The Furnace - A simple Dungeon Core Quest
- Thread starter Abyssius
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
- Location
- iTALY
Okay, nobody finds you. I can introduce another faction of interest.Oh boy, troubles!
We don't need to find them, they will find us by themselves!
Edit: Well, shit, just look at that! Didn't i say it just now?
Oh! Thank the gods! so, higher is better, that's good to know!
So that's good at least, still, I was hoping for a smuck or two to beat up.
look at the bright side! we can set up more before someone calls the guilds on us!
...you think our monsters/workers having an union already would help?
- Location
- iTALY
Yeah, when I ask for 2d6, I usually use the class of success of standard PbtA: 10+ it's good for you, 7-9 is mixed and 2-6 is bad.
- Location
- iTALY
I don't remember if I clearly wrote this somewhere, but I roll a 1d4 to see when the next raid comes. So soon or later you would get them coming.
V - Bluehide Ratlings
- Location
- iTALY
V - Bluehide Ratlings
The new excavation team begins work on another side, hoping to find something more interesting. Unfortunately, the excavation does not provide anything more useful than the small amounts of rocks and minerals that you burn and the free space for another room. Pity.
Training the Web Spider is more beneficial: he appears to be more capable of hitting with his web, and you believe that with enough experience, the web could provide additional effects, such as reducing enemies' defenses or their ability to attack. Another possibility is to use the metallic web to transmit heat, scalding the invaders and causing severe damage.
The new Smoke Elemental adds to your minions' combat abilities: while they appear immune, the smoke released by it has irritating effects on the eyes and throats, which, without good defenses, shouldn't be able to hit your minions as easily. Of course, the smoke produced by this amorphous cloud of burned stuff is constrained by its current size, but a larger elemental should cover a larger area.
You are hoping that the expedition will return with something more interesting.
The Foreman and the four cogworks decided to head in the opposite direction of the Morass, hoping to avoid the dredgers they encountered the previous time. Furthermore, gathering more information about their surroundings was not a bad idea.
After two hours, they noticed a tower on the horizon, too far away to make out the details, but standing proudly tail against the mist. The fact that it was visible even from such a distance indicates that it was able to repel the eternal mist in some way.
Smelling danger, the Foreman decided to move in another distance, without getting to close to the tower. It was more danger that they could handle in his opinion.
Moving along the direction of the detour, they started to hear noises. Hiding and focusing on them, they heard squitting noises and agitated voices and by avoiding getting spotted, they found a vantage point.
It looked like a small village or a sizeable camp, with rat-like creatures with two tails and black fur with spots of blue paint skittering around, busy with several tasks: some tending to smaller creatures that were probably their children, some training with weapons and some … torturing men.
They were tied to the wheels of a large wagon, and a large rat-like creature was speaking to them with a long curved knife. The distance made understanding what they were saying difficult, but it was clear that the men, who were clearly travelling merchants based on the tattered remains of their clothes and the wagon, were crying in pain and shaking their heads, which only prompted the large rat to ask more aggressively.
It was obvious that it was best not to stay too long and to look for something to bring back. Fortunately for them, they discovered what was most likely a dumping ground for these creatures' waste.
Loading several broken weapons, scraps of wood, and a couple of dead bodies, the expedition returned to the Dungeon.
By burning the body of one of the rat-like creatures, you discovered their name: they are called Bluehide Ratlings, which was obvious considering the blue paint on their hides. They are a scavenger race that usually engages in a bit of thievery and raiding to provide food for their clans and collect shiny things to trade with people, without too much care in exchange for metal weapons and other goods. They seems like fun neighbors to have around.
The main issue is their numbers: they are weak, but they usually attack as a sizable group, trying to overcome their enemies with the sheer force of numbers. That would be... difficult to deal with. Luckily, something like your Smog Elemental would be extremely beneficial against them.
You got an excess of Vitae that you weren't able to store due to your reserve. The excavation amounted for 2 Vitae and the Expedition for 6, plus your turn Vitae was 9 total and minus the Smog Elemental was 7.
Going to update the Setting post in a minute.
All the infos are updated in the Notion Board at this link: The Furnace Core
Please, vote by plan with the following format:
[J] Plan Smart
- [CREATURE] Create X CogWorks
- [ROOM] Create an additional room
- [RESEARCH] Spend one progress to Increase the Vitae Reserve
- [MONSTERS] Go scouting outside.
