Not My Destination - Sessions 1 & 2 Analysis

I haven't been posting true session reports for Not My Destination because, so far, there's been little to report. One dead PC in the first session (the Herald of the Authority, killed by the sea urchin in 1:5 with full knowledge that there was an evil sea urchin) and a near-TPK in the second (thanks to the shredded ghouls in 1:15, which the PCs chose to enter into and then stubbornly remain in melee with). They have just entered Floor 2 and immediately thrown their lot in with Fluoride Vega.

The Littlest Brown Book has been working great so far. I've been using the logarithmic multiattacks suggested as a potential alternative to the quite ?????? standard OD&D multiattack rules, and after writing myself a copy of the Monsters Attacking chart combat's been no problem. 

i sure am

Logistics has been an issue, however. With OD&D's all-armor-and-loot based encumbrance it was no issue for the players to fill their pockets with months of food and torches during character creation and then simply... never return to town. They beelined right through the Sea of Lights in the first few minutes of the first session and haven't crawled back to sunlight since. 

Similarly, I'm not yet sure how I'm handling hirelings and mercenaries - the common prices I've seen make it trivial to bury a dungeon (or go toe-to-toe with the cult of SHAPELESS NAMELESS BLAMELESS) with hundreds of spearmen.

Littlest's dungeon generation & suggested random encounter difficulties have been great for building floors quick, though they do start to conflict with Phlox's 20-block dungeon stocking, which I've been using for room keys. Phlox stocking expects PCs to level up 4 hypothetical Fighter PCs (of appropriate level) per 20-room region, while the tables I've been using for Littlest expect much larger floors and slower XP rates. This means that dungeon floors (which get harder according to Littlest's progression) quickly outscale PCs (who haven't neared leveling yet, and won't if they keep wading into melee with piles of ghouls). 

Maybe that'll get them to explore the islands to scrape up XP, lmao.  

The Villa of the Fallen Star, Floor 2 (Not My Destination)

Floor 1: Mercury - Not My Destination Index - Floor 3: Mars 

Dungeon! Wow! I did all the prologue spiel on the post for the first floor so I'm out of things to say. Bye! 

Random Encounters

1. 1d6 Atomic Bees, HD 1, AC 2, unaffected by nonmagical damage. Harmless unless injured. Stings force a save vs. poison against instant death and becoming a Blast-Shadow.
2. 1d4 Star-Spirit Servants, HD 4, AC 2, unaffected by nonmagical missiles (as "hero", T3) (this is literally a dude and you can talk to him). honor focus, duelist.
3. Grazing Creature, HD 4+1, AC 5, 1d6+2 dmg/hit, fusion-reactor-stomach holds 1d6x100gp in semiprecious gemseeds. When it hits people it throws 'em.
4. 1d4 Blast-Shadows, 4 HD, 3 AC, 24 MV immune to nonmagical, non-silver weapons, drain 1 level per hit, humans fully drained become blast-shadows
5. Life Nexus, HD 6+3, AC 4, MV 12", regens 3 HP/round including after death unless burned, dissolved, etc. Made of magnesium, other alien-ecology metals in thin lines.
6. One of the Avant-Gardeners, plus their 6 Star-Spirit Servant bodyguards. (1: Fluoride Vega, 2: Antimony Rigel). Avant-Gardeners are both Star-Spirit Green M-U 11, HD 8+1, spells 4/4/4/3/3 Sleep, Entangle x2, Cure Light Wounds, Enfeebling Ray x2, Stoneskin, Invisibility, Haste x2, Invisibility (Extended) x2, Growth of Plants x3, Insect Plague, Cloudkill, Raise Dead 
1. (The Littlest Brown book recommends, as a "T6" random encounter that could be met on a six in a third-level dungeon, "Wizards (i.e. Magic-Users of the 11th level) w/ 1d4 Enchanters (7th-level M-Us) & 1d6 Bodyguards (those being Fighters of level 1d3+3). It's rough out there in OD&Dland. On the bright side "what do I do with an 11th-level wizard" became the driving goal of the whole dungeon floor.)

The Avant-Gardeners are artist-courtiers, hoping to improve their status in the court of the Fallen Star by presenting beautiful and complex works of art. They despise each other - perhaps these deniable earthlings could be a good weapon to ruin their rival once and for all...

1 - Water Source - Trap w/ Treasure
A hollow spear hangs from the ceiling, dripping iridescent star-water to send to the plants of this floor. It is a spear +1 whose strike causes hallucinations as the star-water enters the blood - however, its wielder is provided no immunity to this poison.

2 - Beryl Hedge - Monster w/ Treasure
This room is split east/west by a thorned selenium hedge. Four 500gp beryl "fruits" grow from it, and four Grazing Creatures gnaw on it on the west side.

3 - Listening Chamber - Empty
Sound from the Opera House is blurrily piped into this bench-filled room. The noise tube is barely large enough to fit a person, who will then pop out of the ceiling of the Opera House.

