CROM mini campaign!

At long last! The adventure that time forgot! Conan vs The Warlock Chapter 3: The rescue! (Can you believe the last time I played this was in March 2021? Yes you can!)

In Chapter 1 here, Conan and Belit came across a village that was being attacked by a bad guy (The Hyperborean) and his minions. In the battle, the bad guys managed to kidnap a villager while Conan and Belit managed to rescue two villagers.

In Chapter 2 here, Conan and Belit were asked to rescue the kidnapped villager. It seems a powerful Warlock had lately come into the area and was kidnapping the villagers for his evil purposes. The two heroes have to discover the hidden entrance to the Warlock’s lair. They succeeded.

In Chapter 3, Conan and Belit must rescue the unfortunate victim/sacrifice before the Warlock summons the fell underworld beast and put an end to the Warlock's depredations once and for all!

+ + +

The Warlock begins the summoning, placing 4 dice on the demonic worm summoning spell. His cultists aid him, placing 1 more die for a total of 5 out of 10 needed.

Belit moves into the dungeon, dealing with a group of minion skeletons. The tokens in the dungeon denote points where random events will happen. Mostly bad. 1 positive, 1 neutral. Let’s see how it goes.

The victim screams! Hearing her scream Conan rushes forward… only to encounter a poison trap! It will deal 1 poison damage each turn, but when it will affect Conan depends on when the Poison card is drawn in the initiative sequence.

Thankfully he comes across a potion that will allow him to recover some of his health back… but it’s not an antidote so the poison will still affect him.

Heedless, Conan charges deeper into the dungeon and lays waste to a bunch of skeleton guards the Warlock has summoned to patrol the dungeon.

Conan has to pause to recover from the affects of the poison and Belit rushes past him… only to encounter a trap laced with Blue Lotus powder that instantly puts her to sleep! That was... not good as she'd just begun her activation.

Conan manages to wake her and Belit is able to move deeper into the dungeon where the noise she makes has alerted a wandering poisonous scorpion (ignore the card name) that scuttles out of the crumbling dungeon walls.

An anguished scream from the sacrificial victim makes Belit charge the scorpion and in a whirl of blades, she manages to dispatch the monster!

Unfortunately it’s too late. The various road blocks the Warlock has placed in the dungeon slowed Conan and Belit enough that the Warlock was able to summon the demonic beast (a giant worm) and control it. The blood-drained body of the poor sacrifice lies crumpled in a corner of the dungeon.

+++

And there I stopped. Obviously the summoning was either going too fast or I had too many road blocks in the heroes’ way, massively delaying them until the summoning was complete (it only took 5 turns).

I need to tweak the scenario. Either less road blocks or a slower summoning process. Maybe the death of the sacrifice only gives 1 extra die, with +1 die for every 2 fear tokens accumulated by the victim. We shall see.

I will also reduce the probability of drawing the poison trap card. Without an antidote, it's quite punishing for the heroes if they draw it early on in the game.

THE SECOND GAME

Worm now needs 14 dice to summon.

Warlock gets 3:1 dice for summoning instead of 2:1. 

Priests still 4:1.

Sacrifice : 3 dice on death

1 summoning die for first fear token 

1 summoning die for next 2 fear tokens

1 summoning die for next 3 fear tokens 

And so on…

+ + +

The warlock unloads all 12 of his dice to summon the worm. 4/14. The priests chant and add another die. 5/14.

Conan and Belit enter the dungeon and after hearing the anguished screams of the victim rush deeper in. 

Conan makes short work of the first batch of skeletal warriors he encounters but runs into a trap of Blue Lotos sending him immediately to sleep. 

Belit wakes him up and moves in. Other skeletal warriors march slowly but relentlessly forward. 

Conan moves in again and gets hit by a poison trap! (Again?! I have randomised several different event cards but that poison card keeps popping up like a pesky mosquito!)

Conan shoots the skeletal warriors and deals 2 DAM. That group slows down but the one behind attacks Conan and deals him 5 damage in total from 3 attacks. Conan manages to inflict 1 damage on them. 

Belit finishes them off then runs forward and encounters a Man Ape set by the Warlock to guard the dungeon. A flurry of combat and they both deal each other 2 DAM. 

Belit pays to go first the next turn, beating the Man Ape and she manages to down it. 

Conan moves deeper into the dungeon, picking up a potion that gives him back some health (but unfortunately it’s not an antidote so doesn’t cure him). Still, he’s temporarily at 10HP now. He moves in cautiously, Cimmerian senses warning him of danger. 

Belit triggers the Hyperborean. After all these encounters and he (it?) is still alive! Or undead. Conan could swear he cut down the Hyperborean earlier when encountering him in the temple ruins. 

She shoots him for some damage and moves away leaving Conan to deal with him. 

Conan pays to go first and manages to down the Hyperborean but not before taking some damage. He’s now down to 7 HP. Not good. 

The Warlock and priests have put in more magic and the worm is closer to being summoned. 7/14.

Hearing the nearby sounds of combat the Warlock kills the sacrifice gaining 6 dice to summon the Wurm! 13/14. However, the Warlock is still short of dice needed to command the Wurm. 

Hearing the death screams of the sacrifice Belit rushes in and manages to kill 2 priests. The remaining 2 succeed in casting Hold Enemy on her. She now requires a special roll of 12+ to break free or Conan can do it with a Special roll of 6+.

Conan breaks her free and downs the remaining priests. But he’s perilously close to empty thanks to the poison. 

Belit attacks the Warlock. Having exhausted himself attempting to summon the Wurm, he doesn’t manage to fight her off and fails to cast Life Leech on her. 

Too late, Conan (now down to 5 HP) joins Belit and together they succeed in killing the Warlock who has been weakened by too much summoning magic. 

They were not able to save the poor village girl… but they did manage to avenge her. 

+ + +

OK, that’s more like it. Tension, race against time... monsters and enemies and sorcerers to defeat... it worked well. I think I need to tweak the summoning one more time. Probably 12 is a good target number. The Warlock will need at least 3-4 dice to control the Wurm when summoned so the sacrifice can give him about 5-6 summoning dice and the priests another 2. Reliably. Let’s see how my final playtest goes to see if I can get the outcome even tighter than it already is. This game the heroes managed to reach the Warlock and the Warlock didn't have enough dice to control the Wurm. Need to get it balanced so that the decider is definitely on a knife edge.

The skeletal warriors are now at a nice 1-3 stat. 1 for movement and 3 for combat. 

Everything else is fine and I added some skills/feats to each card so they are not generic with just amounts of dice to distinguish them.