Vote will be open until the next weekend. Let the game begin.
I would say make a storage room but we can wait. Maybe make a rotating room that rotates every exploration that will lead down to diffrent halls. Make it like a cheap maze.
Maybe sometime we can just create steam on the ground and litter tripping hazards all over in a diffrent room when we get the ch
iance.
Increase the Vitae Reserve
Maybe sometime we can just create steam on the ground and litter tripping hazards all over in a diffrent room when we get the ch
iance.
Increase the Vitae Reserve
[X] Plan: keeping it simple
-[X][MONSTERS] Have one of the Foremen take four Cogs out of the dungeon to collect more raw materials.
-[X][MONSTERS] The other Foreman will continue digging looking for more ore with the steelweaver helping it reach hard to reach spots.
-[X][RESEARCH] Increase room limit.
-[X][MONSTERS] Have one of the Foremen take four Cogs out of the dungeon to collect more raw materials.
-[X][MONSTERS] The other Foreman will continue digging looking for more ore with the steelweaver helping it reach hard to reach spots.
-[X][RESEARCH] Increase room limit.
[X] Plan: keeping it simple
-[X][MONSTERS] Have one of the Foremen take four Cogs out of the dungeon to collect more raw materials.
-[X][MONSTERS] The other Foreman will continue digging looking for more ore with the steelweaver helping it reach hard to reach spots.
-[X][RESEARCH] Increase room limit.
-[X][MONSTERS] Have one of the Foremen take four Cogs out of the dungeon to collect more raw materials.
-[X][MONSTERS] The other Foreman will continue digging looking for more ore with the steelweaver helping it reach hard to reach spots.
-[X][RESEARCH] Increase room limit.
Crawkid
Lover of quests and community
- Location
- holed up in my room
I think im just starting to get a feel for the quest, but for now i dont have any grand ideas
[X] Plan: keeping it simple
-[X][MONSTERS] Have one of the Foremen take four Cogs out of the dungeon to collect more raw materials.
-[X][MONSTERS] The other Foreman will continue digging looking for more ore with the steelweaver helping it reach hard to reach spots.
-[X][RESEARCH] Increase room limit.
[X] Plan: keeping it simple
-[X][MONSTERS] Have one of the Foremen take four Cogs out of the dungeon to collect more raw materials.
-[X][MONSTERS] The other Foreman will continue digging looking for more ore with the steelweaver helping it reach hard to reach spots.
-[X][RESEARCH] Increase room limit.
I guess so? My reasoning is that if we find something better we can throw the inferior materials away.
[X] Plan: keeping it simple
-[X][MONSTERS] Have one of the Foremen take four Cogs out of the dungeon to collect more raw materials.
-[X][MONSTERS] The other Foreman will continue digging looking for more ore with the steelweaver helping it reach hard to reach spots.
-[X][RESEARCH] Increase room limit.
I would suggest using our excess vitae to shore up our forces in preparation for possible raids, but for now, there isn't another plan.
-[X][MONSTERS] Have one of the Foremen take four Cogs out of the dungeon to collect more raw materials.
-[X][MONSTERS] The other Foreman will continue digging looking for more ore with the steelweaver helping it reach hard to reach spots.
-[X][RESEARCH] Increase room limit.
I would suggest using our excess vitae to shore up our forces in preparation for possible raids, but for now, there isn't another plan.
True, next time we could go about dropping a few traps around our halls.
- Location
- iTALY
Yup, PhD is just keeping me more busy than expected and I need to muster the energies for the next update. If not tomorrow, I hope to write it during the evening of the next week.
I got a bit more free time because after 122 hours, I completed all the levels of Cook Serve Delicious 2. Please, don't play it if you suffer from perfectionism. Like myself.
- Location
- iTALY
Start working on the update now. I have published the basics for the Combat Mechanics.
I recall I said that I roll a 1d4 to see how many turns you have before getting raided. This is turn 5, so you can guess that I rolled a 4 on it.
Hope to get it done by today, I'll just resolve your actions, describe what has come for you and then leave you the chance to plan your defenses.
Missed me?
