Troika! x Barkeep on Borderlands sesh 3
Currently I'm playing with my group a short campaign of Barkeep on Borderlands with Troika! My three-eager-to-play are Witch (ancient undead parchment witch), Assassin (journeyman of guild of sharp corners) and Necromancer (just that). Check pregame: https://vdonnutvalley.bearblog.dev/troika-x-barkeep-on-borderlands-pregame/ and part one and two
Underground Jungle Delve 12:40
After whole unenchanting the troll debacle the team decided to make money for partying by bringing all pigs lost in the caves. Two shillings each. I don't know why they got so focused on the plan to make money on pigs AND release a wizard in order to gain access to Royal Academy.
They went to the room where they first met the trolls. Then to the next one which was filled with these weird pseudoplants made of fungi. Temperature rose and humidity went very high. Witch cast Protection from Rain on herself to avoid destroying her paper skin. Assassin moved to the front and barely avoided when one of the fungi sprayed some spores into the air.
Wrestling with the prospect of being poisoned the team did came up with brilliant idea. Undead fucking Witch went through the room, fungi let out their poisons, she was unaffected and the rest of the crew destroyed spraying fungi. Nice.
In the next room there was a chasm with fast underground river going through and cutting the room in two, totally jumpable width. The group stumbled around on one shore, found broken footbridge, some pig tracks and decided to go back without risking jumping over river. When going back they actually found hidden below pseudoplantlife one pig.
So they totally skipped my procedurally generated Fungi Jungle that I designed an evening before. At least I could reuse the random tables later.
Unfortunate Depths 13:20
They got pig back, cashed the money and decided on another path. They got into this long room made of black rock. They recognized it as some old coal deposit, mined out long time ago. On the other side of the room, next to entrance to another tunnel was yellow mould. They debated it for a while and just run in. Mould wasn't fast enough.
After I started peeking at the clock during their conversations I found out my dear PCs spend tons of time standing in places and talking A LOT.
Next room was still coaly but had many rocks and stalagmites and stalactites (I'm not sure if their formation is possible with coal rich rock and I don't care). They have heard a quiet pig noises somewhere, found their way through and stumbled upon a pig cornered by huge green slime.
Afraid of it they spent way a lot of time throwing stuff at the slime with no effect, trying to assess it's strength and abilities until they got lucky and goaded the slime and enjoyed a fight full of crazy stuff. I used the rules wrong and it was full of missing hits and succeeding dodges. There was also a small slime that jumped on one of them.
In the end Witch was on last stamina point and moved to the tunnel going back, Assassin and Necromancer let two slimes attack the pig (do I need to point out it is a person turned into pig?) when they threw one of their lanterns at the slimes. Blobs caught fire and I rules 1-in-6 chance of methane buildup (we're in an abandon coal mine, aye?) blowing up. Yep. It blew up.
Aftermatchstick 13:50
So yeah, the cave basically exploded (although slimes probably burned to death, pig lost consciousness due to slimes before that) and the group got pushed into a cave with yellow mould. Half of the cave got crushed (the moulded part too), Witch ended up with -2 stamina, the rest was okay. I ruled that getting to 0 stamina doesn't mean you die, it just means the enemy does what they want to you (so explosion burns her). She lost her paper skin. Necromancer used undead-healing vines gathered in a fungi jungle entrance to stabilise her.
I rolled two types of enemies susceptible only to fire in also rolled abandoned coal mine. Oh sweet fortune. I was appalled seeing this. I think they'd be a challenging obstacle even for veteran dungeon delvers, that was crazy coincidence.
Another hour of in-game time behind us, in around nine hours of play we resolved almost four hours of time in-game, this way we'll finish Barkeep next year haha.
I've learned from this experience and I know how to combat now, believe me, next time it goes way smoother.
Also I need to somehow deal with repercussions of these actions. I mean, we're underground and a solid chunk of rock just exploded and collapsed. There will be consequences on the surface, I don't know which ones but there will be. At least Our Lady of the Sacred Speakeasy will be a little rumbled.