempt this heroically gauche task. They emerge at photonic pace, even without a large hadron collider to bring this about. Ah, isn't khremm convenient! These 'things' explode in a haze of oily smoke that not even a gravel-throated chainsmoker would welcome.

Make a L1 SR on CON to se if you are fit to see what this chest contains...

Pursuing Pandora

What's the worst that could happen? Now let's see - how long have you got? The worst that happened when the worst of the three boxes was opened last time someone got stuck in this room...well, not necesarily representative of the typical fate of heoic-style delvers but...Weebo, who does have an unfortunate tendency to open that which should remain firmly shut, raised the lid on a nice little mahogany chest, which bothshook and had holes with sharp pieces of metal clearly visible down little tubes, and threafter, for a whole month of Sundays, suffered froma plague of boils on all skin not exposed to the air at the time of lifting the lid.

So, that being said, which will it be: open the shaking trunk or the one that looks horribly vicious in an 'it's going to maim me' sort of way?

Spitting Out Teeth

With impressive speed and with a nifty twist and shimmy, you evade the alpha male's attack and catch him squarely under the jaw with a firm fist. Make a L1 SR on CON just to make sure you don't damage your knuckles.

As for Mr Bad Attitude Baboonatic, he has his molars rattled out of their sockets and has been put out to pasture for the time being. The teeth turn out to be laced together on a wire, just the right size for a necklace.

You can do any or none of the following:-

a) maim and mutilate your unconscious chum

b) open another box

c) put on the necklace

d) reach in for a few rats

e) something fiendishly cunning that I haven't thought of

Baboon's Are Dextrous Too

The baboon, which is roughly equal size and weight with you, somersaults over your head as you attempt to evade it and head off back to town to eat cheese and spend gold. Of course, you have no cheese, you have no gold and there is no known way back to town, but you can be forgiven for being somewhat delusional at this stage in your young, and quite possibly short, career as a dungeon delver.

Landing easily on its feet, the simian assailant launches itself for the small of your back, teeth gnashing as it comes.

You can:

a) try to dodge it with L1 SRs on SPD and DEX

b) spin about and swing a fierce uppercut at its jaw (same saving rolls but if you make them you roll 1d6 and get your adds on top for a clinically executed sucker punch on the ape

c) pirouette prettily, stick your tongue out with you fingers in your ears, attempting to shame the baboon into a blubbering, self-loathing wreck (you need a L2 SR on CHR for this)

d) lie down on the floor and invite your hungry companion to tuck in, perhaps sprinkling salt, pepper and other condiments over your exposed tender bits, in the time-honoured fashion of airplane passengers stranded on remote Andean mountain tops

Good luck, soldier!

What's in the Box

Moving forward cautiously, you grasp the rodent handle of the middle box, deciding that this looks to be the safest bet. The shaking from the box on the left has not stopped and the right hand box looks to be booby-trapped.

As you take a grip on the handle, the lid lifts up and you see a thickly woven net, just like those used by fighters in the arena, but there is at the same time a flash of electric blue light accompanied by the whiff of sulphur and blue cheese - in an instant you are transformed into a rat-man complete with whiskers and a tail.

You feel stronger and no less smart and it seems natural to stand on two legs, although you figure you could scurry pretty quickly on four.

The baboon smells what's going on and its eyes light up at the prospect of a larger, more nourishing meal. It stalks towards you, drooling, with arms outstretched.

What do you want to do now?

Stuck Inside the Dungeon with the Memphis Blues Again

You are standing in a cold, stone room, with only a baboon for company. The baboon is eating its way through a pile of rats at the moment and it is clearly hungry. The rats started emerging from a fist-sized hole in the wall at ankle level 5 minutes ago.

How did you get here? You touched the Ruby of Rubinos out of a greedy impulse to beat your fellow delvers in the Castle of the Cracked Cockatrice. Pity! When you were teleported away, all your weapons and provsions were left behind.

There are no doors in this room, just three boxes, the baboon and the dead rats. The boxes are all a body length in width and are made from polished wood, with runes carved on the lids, which appear to be locked with a light metal catch. The left hand box is shaking, the middle box has a small rodent skull perched on top and the right hand box has small holes under the lid on the side with the catch and you can just see metal spikes inside the holes, of which there are eight.

What do you want to do?

Finding Your Religion (That's me In The Corner)

A few weeks back, there was some talk about whether religion should appear in some form in dT&T.

Well, assuming it does, you can have your characters use this chart to see what is right for them:

Honey Pie

I need some dishes well known for including honey please...like honey baked ham...I guess Google will tell me...a little section of the solo I'm currently writing needs to test players ability to compile a menu fit for a queen with a sweet tooth.

It's called 'Wizard Went A Wooing' and it's set in a god-forsaken fetid jungle filled with novel predators. Wizards vie to win the hand of a queen. There are pathways to the altar for wizards of levels 2,3,5,7,10 and 13 (well, there will be - I'm about half way through).

When I started I thought it would be a 100 paragraph fly by night  but I'm over 30,000 words now.

Oh well, better than getting drunk and eating the television.

Dig out Momma's recipe book, folks!