I introduced my friend Nick to Mörk Borg earlier this year and we both proceeded to purchase copies of it, as well as a host of related material. Since then we have periodically been taking turns to run one-shots for each other.
Although Nick and I live in the same city, I have an incredibly busy schedule and don't have time for socialising (I'm also something of a recluse), so we've been playing over WhatsApp, sending messages back and forth, which means we tend to be more florid in our dialogue and descriptions than we otherwise would be in real life.
My friend was taking his turn as GM and he ran a module called 'The Shattered Canal', one of the adventures from The Book of Vile Dungeons. I had purchased this PDF a while ago, but hadn't really looked at it, other than a brief glance, so as Nick was looking for a decent one-shot, I thought he might find something useful there.
Name: Therg
Class: Forlorn Philosopher
Background: Raised by fanatical Theists in a temple beneath Grift’s bridges, you fell victim to the mental virus of 'love', then the object of your affection went to live in a hole. The road an unreasoning maze, every temple soaked in blood, each destination drenched in gloom; you once thought that cold analysis might tame Fate itself, now that dream of reason has decayed to shifting madness and only the cold remains. Cruel and egocentric. Covered in (for some) blasphemous tattoos. You pick your nose so deep it bleeds.
Weapons: Femur (d4), Meat Cleaver (d4)
Gear: Backpack, Unclean Scroll (Te-le-kin-esis), Prism of Ambiguity, Ochre Tablet (Dream Theory)
Silver: 40
HP: 3
Strength: -2
Agility: 0
Presence: +1
Toughness: 0
I immediately sold the Meat Cleaver as I didn't fancy lugging two d4 weapons around and it's worth a whopping 15 silver, while a femur is worth nothing at all despite both doing the same amount of damage (one of the odd quirks of MB). This left me with 55 silver to spend. With that, I bought a crossbow, ten bolts and a length of rope (30').
Nick wrote an elaborate introductory text involving running away from a terrifying beast in a thunderstorm. The beast chased me through the darkness while I was trying to forage for food. I ended up falling into a canal which plummeted through a hole in the ground and I fell down, plunging into a deep pool at the bottom. I surfaced from the pool and found myself in an underground cave lit by blue glowing fungi. This is where the introduction stopped and my agency as a player began.
My first action in the game was to pick up one of the glowing blue fungi and use it as a light-source. The cave had a door at one end and another door tucked behind the waterfall, but this involved traversing a slippery path. I decided to take the behind-the-waterfall path, but I failed an Agility check and slipped right into the pool again, losing my mushroom on the way.
I climbed out of the pool and picked up another mushroom from the same patch. Now, in the original module, as written, this room was supposed to have cages full of snakes in it. Nick decided to omit the snakes and instead he replaced them with a creature (from a MB supplement called Forty Fiends) called the Fungal Geist. This creature has HP 7, Morale 8, is protected by a layer of "crusty mushrooms" for armour (-d4) and uses a "bone knife" as a weapon (d4). Nick removed the knife and had his Fungal Geist unarmed (I suppose to make it easier for me). I also think Nick removed the mushroom armour; otherwise I doubt I would have lived to tell this tale!
The Fungal Geist was lying on the ground, and it turned out that the patch of ground I was plucking mushrooms from was actually its back! It wasn't happy about this, so it stood up and attacked me! I decided to strike the Fungal Geist with my femur bone. This was a mistake as my Strength was -2, so every swing from the bone was at a disadvantage. As such, for several rounds I was unable even to land a hit.
After some to-and-fro the monster got the better of me and ripped out one of my eyes! This can happen in the core rulebook, but Nick and I agreed to use another supplement called Horrible Wounds which creates a wider variety of ways your character can suffer serious injuries, while also adding the possibility of surviving just a tiny bit longer.