VI - The Failures
- Location
- iTALY
VI - The Failures
According to your instructions, the two teams split their duties, both of them focused on collecting more materials from different sources.
In the meantime, you use part of your full vitae reserves to reinforce what you could describe as a sort of "network" that connect your rooms. Part of its capacity is occupied by your main bodies and from the other two rooms, but you were able to feel the ability to connect to more space. Increasing it for future expansions sounds like a good plan for the future, so you do so, feeling the network deepening in your mind as roots under a growing tree.
The work of the mining team is quick: digging rock it's an area where their mechanical parts excel, with the spider helping digging around the cellar, using its metallic web to package the material to ease the transport. Soon, another emptied room is ready for you to claim, when you desire. And that's when you noticed a problem.
You see, your Vitae reserves were full, so you decided to store the rocks and mineral close to your main room. What you weren't expecting is them to start degrading on their own, vanishing into free Vitae that you couldn't claim. Looks like foreign material inside the dungeon gets automatically degraded, with a conversion rate less optimal than direct feeding into your "mouth". You should account then for your inability to store conserved loot in this way and only excavate it when you can consume it.
The exploring team considered its options: one was to go North, toward the Tower in the distance and see what they could encounter. The structure emanates a feeling of danger that they would prefer to avoid, if possible.
Another was to digging more bodies from the swamp, while avoiding confrontation with the humans in the same area. The compounds of the Ratlings were another option, with them discarding trash that could still be burned to get Vitae.
There was still the option to explore more, but the Foreman was getting the feeling that between the Tower, the Ratlings and the Swamp Humans, their options to explore further from them while avoiding confrontation would becomes difficult while avoiding combat. With the Tower at North, the Morass at East and the Ratlings at the West of the Dungeon, the South was still unexplored. Calculating, the team decided that looking for new information on their surroundings was worth the risk.
Travelling in the omnipresent dark-blue mist was difficult as always, but after an hour, they start hearing the sound of sea, with the mist assuming a deeper and lighter blue. Seagulls were screaming in the sky, while near the shore, a boat and several tends were planted in the sand. Around that, a perimeter of lights with guards protected the large encampment. The men looked like the humans near the Morasses, but they were dressed with deep blue uniforms and armed with sabers and muskets, with black pants and thick boots. From the distance, the expedition wasn't able to get more details. What they were able to see was several crates far from the encampment, broken and emptied, but that could still be burned. If they were ready to risk it, they also observed the presence of a trash-dispose site near the encampment, outside the perimeter but still close to it to risk alerting the guards. Collecting the crates, the team decided to return back with the info.
After hearing their reports, you ponder on what to do next: you count four possible foes, with one still totally unknown and only precise information on the Ratlings. You are quite sure that these are your most immediate concerns. You order the group to leave the crates away from the dungeon and not too close to make your entrance clearly visible from a distance: you were still undetected and only creatures able to get attracted by Vitae could find you, like the undeads from the Morass. You muse if it's something that all the undead are able to detect.
You don't have to muse for long, because you get the feeling of something getting closer to you. Since all your minions are accounted, this only means something.
Something was attracted by your Vitae.
You send a Cogwork to scout the enemy before it gets too close, their presence becoming more stronger to your sense a clear signal that they, while not exactly moving in a straight line, are still closing the distance.
The Cogwork, with its own language of clicking and whirling sounds that you and your minions are able to decipher, describe the enemy. Seven zombies, in different conditions, where coming from the north direction. The large part of the group is in extremely bad conditions, with half of them being more kin to skeletons than zombies, decayed and degraded to almost be unable to move. Two of the zombies looked in better conditions, but only one look like can pose a significant risk: a zombie without its left arm, but with the right arm surgically modified so that the humerus and radius were one, single, pointy mass, similar to a whale harpoon. Plates of bone covered the area of the shoulder and the chest close to the arm, making it the only in the group to have a weapon.
You have the advantage of the number and you suspect to also have the advantage of the quality. You ready to minions and plan your defenses.
[ ] Plan your defenses.
- [ ] Where are your minions?
-[ ] Do you want to use spells?
- [ ] How will your minions fight?
After a long hiatus, I have finally write another update. I apologize for the quality, but I think is more important to get it started so to make things easier in the future. For any questions, you know where to find me.