Friday Fantasy: Mercy on the Day of the Eel

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the eleventh scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, grimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild!

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel is a scenario for Second Level Player Characters and is both an archetypal scenario for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, and a slightly weirder one, and also a completely weird one. Of course, the Player Characters have to perform a robbery, because after all, they are thieves and burglars, and this is a scenario set in a city of thieves. It is only slightly weird, because after performing the robbery, the Player Characters have to take what they have stolen and put it back. Almost in true cinema heist fashion. Where it gets really weird is in what the purloined item is and what it will do to the Player Characters—and that is to dump into what is effectively a cartoon tale. Which is enough of a twist to pull on the Player Characters in a standard game of Dungeon Crawl Classics—and to be honest, one they should probably expect by now if they have been played for any length of time—but one hell of a twist to pull on Player Characters for Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar!

The scenario begins with the Player Characters being held captive. Somehow—and the how is something that each player should decide upon for his character—the Player Characters have each fallen foul of the Thieves’ Guild. The reason can be a collective one, shared by all of the Player Characters, or be individual to each Player Character. In this way, the scenario can also be used as a ‘Meetup’, the equivalent of a ‘Character Funnel’ in Dungeon Crawl Classics. A Character Funnel is a scenario specifically designed for Zero Level Player Characters in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar does have its own Character Funnels, but they are not a major aspect of the setting and its play. What is the ‘Meetup’ in which the Player Characters simply meet on a mission or a burglary or other activity, and instead of getting into a fight about completing the objective, decide to work together and share the rewards. However, most Meetups for Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar are for Zero Level or First Level, rather than Second Level as is Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel. This is, of course, because the players typically want to roleplay their character from First Level rather than Second Level. However, since the Player Characters are held captive and this is a Meetup, they need not know each other, and this could be used as a means to introduce a new Player Character, whether because a previous one died or because there is a new player.

Having fallen foul of the Thieves’ Guild, the Player Characters are offered a way of earning a reprieve by the current guild master. Of course, the Player Characters could have actually done nothing wrong and the guild master might simply want a band of easy muggins who will do a job for him without question and without the other actual members of the guild finding what he is actually up to. Then again, that would be really conniving of him and no master of the Thieves’ Guild would think like that… ever. Anyway, what he actually wants is the Player Characters to do is break into a private members’ club for rich wastrels, steal the taxidermised head of a behemoth, take it a designated point, hand it over, and then, take it back to the private members’ club for rich wastrels, put it back in place, and do all of this before midnight, without getting spotted. This is a lot to ask, but doable. The facilities of the private members club, The Platinum Pelican, are not that large and the staff are few in number, plus it is locked up for most of the day.

Stealing the taxidermised head of a behemoth from the premises of a private members’ club for rich wastrels is the easy bit. The problems for the Player Characters start when they get outside and cats start yowling at them, children starting humming and dancing as they pass by, and any Wizard in the party has the sound of a song in his ear that he just cannot get rid of. They also get worse for the Player Characters because they are not the only ones who want the taxidermised head of the behemoth, or at least what is inside it. What is inside it is a map which depicts a wooded, almost fairy-tale like forested land and it is from this map that the song the Wizard can hear is coming from, and should the Player Characters take the time to examine it—and they should, because it takes a third of the scenario and the Judge has prepared it, after all—it is into this forested land that the Player Characters find themselves cast into!

What the Player Characters find themselves in is the mini-wilderness equivalent of a funhouse dungeon. They will encounter such strange things as a lance-wielding rabbits with snails as their mounts, a River King and his army that is definitely not looking for a fight, and stalked by a beatific hedgehog! All of which is illustrated on flat vellum and in bright, illuminated colours and complete silence! It is a fun world to explore and experience, though relatively short due to the space constraints of the module. Of course, having found themselves inside an illuminated world, the Player Characters have to find their way back, hopefully back to the City of the Sevenscore Smokes and when they do, they will need to decide what to do with the strange map that they have sprung themselves from!

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel is well presented. The artwork is good, including that depicting the illuminated world of the map, whilst the cartography nicely serves the scenario.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel is as a whole both mundane and magical, the one contrasting sharply with the other. It works because of the nature of the magical item being stolen that as an adventure location, essentially asks what would it be like to adventure in something like a Bag of Holding. Yet if the Player Characters are not drawn into the magical aspect of the scenario, then they do not learn as much about that part of the plot of the scenario, leaving the mundane part. Which is decent enough on its own, but not a great or memorable affair. The said, there is scope for a sequel with regard to the magical item at the heart of Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel, as there is nothing to say that nobody will be able to find their way out once they their find their way in. Might they need a rescue attempt?

Overall, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel is best used as whole rather than in parts, because it possible to miss the part that makes the scenario memoerable.