Seeing the precariousness of my situation, I decided to leap into the pool to escape the creature, rather than keep on trying to hit it with the femur and likely perish. I asked Nick if there were any rocks in the pool I might grab a hold of. Nick said there was a stalagmite poking up out of the water. I grabbed hold of this and used my rope to harness myself to the stalagmite that I might have both hands free. This all done, I drew out my crossbow, loaded it and proceeded to shoot at the Fungal Geist from the safety of the pool. I missed the first shot but hit it (and killed it) on the second.
That problem dealt with, it was time to swim to the side and take a breather. I untied the rope, swam to the shore and sipped some water. This was enough to restore my health back up to full (with only 3 HP this wasn't hard). Nick also decided, because the fight had been quite tough for me, that it merited a 'level up', or what in MB is called 'Getting Better'. I think all my stats went up by +1 and my HP went from 3 to 8, which is nothing to sniff at!
I chose the path behind the waterfall once again and went through the door. I found a guard-room, with a checkerboard tiled floor and a mural on the wall depicting images of knights saving princesses from beasts, but both the knights and the princesses were frog-like humanoids, each only possessing a single eye.
Two creatures wearing chainmail, looking exactly like the characters in the mural, were sat playing dice at a nearby table. They saw me enter and one of them commented to his friend how I looked like them, seeing as I too only had one eye. I greeted them and some moderately friendly banter took place where I learned that they were knights belonging to the Order of Narcissus, which was apparently once great but had diminished in recent times. The Order of Narcissus was dedicated to beauty: specifically, the beauty of their Lord Commander. But, their Lord Commander had, it transpired, started acting strange of late.
Now, I wished to enquire further about this, but while one of these two cyclops-frog-knights was quite happy to talk to me about their Order and their Lord Commander, the other was not and acted a little aggressive toward both me and his friend. They told me I was welcome to visit their Lord Commander in the next room, or join them in their game of dice, but I mustn't ask any more questions. In fact, I was threatened with violence if I did!
I didn't like this tone so decided I should cause some trouble. Also, I wanted to try out some of my toys that SCVMBIRTHER had blessed me with, to see if I could put them to some good use. The first of these was an Ochre Tablet called 'Dream Theory'. Ochre Tablets are "relics of a forgotten mind-cult, made from the clay of the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead". The 'Forlorn Philosopher' class has a predilection for them. 'Dream Theory', if successfully cast on the mind of a target, causes the victim to begin to doubt it is real. I decided to try this on the more aggressive-natured of the two frog-knights, whose name was 'Slim'.
It worked and Slim started freaking out, questioning his very existence. I then used the Unclean Scroll I had in my possession, 'Te-le-kin-esis', to pick up Slim's sword (leaning against his chair) and make it fly through the air into my hand. This worked, which caused Slim's friend (the more talkative of the two) to get upset. I proceeded to use 'Dream Theory' on him too, which also worked. He then dropped his own sword. I picked up this (manually this time) but this act offended him greatly. He began to fight me, even though he was bereft of his sword and even though he was suffering from the Dream Theory effects (which makes it easier for me to hit him in combat). Perhaps I should have tried playing some verbal mind games with him, but the fight was on and I was determined to beat him in hand-to-hand.
After a drawn out duel, in which I did suffer a light injury (he bit me), I eventually scored a critical hit on this fellow, who promptly died at my feet, his own sword (in my hands) tearing a fatal cut through his shoulder. I then proceeded to march over to Slim, still sitting on the floor confused, and demanded he submit to me as his new Lord Commander. Instead of having the desired effect, this command woke him up from his dream and, having seen his dead friend lying nearby, he had a morale failure and bolted out of the door through which I entered this room. I loaded my crossbow and followed him.
As I stepped through the doorway, I saw he was about to leap into the pool. I fired a bolt at him and wounded him just before he plunged beneath the water. Unfortunately the shot, while critical, wasn't fatal. I waited a while, resting, to see if he would re-emerge, but he didn't.
