Play Report: Ruins of Castle Gygar #1
After much delay, I ran my first session of Delving Deeper1 over the weekend. Onslaught Six was gracious enough to provide me with the manuscript to their soon-to-be-released megadungeon, The Ruins of Castle Gygar2, so that’s what I ended up running. Long story short, I enjoyed the experience more than I expected given we had rescheduled twice at the last minute.
Alright, let’s dig in!
Before the game
I encountered some difficulty in communicating the appeal of the OD&D playstyle to the party; they’re used to playing 5e, and balked at the idea of playing a game without skill checks, subclass specialization, and so on. I requested that everyone play two PCs instead of just one, and I did this for two reasons: to increase the likelihood of three players surviving more than one encounter, and to demonstrate the variety of playstyles possible within the two available classes. We rolled stats down the line, but I let the players pick weapons and armor for their first delve.
This process resulted in the following party composition:
- Craig Thunderburger, battleaxe-swinging Fighter. Played by Matt.
- Slink Juicer, crusty and unwashed Magic-User. Played by Matt.
- Mungo Jerry, glam metal Fighter. Played by Miles.
- Yoko Taro, bow-heavy Fighter. Played by Miles. Lol.
- Tohst, resident spear Fighter. Played by Conor.
- Munk, bargain bin Magic-User. Played by Conor.
Pretty balanced, all things considered. I think the process of building their characters helped warm everyone up to the premise.
Starting the game
The party began play in the catacombs—the first of Castle Gygar’s twelve levels—tasked with a crystal ball “buried some layers below” the decrepit ruins. I settled on this premise mostly out of necessity, picking a powerful magic item from the middle of the module’s detailed item trade-up sequence and conjuring an employer out of thin air.
Greeted by a couple doors and long, echoing (but well lit!) hallways leading north and south, the group heads north. They stop at an intersection, wary of a rusted key sitting out in the open. Tohst throw his shield at the key “to check for traps,” catching a good bit of flak from everyone else before stowing the key and continuing north again.
They encounter a set of doors, one on each side of the hall, and note that the path ends in a ‘T’ intersection some twenty feet ahead. Tohst picks the door on the left at random, poking his head into a darkened room. This turns out to be a demonic altar—pentagram drawn in blood, black candles scattered on the floor, the whole nine yards!3—which piques the party’s interest. The air cracks and spits, throwing sparks and ash as they cross the threshold; three imps materialize at the far end of the room and pull the party into their first combat encounter.
I should note that we played this game over Discord using the Swords & Wizardry system in Foundry; overall, the system made for a clunky experience at times, but mostly because I needed to pause halfway into this fight to shrink everyone’s tokens and add 5-foot subgrids. The token overlap had become unbearable and the players lost track of who was where, resulting in somewhat of a wasted first round.
Anyways! The party struggles to flood into the room after losing initiative in the first round, with Slink Juicer attempting to sling a rock from the second rank. I repurpose the Riposte mechanic from Wolves Upon the Coast4 here, telling the players that rolling less than or equal to 8 on their attack would result in friendly fire. Slink accepts the terms, immediately rolling a 3 and pinging Tohst in the back of the head for 2 damage. Craig Thunderburger tears one of the imps in half before nearly dropping to a second. The party’s strongest fighters win initiative in the second round, cornering the remaining imps and cutting them down before they can retaliate. The party regroups, assessing the damage: one fighter in plate, nearly dead; another in chainmail, head wracked with pain from being struck with a rock.
Rather than explore, they vote to cross the hall and kick this door wide open. Torchlight floods into the damp, unsightly kennel of two guard wargs chained to the floor; Mungo Jerry immediately transitions to a low stance and approaches slowly, attempting to make good in light of the surprise entrance. This is… very successful, thanks to the source material and a killer reaction role, and likely a decision I will regret. Within a few turns, the wargs are receiving hella pets and are cut free. They follow the party of the room willingly.
Out in the hallway, they head north… again. Having reached the ‘T’ intersection, they see long, bright passages to the east and west. They coin flip it, heading east until encountering a door on the southern wall. This time, they inspect the door carefully and notice the phrase ‘Knock!’ scratched into the wood. The consensus is to knock politely, and in so doing are received warmly by Maxwell the ogre; he tends to a warm, meaty stew and would love for someone to take care of the beastmen down the hall. Craig goes out on a limb and steps inside to chat about the beastmen, eventually agreeing to wipe them out for 100 gp/head and asking if he and the wargs might rest by his fire. He crushes the initial reaction roll and roleplays his ass off, so I give him the option to stay at the ogre’s camp with the wargs in toe instead of above ground with the rest of the party since we’re running out of time in the session. If he stays, he gains 2 HP overnight and learns more about the beastmen, but with the stipulation that I will roll privately to see if the wargs are able to stay calm and not piss the ogre off.
This took way too long to write, but that was the session! The last bit with the wargs and the ogre was messy as all hell, but the players loved it and are looking forward to a much longer sitdown next time around.
I am largely running the game rules-as-written, plus the following tweaks that Luke Gearing recommended I look into: restricting class selection to Fighters and Magic-Users; item slots for inventory (AC+5, ignoring equipped armaments); side-based initiative, with PCs rolling d10 ≤ AC to act before enemy combatants; the weapon features from his own game, Wolves Upon the Coast. Thanks, Luke!↩
Many thanks to Onslaught Six for providing me with their manuscript! Please do them a solid and follow the project on Kickstarter to be notified of its release on launch day.↩
I’ve embellished a few details here, as many of the rooms are described in one or two sentences.↩
Riposte: If an attack roll against you is less than 8 (not counting your AC), you can immediately counter-attack. The number in parentheses indicates how many times↩