Friday Fantasy: DCC Day #3 Chanters in the Dark

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2022’, which took place on Saturday, July 16th, 2022, the publisher released not one, not two, but three items for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. These included Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods , a book of Patron ‘Un-gods’, gods who were, and whose worship has drastically dwindled, but were the Player Character Wizards and Clerics to find them, would accept worship once again; the DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack, which contained two scenarios, one for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and one for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic; and DCC Day #3 Chanters in the Dark, a separate scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. With ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2023’ taking place tomorrow on Saturday, July 22nd and with a preview of the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game scenario for the event, having already been published, it is DCC Day #3 Chanters in the Dark which is being reviewed today.

DCC Day #3 Chanters in the Dark is a bit special. Designed for a party of between four and eight Player Characters of First Level, it begins en media res, with their being aboard a boat that hurtling along an underground river before plunging deeper into the earth. This is exactly how Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea, the classic Character Funnel ended and although it can be run as a standalone adventure, DCC Day #3 Chanters in the Dark is actually designed as a sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea. To that end, it even includes advice on how the Player Characters can Level up, from Zero Level to First Level within the confines of the scenario given that they are far away the surface and home. The most amusing of this advice is what to do with the animals that Zero Level Player Characters sometimes begin play with at the start of Character Funnels. Essentially, chickens and ducks will not be a problem per se, but if a Player Character former farmer and would-be adventurer really wants to bring his pig or his cow along, there might be more of an issue. Otherwise, the leveling up advice covers the acquisition of spells for Clerics, Elves, and Wizards, as well both tools and skills for thieves.

The river dumps the Player Characters in the cave entrance to the Lost City of Quetat, an underground, alien city much in the mold of I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City. The city is small, dominated by an arena and an entrance to a temple. It is primarily inhabited by beastmen of various types, many of which seem to be suffering from Anophthalmia. However, this does not seem to bother the transient beastmen who regularly move from one of the city’s simple, but ancient dwellings to another. Their lives are dominated by the worship of Yuzz and part of this involves the sacrifice of their eyes. This does not disturb them unduly and they see it as part of both worship and normal life. Plus, the eyes do grow back. However, the continued worship of Yuzz and the dominance of its priesthood has divided the Beastmen. Reformers seek change and want to overthrow the priests of the Temple of Yuzz and the beastmen’s dependence on the Great Fungal Mound which lies at the heart of their faith and their subsistence. Rebuilders want the Player Characters to stay and become part of the community, providing the Beastmen with new blood and possibly, new leadership. The Religious want continued worship of Yuzz and consumption of the Great Fungal Mound and acceptance of the sacrifice of their eyes and the narcotic effect of the Great Fungal Mound. The Religious will regard the Player Characters as interlopers and an evil threat to the city if they do not leave or conform.

The progress of the Player Characters will driven by three factors. One is the need to find a way out and a means to return to the surface world. The other is the three factions and interacting with one, two, or all three of them, even allying with one of them, which is likely to be the Reformers. Combining these is a series of events which will very likely influence the reactions and opinions of the Player Characters as they go about the city in pursuit of the other factors. There are some genuinely creepy moments in the scenario, such as stumbling upon one of the blind Beastmen for the first time, encountering the elephantine Caretaker with its proboscis that it uses to literally suck the eyeballs out of its victims—willing or unwilling, the weirdness of the temple and the priesthood, and the moment that that one of the Player Characters has the eyeballs sucked out of his head! There are rules included for this and the effects of being both partially and totally blind included, but rest assured that this is horribly disturbing and means that is DCC Day #3 Chanters in the Dark best suited for a mature audience and its genre is as much horror as it is fantasy. At best, most players are going find this aspect of the scenario ‘icky’, at best, at worst, ommetaphobia-inducing.

The emphasis in DCC Day #3 Chanters in the Dark veers towards exploration and interaction, but there is plenty of combat in the scenario as well, so that overall mix is fairly balanced. Although the actions of the Player Characters can alter the balance of power in the Quetat, they cannot solve the problem at the core of the situation as they are far too low Level. Ultimately, they will turn to attempting to escape that that presents a very physical challenge, which can end with the Player Characters successfully escaping to surface or being trapped in Lost City of Quetat...

Physically, DCC Day #3 Chanters in the Dark is decently done. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is okay. It it is a pity that the eye-sucking monster was not illustrated. The maps are clear and easy to read, although there is a disconnect between the main map and the internal map of a building in that the number for the main building is not in keeping with the numbering of its internal locations so that there is no location number ‘2’ on the main map, but its internal locations all start with ‘2’.