I returned to the guard room and stripped the frog-knight I killed of his (damaged) armour and put it on myself. I then dragged his body to the waterfall and threw it down into the pool. Next, I pulled out another toy in my collection: the Prism of Ambiguity. This prism, if exposed to an external light source, can heal the body as well as improve the senses (making all tests easier to perform by lowering the required roll). I tried this out and it worked. I was back at full health and now all tests would be slightly easier for me.
I then proceeded through the door at the other end of the guard room and found a dim corridor. I proceeded along this, but stepped on a broken shard of glass I had failed to notice was there, which made a loud crunching noise beneath my boot. A voice called out of the gloom, demanding to know who I was and what my business was.
I answered with my true name and said I came seeking the Lord Commander of the Order of Narcissus. He demanded I step forward. I did, eventually, and found myself standing next to a mirror frame, with broken shards all over the floor. The mirror frame was blocking the entrance to a cave, just off this corridor, and in the cave was the most beautiful knight ever seen, radiant with glory. Because the mirror was broken, I could see through the frame into the cave, otherwise I would have been staring at the back of the mirror and wouldn't have seen him.
The beautiful knight then removed one of his gauntlets and threw it to the ground, challenging me to a duel. As he did so, his glory suddenly faded, and he became a very plain, actually quite ugly man. I asked his permission to talk before we fought. He agreed and explained he was once a poor soul who was shunned by society on account of his disfigured countenance.
He then went on a quest across the lands to find beauty, and in doing so, stumbled across a tribe of one-eyed frog-men in the swamps of Sarkash. Unlike mankind, these frog-men accepted him as he was, and he was able to organise them into a Knightly Order whose quest was to find the perfect beauty. Eventually, after many adventures, they found a legendary magic mirror, hidden in a church, The Mirror of Desire Foretold, which granted its user their greatest desire.
The Lord Commander asked the mirror for beauty, and he was given a magic gauntlet (the very one he just threw onto the ground). After this, the mirror smashed (it only works once). The gauntlet, when worn, would make him the most beautiful man on earth. When taken off, he appeared just like his normal self.
I had also asked him, seeing as he wore (unbroken) chainmail and a shield (with a daffodil painted on it), if we might duel on equal terms: sword vs. sword, matching armour etc. He refused my terms. As such, I decided to use my Unclean Scroll, 'Te-le-kin-esis' once again, to pull the gauntlet from the floor straight onto my hand, thus making me the most beautiful person in the world. This done, I demanded he submit to me as his new Lord Commander, seeing as I had taken his power from him. But, he wasn't impressed with this trick and the fight was on!
He charged at me, but I fired my crossbow at him point-blank and my bolt went through his shield, into his arm, doing no small amount of damage. So far, so good. But then I slung my crossbow and drew my sword and the proper duel began. Not a very long duel, though; my blows kept missing him and he finished the fight with a pommel-strike to my face, which took my health quite low. He then declared himself the victor.
In the earlier conversation, the Lord Commander had confessed that now he had the perfect beauty, he had become bored. I decided, rather than submit to him, I would pull out one last trick from up my sleeve. I declared that, on account of him being 'bored', I would show him "a marvel". I pulled the Prism of Ambiguity from my bag and attempted to activate it. A successful activation would have both healed my HP (possibly up to full) and also made my combat tests even easier, thus increasing my chances of a victory.
Unfortunately, if the Prism of Ambiguity doesn't work, it backfires and actually hurts the user! Well, this happened and I suffered a "Horrible Wound"! Using the Horrible Wounds chart, Nick and I agreed that the appropriate effect was a psychological trauma, which caused me to suffer a convulsive fit before collapsing on the floor unconscious.
I awoke, some time later, my wounds being tended by Slim, the frog-knight I had shot with my crossbow earlier, with the Lord Commander sitting nearby. He told me I had shown him "a marvel" indeed, and he had been greatly entertained, but that now I must admit defeat and leave. He placed the gauntlet back on his own hand, restoring his beauty and undoing my work. I decided, at this point, to submit to him, and asked him, in light of the fact that he was now down a knight (due to my killing him earlier), would he let me join the Order of Narcissus?
The End
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