4 - Weeping Room - Monster
5 Blast-Shadows orbit the perimeter of this room, mumbling static.

5 - Lifegiving Room - Special
The ceiling of this room is a yellowish-green pane of glowing alien glass. Sleeping in this room restores 1 HP per hour (24 times the standard 1 HP per day available in the Littlest Brown Book). Its light also causes plants to grow at thousands of times the standard speed.

If the ceiling is broken, this effect ends immediately.

6 - Jumpscare Hedge - Monster w/ Treasure
This room is split north/south by a thorned selenium hedge. Two 500gp beryl "fruits" grow from it. It rustles slightly - if the fruit is picked or if the hedge is damaged, a Life Nexus leaps from it.

7 - Hostile Agents - Monster
Two groups of 3 Star-Spirit servants have collided in this room. One member of each holds a poisonous chalice - each group was sent by one Avant-Gardener in yet another plot to kill the other.

8 -The Conductor - Monster w/ Treasure
A Star-Spirit Servant works here, dressed in a 700sp feathered hat and 300gp in ruby-bead jewelry. They wield a staff of attached cubes (as Ophidian Staff - weapon +1 and can be sent as a snake to grapple and restrain people) as a conductor's baton.

They lead five uplifted Atomic Bees in opera practice, and will send them to attack those who threaten them.

The Conductor believes Antimony Rigel is an obstacle to their own ascent up the Stellar court - a gormless fool taking credit for the work of their apprentices. The first is true, the second is not.

9 - Seed Vault - Hidden Treasure
The floor of this room has three holes, each far too deep and small to reach into. 500gp aquamarines glitter in two of them, and a 1000gp spinel in the third. Each of these are seeds - planted and tended they would grow into trees of the same gem worth twice as much.

10 - The Extremely Loud Room - Special
It is extremely loud in this room.  

11 - The Opera House - Special
Antimony Rigel's masterpiece - 100 Atomic Bees uplifted to sapience and slowly taught how to play a famed (and extremely long) Stellar opera. The bees play without rest, their stage ten tiers of hexagonal cells on the northern wall. They are haughty - why do they play for such a small audience? There's a whole world outside, they've heard - they should go there, and become famous.

Above the bees is a sound-funnel that would, if one crawled up into it, lead to the Listening Chamber.

4-in-6 chance Antimony Rigel is applauding from one of the Opera House's balconies, unless they are known to be elsewhere.

(In my NMD campaign this is room 10 instead - that puts it way too close to Vega, though, so I moved it over for you. Aren't I just the sweetest?) 

12 - Vega's Guardian - Monster
A pareidolic Chimera (9 HD, 4 AC, MV 12"/18, one side/head/facet fires a 3d6 damage annihilation beam) waits in this room. It is composed of quartz beams and bristlecone pine wood, carefully arranged - from one side it displays a fleet of sailing ships, from a second an empty hall, and from the third a baleful sun. 

13 - Designer's Commentary - Empty
Holograms of Fluoride Vega play here, showing them tear their hair out (metaphorically) over minor difficulties in the production of the Pareidolia Tree. These are shockingly realistic illusions - things afraid of Vega (such as the Pareidolic Chimera) will not enter this room.

The two holograms (Vega and the tree) are produced by small triangular tiles on the ceiling, which can be removed, and continue producing their illusions. 

14 - Hive Pit - Trap
The floor of this room is a thin layer of art deco glass - hundreds of Atomic Bees crawl and work beneath it. This glass will shatter if weight is placed on it, releasing enraged bees. Standard paranoid thin-ice crawling will suffice to get you across.

15 - Decorated Bee - Monster w/ Treasure
An Atomic Bee is here, wrapped in a 300gp platinum disc. It loves its 300gp platinum disc and Will sting you if you try to separate the two.

16 - Tripvines - Trap
Silvery-blue vines sprawl across the floor of this room - when stepped on they wind around ankles and then drag their victim to hang upside-down from the ceiling. Cutting the vines is troublesome - they are as strong as iron.

17 - Beekeepers - Monster
Three Star-Spirit Servants poke around the edges of an art deco hive of atomic bees, wielding a tuning fork that forces a swarm of bees to Save versus Wands or fall asleep.

18 - Instrument Closet - Empty
This room is knee-deep in inscrutable Stellar musical instruments that make all manner of theremin noises, electronic beeps, piercing whistles, and dropping-cans-full-of-bolts-down-the-stairs clattering sounds.

19 - Pareidolia Tree - Empty
Fluoride Vega's masterpiece - a 10,000 year old bristlecone pine whose branches form a set of 3D images viewed by standing at certain points around the tree.

4-in-6 chance Fluoride Vega is here, unless they are known to be elsewhere.