DCC Day #3 Chanters in the Dark details a low level, unworldly lost city in the tradition of classic scenarios of the past and classic pulp stories, but makes it creepier and weirder and even more claustrophobic. This is great little scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game for First Level Player Characters which will challenge them to survive right to the very end.

Friday Fantasy: The Book of Fallen Gods

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2022’, which took place on Saturday, July 16th, 2022, the publisher released not one, not two, but three booklets. Two of these were specifically for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—the supplement, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods, and the scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #3: Chanters in the Dark. The third, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack, is a duology of scenarios for both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Both scenarios are designed for Player Characters of Second Level, both are nicely detailed, and both can be played in a single session, but neither should take no longer than two sessions to complete.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is different to what you would normally expect Goodman Games to release for either Free RPG Day or ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’. Instead of a scenario, it is a sourcebook for the roleplaying game, one presents a set of new Patrons. In the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, these are typically gods and deities and entities that the spellcasting Classes such as the Cleric, the Wizard, and the Elf can turn to in order for greater power and surety. In the case of the Cleric, this is typically a god who in return for the Cleric’s worship and proselytising their shared faith, grants him spells and blessings, but will punish the Cleric if he sins against the strictures of the faith. Wizards can turn to greater powers and invoke their aid to gain potent, but dangerous magic, whilst Elves must work closely with an extra planar patron to do so. Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game includes numerous gods, deities, and entities that Clerics, Elves, and Wizards can entreat and invoke. Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods introduces entities that are and are not gods.

For those that know where to look, there are the legends of the Ones Who Were. They were the gods who arose when the multiverse was new and shaped it according to their whims, their time one of turbulence and turmoil, upheaval and unrest, of chaos and change unfettered. It took newly arisen gods to reign in this unbalance and as the new gods rose in power, they built empyral structures and projections that reigned in the reach of chaos and with it the power of the Ones Who Were. So they were diminished and they fell and they were forgotten. Yet they are not gone, merely reduced to the status of beggars, divine down-and-outs, stripped of their power and priestly hierarchies, but nevertheless remaining the personifications of endless certainties… For those in the know, these Un-Gods can be reached out to, invoked, and called upon for the aid of what cosmic power they still possess.

What Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods presents is seven of these Un-Gods, representing everything from the eternal night and the power behind the throne to celestial Radiance and inspiration and devastation. Each the seven Un-God descriptions includes an invoke patron table, a patron taint table, and a spellburn table. What the descriptions do not include any patron spells, primarily due to size constraints, but there is the possibility that they will be included in future supplements. On the one hand, this perfectly reflects the status and lack of power and influence held by each of the Un-Gods, but on the other, it limits the usefulness of the supplement. Without the patron spells, the Judge is limited in how she can create interesting NPCs linked to the Un-Gods or present Player Characters seeking the aid of the Un-Gods with interesting rewards. Yet it also leaves room for the Judge to create her own and perhaps build a story around discovering what they are.

Should a Player Character (or NPC) manage to forge a patron bond with one of the Un-Gods, there is another way in which he can benefit. If his player possesses the dice set associated with the Un-God—available from Impact Miniatures—then the Player Character can call upon the Un-God and in doing so, grant the player a bump in die size for the action. Should the player roll a one, the Player Character immediately gains patron taint. One reason why the Un-Gods lack priests is that they have long been unconcerned with the trivialities of the mortal realms, are the doings of Player Characters are nothing if not trivial. Fortunately, these are not expensive dice sets, but it is very specific means of getting this bonus.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods opens with Chaar, Titan of Eternal Night, confined to his throne at the centre of everything, he is the manifestation of the inevitable exhaustion and decay of all things. When invoked, he can cause eternal night to envelop the Player Character and all around him, or even cause his hand to become an entropic conduit, increasing his melee damage, especially against Lawful creatures. His Patron Taint might cause the Player Character to age or cause everything in his hand to decay to dust, whilst the Spellburn has similar effects. All of the Un-Gods are like this, so the Ianthinian is the silver-tongued voice that negotiates treaties and the knife at the throat that launches coups, the power behind a billion thrones, who can animate the Player Character’s shadow to slip under doors and spy on others or dispatches a venomous, purple spider to attack a single target nearby. His Patron Taint might leave the Player Character with an unnatural and unsettling aura, which can affect his Personality or punish him by stealing his voice, whilst the effects of his Spellburn can steal Player Character’s memories or remind him that he is worth no more than the creatures that skulk and creep in the shadows, so dozens of spiders, centipedes, crawlers, and other creepy insects burst forth from the caster’s orifices in traumatic and painful fashion.

