Yup! 6 or less fails.

Woohoo! First daemonic contract makes its appearance!

I've made lots of samples before, I actually really enjoy what the generator comes up with.

I have been reading through the In Nomine rules and they have some good ideas in the supplements if you are able to get the pdfs. Can email them if that's easier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...e_(role-playing_game)


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Have you seen this website, I use it for prop pictures in the games I have run in the past.

https://www.artstation.com/

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I have not seen that site, thank you for the resource!

I haven't heard of In Nomine either, totally new to me. It looks cool but not 100% my thing. Are there any supplements in particular you think might benefit this game?

Sorry for the lack IC updates, I managed to get very sick Sunday and yesterday. Post definitely coming tonight.

No problem, the Book of Relics has some interesting ideas.

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Just wanted to check, given that Oliver as dismissed the demon will they others be able to continue before the 24hr limit is up ? Also had you thought of a system for called shots, thought it was a nice fit for firearm based games ?


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Yes, now that the daemon has been banished, the sort of supernatural terror that was keeping Callum and Lira out is gone. They'll join Oliver on the next floor just fine.

Basically, it's pretty common to encounter active summoninings in dungeons, either because somebody or something intends to come back and make use of it later, or because they're actively using it as an area-of-denial trap. Some (not many or even most, but some) daemons do NASTY things when you fail their Morale check, up to and including "save or die." So they make pretty natural traps.

However, if even a single person in the party makes their Morale check (as Oliver did) they're pretty simple to bypass or even take advantage of. Basically, the way to get past a daemonic summoning is:

1. Everybody makes their Morale checks.
2. At least one person makes their Morale check, and disrupts the summoning so others can pass.
3. One person anticipates the summoning (or makes their Morale check), and warns the other party members. Everybody closes their eyes or blinds themselves so they aren't exposed to the daemon's weird "otherness." This seems like a great idea and a great way to bypass summonings... right up until some clever wizard stashes some undead in the same room as the summoning circle, and your whole party gets attacked with their eyes closed. Or right until the daemon makes some sort of horrible, otherworldly noise and forces you to make a Morale check anyway (basically perceiving the daemon in any way requires the check).
4. Bypass the room with the summoning entirely (if possible).

I hadn't really considered call shots. I think GMs would probably allow such a thing, but I'm not sure I want to spell it out in the rules? Originally, this was supposed to be a very simple system, essentially Labyrinth Lord, with a new magic system (daemonology) layered on to it. I've kind of completely screwed the pooch on the simplicity angle, I think, but I would like to keep things as simple as possible. not sure I want to introduce new sub-systems now.

That said, I'm intending to include something like "common attack penalties and bonuses", and it would be pretty trivial to throw in a called shot as an example? I'll think about it, but I'm not a huge fan of called shot systems. Either they're so inaccurate that no one uses them, or they're so powerful that everybody is shooting each other's eyes out like it's A Christmas Story.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:59, Tue 16 Oct 2018.

Great, then will will continue up to the next room.

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I created this early dungeon using the Scarlet Heroes dungeon generator, just adapting some results. 8 HD of foes at level 1 is pretty dang deadly, but you have a few things going for you:

1) Valor points, which haven't been used yet. Gotta make you sweat a little...
2) You have a natural bottleneck at the staircase. You and Callum can stand shoulder-to-shoulder, body blocking Lira and limiting the number of attacks you're exposed to a round.
3) If all else fails, you can beat a fighting retreat. Devils and Dragoons will very pointedly not have opportunity attacks, but will allow for "readying actions." So, for example, running downstairs, grabbing the blunderbuss, and readying an action to shoot at the first skellie you see is totally a thing.
4) Frame's men might be willing to help you out, if you're willing to "kite" the skeletons downstairs, so to speak.

Yes I thought the door as cover was a good idea, though if the dice roller will not play ball....


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Lira can't fire her crossbow again, she needs to spend a round reloading! If you have a dagger she could throw that or something.

In reply to A Malign Presence (msg # 49):

O.K she has a silvered dagger so we will throw that. I'll update damage etc.. now.

Sorry, she has to take an action to reload it! I suggested throwing the dagger simply so you didn't waste the good attack roll, but you have to reload the x-bow in lieu of an attack before you can fire it again. Sorry if I forgot that last fight.

Right, lets just leave the roll and say she completes the loading and have her fire next round. Cheers.

With only one skeleton left, I decided to just roll attacks for everyone and mop things up. Instead, it was a hilarious whiff fest, wherein Lira had enough time to reload her crossbow, take a shot, and then of course only do one damage.

But anyway, you survived! Good job. Let me know if you want to spend a point of Valor to auto-succeed in Lira's physical save.

In reply to A Malign Presence (msg # 53):

Thanks, yes Lara will use Valor....

Okay, cool! Now that it's resolved, I can tell you what happened...

As I explained, daemons sometimes have super-specific things they do when you fail a Morale save versus them. Leraje happens to inflict a curse that will infect an individual with gangrene the next time they're hit by an arrow! So if Lira contracted gangrene after being hit with that arrow, she would have been stuck at one hitpoint until she beat the disease (or died).

This is, incidentally, probably the most complicated daemon-specific effect in the game, and definitely the most complicated and specific curse in the game. The reason I went to all this trouble is simply an homage to the "actual" Leraje from "real-life" demonology:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leraje



This is one of the more curiously specific powers attributed to a demon in most of the demonology works I've read (most are just like, "gives good familiars, grants titles, makes men witty" ad nauseum), so I felt I had to include it as a sort of Easter egg.

Of course, I didn't intend to use Leraje specifically when I made this dungeon. I decided Frame would keep an active summoning around as a trap, and just rolled a random daemon. Leraje was the first one to come up, and not only made a perfect traps but seemed like exactly the kind of daemon a Mounted Ranger would appreciate. Leraje might even be a familiar spirit for Frame, now that I think about it...

Anyway, all of this is to say the Lira almost died in extremely specific but very cool manner.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:13, Fri 19 Oct 2018.

Yes that was a very cool demon for the encounter and even better that it was a random roll, I thought you had put him in for the archery/ranger flavor.


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Indeed. It was freak chance, but I'm thinking about making that "canon." I'm hoping to extrapolate this adventure you're on into a sort of intro adventure to be included in the book, and the Leraje connection is too perfect to pass up.

It is weird that it happened, though. I'm not a particularly superstitious person, and I don't really believe in all the occult stuff I read (I just find it interesting). But it did occur to me when first working on the pact tables that, hey, just tossing a bunch a demon names into a thing because you think it sounds cool and you don't really understand them is 100% how a lot of horror movies start.

That thought has kept me up at night once or twice, but so far I have nothing supernatural to report, haha.

I always look at early occult belief like this, there can't have been the volume of material produced and the amount of people who were into it and explain it away as some mass psychosis. Especially for the hundreds of years it went on for and the relative isolation of the communities that practiced it.

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I find myself more open to the ideas than I was even a few years ago, but gun to my head, I'm overall skeptical. I can very much see a psychological model of magic working, and as an agnostic I have to admit the idea of magical spirits are at least possible. And are certainly, without a doubt, totally rad.

I could be sold on some ideas about a collective unconscious or the like. I'm skeptical but open I guess. And find it all very fun to research and think about.

By the way, important question: does Oliver show the men Frame's note?

In reply to A Malign Presence (msg # 59):

Yes he does show them the note so they won't just have to take his word for what has gone on.


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I just saw humble farmer adds to max hit points as well so Lira has 7 all up.

Except traits don't stack, you can only have one add to your maximum HP once.