20 - Understudy Room - Empty
Six uplifted Atomic Bees sit on the walls and ceiling of this room, buzzing out a few measures of the Stellar opera before making a mistake, emitting metal-on-metal screeches of frustration, and starting over.

Column of Electrum Thrice-Bound in Tin (Not My Destination)

Not My Destination Index 

Column of Electrum Thrice-Bound in Tin is an ancient funeral ship, built by the primordial revolt-empires of mankind. It still wanders the Sea of Lights, holding its crew and guests in the strange half-life the ancients preferred to death and the judgment of the Authority. It is found on a roll of 2 on the sea encounters table.

As with other NMD dungeon posts, the map is pure Donjon output - ignore which doors it says are secret, locked, et cetera.

Random Encounters

1. Tukulti-Authority, recordkeeper of ancient days. Stats as Zombie, but remains sentient and bored. Fond of overlong stories about nothing.
2. 2d10 armed and armored zombies.
3. The three Companions of the Monarchs.
4. A Giantish catamaran has come to challenge the Column.

0 - Outside
Column of Electrum Thrice-Bound in Tin hovers ten feet above the water - this is due to the Ghostparting Prow, a carved tin-and-lead ram built onto the front of the vessel. It can be attached to other ships - the lack of friction doubles their movement speed (though they have a tendency to slide around like air hockey pucks).

The deck of the ship holds 30 zombies in verdigrised armor (1 HD, 6 AC, 6 MV), who man six ballistae to fire on incoming vessels. The cabin on the rear of the deck has a staircase that leads down into Room 1. PCs may also sneak under the treasure vessel and enter through room 5.

1 - Deeds of the Queens of Mankind - Empty
The painted walls of this room show the destruction of a city of giants. Statues are torn down with ropes by angry mobs. Catamarans burn in the harbor. In the midst of it all stand two imperious figures, one with a sword marked out with mother-of-pearl.

It was only an outpost - the giants remain, and barely notice the absence.

2 - Chained Rowers - Monster
30 Zombies (1 HD, 8 AC, 6 MV) labor on great oars, dragging the Column across the Sea of Lights. The tops of their heads have been removed - their skulls are empty.

3 - Judge's Scales - Hidden Treasure
A bas-relief of a grinning man holding a set of scales - perfectly balanced with a bundle of flowers on one plate and a skull on the other. If the bas-relief is damaged or removed, a Potion of Healing waits behind the flowers, and a dose of save vs. death poison behind the skull.

4 - The Helm - Special
A pair of cloth-of-silver gloves and a blindfold of the same material hang from strings in the center of the room. Wearing the blindfold provides you a third-person view of the Column of Electrum Thrice-Bound in Tin, while the gloves permit you to puppet the 30 rowers and 30 ballista operators.

Column moves at 12 hexes per day over water. It is difficult to run aground due to the Ghostparting Prow, but I'm sure the players will manage anyway.

5 - Moon Pool - Empty
Two three-man boats, finely painted, hang from ancient ropes above a hole in the floor. It was expected that the ship's guests would leave one day.

6 - Extremely Cursed Evil Statue - Trap/Treasure
A statue of a cruel tyrant, cut in half at the waist. The break reveals carved stone viscera that would never be seen unless the statue was destroyed.

It is worth 5000gp - unfortunately it is both exceedingly heavy and extremely cursed. Any who die within eyesight of it rise up as the fitting undead for their HD (1 HD creatures have stats as zombies, 2 HD creatures as ghouls, et cetera).

7 - Companions of the Monarchs - Monster w/ Treasure
Three Wights (3 HD, 5 AC, 9 MV, drain 1 level/hit, unaffected by nonmagical missiles, double damage from magical missiles, killed humans become Wights) lie in repose in this room, each with a 100gp amethyst in the chest of their verdigrised armor.

8 - Shooting Gallery - Trap
Three niches in this room hold immobile statues of crossbowmen, who track and fire upon targets (as 3 HD monsters) that enter. They wait for targets to cross into the middle of the room to prevent their escape.

The other three niches hold glass cabinets of engraved tin tablets - annals of distant years in a long-forgotten language.

9 - Poison Chamber - Trap
The floor of this room has been built up into a sculpted map of the world. Its seas and rivers are made of flowing mercury - each dungeon turn in this room prompts a save versus poison to avoid taking 1d6 damage. The wall to the south is painted with a mural of the mountains that form the edge of the world - pressing on the sun that rises above those mountains opens the secret door to 10.

10 - Dead Throne - Monster w/ Treasure
Two mummies (5+1 HD, 3 AC, 6 MV, hits inflict necrotic disease, only vulnerable to magic and fire, damage and to-hit bonuses halved when attacking it), one wrapped in 1000gp of onyx-thread jewelry and the other wielding the neutral +1 sword ONE WILL LIE (12 INT, 3 EGO, speech, reads magic, targets struck by it decay, taking another 1d6 damage at the end of their next turn).

Both marched with the Unconquered in past ages.