All seven Un-Gods are described in similar fashion. The others include Ivyeel the Entwining is the vibrant force of growth unchecked, Olathvee personifies passions unchecked, The Sallow Blight manipulates emotions into negative ones, Shayl, the Celestial Radiance is the potential of the righteous and the possibility of redemption for the wicked, and Tuanna and Djahlbak are the sundered remnants of lost Un-God now representative of Inspiration and Devastation. All seven are given four pages each and accompanied by a lot of artwork, a lot more than often appears in the scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. So physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is very nicely presented.

The lack of Patron Spells aside, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is an entertaining collection of entities and effects that the Player Characters can both benefit and suffer from in interacting with them. Hopefully, Goodman Games will develop further in the future and perhaps use them in a campaign or a scenario or two. In the meantime, the Judge can use and develop them as suits her campaign.

Friday Fantasy: DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2022’, which took place on Saturday, July 16th, 2022, the publisher released not one, not two, but three booklets. Two of these were specifically for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—the supplement, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods, and the scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #3: Chanters in the Dark. The third, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack, is a duology of scenarios for both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Both scenarios are designed for Player Characters of Second Level, both are nicely detailed, and both can be played in a single session, but neither should take no longer than two sessions to complete.

DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack opens with ‘Incident at Toad Fork’, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game written by Brendan Lasalle. This returns to the Appalachian-style fantasy setting of The Shudder Mountains, first seen Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin and more recently compiled in Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin anthology. Consequently, the scenario has a strong sense of the rural versus the urban, the backwoods culture versus the sophisticated manners of the city, the distrust of the latter by the former, and the feeling that them there city folk are invariably out to bamboozle the good folk of The Shudder Mountains.

The scenario opens with the Player Characters invited to the Harvest Moon Dance, an important annual event when all of the Shudfolk from the communities across The Shudder Mountains come together. It is normally a joyous affair, with plenty of dancing and music, but this year is different. A strange shadow is cast over the activities as several of the young men suddenly bolt, running pell-mell into the surrounding woods, oblivious to all entreaties. The Elders entreat the Player Characters to go after them and they quickly encounter strange glamours and a representative of one the devil which competes for Shudfolk souls. This is a fun roleplaying encounter for the Judge to portray, the NPC being akin to the charming and seductive Mister Dark from the film, Something Wicked This Way Comes, as portrayed by Jonathan Pryce (or in this case, Vincent Price). Overall, reminiscent perhaps of Halloween, but set way in the mountains with a Hillbilly sensibility, if the Judge has not yet run Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin, then this is an entertaining and engaging adventure to add to the campaign setting.

Marzio Muscedere’s ‘The Last Life Guardian’ is the second scenario. In this adventure for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, members of the Player Characters’ village have learned a terrifying tale of horror and hope from a dying outland trader. He told them that a Pure Strain Human wizard with the ability to heal and even bring the dead back to life is being held prisoner by savage mutants within a time-ravaged superstructure of the Ancient Ones. The village Rememberers—the wisest of the villagers—have said that the trapped wizard must be none other than a fabled Life Guardian, a surviving member of an ancient pre-disaster order sworn to heal and protect mankind. Consequently, he must be rescued. Which of course, as village’s Seekers, those that go out and search for technology and knowledge of the Ancients and protect the villagers from outside threats, is a task for the Player Characters.

Once at the site of the time-ravaged superstructure, both Seekers and their players will quickly realise one fact each. The Seekers that even the lake is artificial and their players, what with the ruins of café alongside the lake and the tubes curling all over the place, that it is actually a former waterpark! Part of the fun of the scenario is in recognising this fact, as is discovering that it is home to a tribe of fishmen! So what you have is not-Deep Ones at the deep end of the pool and they are not happy with the presence of the Seekers. As well as dealing with the not-Deep Ones, there is still a decent bit of exploration and investigation to conduct, with only a relatively small bit of roleplaying at the scenario’s end. The various locations are nicely detailed, and a lot of thought has gone into twisting a simple waterpark into an aquatic den of danger in Terra A.D. Especially the zombie which appears if the Seekers are just that too curious! Primarily an exploration and combat scenario, the isolated location for ‘The Last Life Guardian’ makes it easy to drop into a campaign, with success granting the Player Characters a potentially useful campaign reward rather than personal ones. 

Physically, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack is decently done. The artwork is fun and the maps clear. The map for ‘The Last Life Guardian’ though will need careful examination by the Judge as it is a little busy. Both scenarios are well written and easy to read.

DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack contains two entertaining scenarios. ‘The Last Life Guardian’ makes a great deal from the one location for the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, but ‘Incident at Toad Fork’ for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and specifically, The Shudder Mountains, is a fun, fast-paced Hillbilly horror scenario which will want to make the Judge take a closer look at the Appalachian-style fantasy of Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin—if he has not already.