Replay 1 - Session 5 - End of an act

This will be the last session of this replay! And the ending of this quest. Will the party make it out of the dungeon alive? What is behind the stone door? We shall find out... this session!

After finishing his incantation, Suilandos manages to cast the spell in time. The light breaks through the darkness; a flash and a constant dim projection in the shape of floating orbs reveal the room once more. The creature standing there growls as it recoils from the unexpected brightness.

What stands there is a lion-like creature, its hind legs are scaly and more like a dragon's, and so is its tail. The fur of his mane is on fire, but it doesn't seem to burn away, and the monster is unaffected by it. Weirdly enough, it has one wing; a singular large bat-like wing.

Gertosel: "Is this another summon thing?"
Demdem: "No, no, no — this is a sick experiment."
Suilandos: "it's a chimera!"

All right, the party will go first because the chimera was surprised by the light. It may seem arbitrary but the room it came from is also completely dark, so I think it makes sense. The order is: ally, ally, ally, enemy, ally.

An arrow flies by, Ferem shoots his bow for the first time — the arrow lands on the chimera's neck, dealing 11 damage. Demdem casts his last use of Enchant Weapon on Gertosel, who strikes the beast in the leg for 3 damage.

It is now the chimera's turn, it tries to bite Gertosel, but it fails; blocked by the shield. As he retaliates impaling it, Ferem shoots another arrow and hits in the head, killing the creature.

That was quick… nothingburger cliffhanger. Well, this system is beyond broken, which is why I'd like to change it (and I will, after this dungeon.)

Ferem: "That wasn't that hard."
Demdem: "Yes, but it is better not to test our luck."
Gertosel: "Open the door, let's see what we are going to get."

Ferem placed the two silver orbs in the door's holes. There was the sound of something sliding in place and the stone door parted revealing a large room with four orbs of light and a large magic circle. At the center of the room was an armor; a husk of metal twice the size of man, sitting.

Ferem: "That doesn't look like good news."

But before anyone could reply the armor stood up and rushed toward them. Let's say it goes first because of it. The golem will attack Gertosel, trying to punch him, but he dodges out of the way.

As the fist hits the floor the party hears the cracking of the stone floor.

Ferem shoots an arrow, managing to pierce the golem's defense, that is followed by a blast of blue lightning as Suilandos casts Mana Spear. In total, they deal 15 damage.

Gertosel tries to hit it, but the sword just clashes against the metal armor. In response the golem kicks Gertosel sending him flying and crashing against the wall, he suffers 14 damage.

After that it rushes towards Demdem. Suilandos casts Fire Blast dealing 4 damage, the Golem is engulfed in flames. Gertosel runs to the creature and clings to its armor hitting between the armor's protection — sparks fly as it is destabilized, dealing 8 damage. An arrow hit its core, another 11 damage.

Tumbling around the Golem pushes Demdem dealing 7 damage to him.

Gertosel: "Die, you piece of scrap! Graaah!"

Gertosel, clinging to the creature with his sword stuck in one of the gaps in the armor, manages to climb up, he hits it in the head with his ax, one, two, three times. Eventually the head just flies off — the Golem falls, a loud thud reverberates in the room as it hits the ground.

All of the party is at half health. This was a level 4 monster, but it didn't do much. I'll explain why later. It has something to do with monsters and dungeon making.

Ferem: "There wasn't much of a reward... what is this room anyways?"
Suilandos: Intelligence — Success "Well this is a circle of summoning... but a circle so large, where is it getting its mana from?"
Demdem: Wisdom — Success "This entire room is filled with mana... this is probably the reason why the spirits outside became visible."
Gertosel: "So there is no magic sword? Dammit!"
Suilandos: "Still, where is this mana coming from?"
Ferem: Wisdom — Success "There are gaps in here, below the circle... do you think it is coming from something below?"

Gertosel then walked to the other side of the room, avoiding the large circle at its center.

Gertosel: "There is another stone door here, it also has spheres. It needs four, it has a gold one. Should I take it?"
Suilandos: "It's probably better if we leave..."
Ferem: "You should take it, I've only got one of the spheres."

Gertosel took the gold sphere.

Gertosel: "All right, time to leave!"
Demdem: "Wait, look where you are walkin—"

The magic circle lit up, and the room was filled with bright light. Something appeared from the white, a figure; a beautiful woman of short silver hair and grey skin, wearing a black cloak. For a second the party thought she was a Dark Elf, but she had human ears. She appeared in the air, and descended floating, her naked feet touching the ground... and crimson red tattoos appeared on her face and arms.

???: "Where... am I?"

As she looked around she flung her cloak. Under it could be seen chain-mail armor and a belt carrying a sword without a sheath.

Gertosel: "T-That sword is..."
Demdem: "There is no doubt!"
Ferem: "What is it?"
Gertosel: "It's the same sword... it's the sword from the tree!"

The mysterious figure fell on her knee. A pain rushed to her head.

???: "I must meet him..."

And without another word, she falls unconscious.

After the Ending

And... that was the plot hook for the adventure. Hehe~ I am not sure, perhaps it will continue. I think it is fun. Of course, I should also make the party leave and travel back to their hideout and all of that. But I'll omit it this time since I am changing to another system and I need to do other stuff. Thank you for reading, it wasn't balanced at all... but I felt bad changing a lot right now.

First, I want to comment on monsters. I am so lazy! I don't feel like giving monsters special attacks and stuff, so I'll try generating monsters randomly in the future. Not at the moment, I'll generate a few, give them levels and... just pray that they are not too strong or too easy. I think it'll go well with the next system I cooked up. But that also means that monsters have less of an already determined personality or philosophy; they are less recognizable because I will be making them up.

Second, I want to comment on making dungeons. This dungeon was designed very carefully. I wrote down the difficulty of finding things, the damage, the monsters, the treasure, all is written down... I hate that! I love designing the dungeon and imagining what is in the rooms, that's great, but writing it all down and playing it... it doesn't feel right. I feel, if there was a spectrum, I went too much on the "preparation" side rather than the "improvisation" side. I am coining this spectrum; I call it the "Solo Role-play Preparation to Improvisation Spectrum." Now that you know of it, you can mention it and say "I am more on the preparation side rather than the improvisation side of the spectrum."

Here's a map of the dungeon, we didn't get to explore it all, I was rushing towards the ending. Some enemies were improvised... I think I should prepare monsters, but I don't feel like preparing monsters for a system that I am going to abandon. That's the reason why both the chimera and the golem were so basic.

That lady at the end was part of the dungeon, although it wasn't determined if it was a girl or a boy, I rolled 50/50, it landed on girl. She's a "special character." Basically, a character that doesn't play by the rules. They can have unique items, attributes, race, skills or spells. One of the cool things about items and spells is that those remain in the world no matter what, so if for any reason she loses her sword, someone else can get it... that's the way I wanted to implement magic items: they belonged to unique people and those people lost them.

The party made some good money, perhaps too much money. In any case, I'll let them keep it. See you in my next replay, with my next variation of this system (which has barely anything to do with it), the continuation of this adventure, or maybe the start of another adventure.