KotB Delve #4 - Orc diplomacy

Timespan: 2018-10-16 - 2018-11-16 (Session 6-8)
In-game time: Mandatory one week in town + one week and one day on the road.

Participants:

D'Jonna - Amazon Warrior (Barbarian Template)
Boerge the Beef - Human Thug (Knight Template)
 - Sture (Guard)
 - Kent (Torchbearer)
Father Wår - Human Priest of the Lord of Light (Cleric Template)

Three short weekday sessions concluded this delve, the first one was mostly bookkeeping and travelling to the dungeon. Boerge repaired his shield and took up some work at the armorers, D'Joan tried (and failed) to find someone that could make her an owlbear-fur chestpiece while Father Wår identified his newly-found wand and did some additional research on the book they were sold a few sessions ago. Sture the Stone usually uses most of his allowance for gambing but this time something good came of it: he picked up a rumor at the tavern that the Merchants Guild were looking for adventurers. Boerge went there and was informed that another one of the guilds caravans had been attacked, presumably by orcs. The bodies of the caravan leader, a respected guild-member, and his wife, had not been found so chances were they were still alive, most likely as prisoners somewhere in the caves. On their way there they were raided nightly, first by a group of kobold hunters and then a pack of wolves. Both were struck down with ease. The kobolds had catapults with insect swarms and ampoules containing some kind of tranquilizing toxin while the wolves were left in camp to be skinned. After the two encounters the group decided to take some time to create a proper camp on the outskirts of the caves that is better camouflaged as well as easier to defend.

When heading to the caves the next day (day three) they were dead set on finding themselves some orc to kill and hopefully set the poor merchant couple free in the process. And it didn't take them long to identify some orc in and around a guardtower they had noticed during previous delves sitting on the north side of the mines. The moved forward in the forest above the mines and when they were close enough the cleric Sunbolted directly into the tower for enough damage to start a small fire in it while Börje and D'Jonna stormed forward to take care of the orcs beneath it. They killed one and wounded another before they even gave them a chance to give up.

They couldn't prevent one of the guards from jumping down the open trap-door and into the lair below which made them a little uneasy. They decided to drag their prisoners out from under the tower and back into the brush and when one of them came to they started questioning her. She kept saying in broken common that her tribe, the Blackscalp clan were the "good orcs" and that they should speak to her leader Krisk about killing the "bad orcs" of the Bloodspear clan instead. They were not convinced but D'Jonna decided to give it a go in the last possible moment, accepting an invitation into the lair to convene with their leader.

The entrance to the lair was a fairly large room with one wall covered with skulls of different shapes and forms. This didn't bother the stoic amazon though and she proceeded to speak with the leader who was an older, battle-scarred orc with a surprisingly eloquent dialect of common, like he'd been teached at young age by a human scholar. He gave a short backstory about why the orcs were living in the mines, that they had always had a wary but non-aggressive relation to the humans in the area until recently when a competing tribe moved in, took over half of the lair and started raiding the nearby farms and trade routes. Now his tribe is too weak to do anything more than defend their part of the lair and the only thing keeping them from moving back north is that the Bloodspear has taken Gryst, one of his most beloved commanders as prisoner, probably tortured him aswell. If the PC's could investigate and release his commander he will reward them in the best way possible. If they were to obliterate the tribe altogether he would be even more pleased. Then D'Jonna and the orc leader shared a common appreciation of a proper handshake in blood and the PC's were off to kill some more orc.

They headed straight for the closest natural cave entrance and having succeeded a Tactics roll they charged straight in for surprise. Inside the cave entrance four guards were sitting around a fire, three orc and one gnoll. Further down the room there was a staircase heading down and beside it something was glimmering in the firelight. Boerge beat the gnoll down with a flail-hit to the back of the head and he fell straight into the fire and spent the next three or so rounds rolling around with his fur burning but was out of the fight. D'Jonna charged one orc down to the ground and proceeded straight to the back of the room where she managed to pierce an eye on another with her spear while Wår protected the flank and use some support magic. A small tactical mistake gave them trouble after the initial onslaught though. After downing the back orc D'Jonna realized that the gleaming surface in the back of the room was a large gong and moved into position to attack anyone going for it but before the last orc was moving the one she had knocked down grappled her legs from behind preventing her from taking the necessary step to be able to hinder the one trying to hit the gong. 

A loud sound spread through the halls of the Bloodspear-clan and within three rounds three more orcs moved in from a room to the side almost immediately maiming both the torchbearer and the guard protecting that door. D'Jonna had a really hard time braking free from her grappler and in the end she decided to just take the minus to hit, stand still and attack anything within her reach. Scared that there were more orcs preparing to head up the stairs they moved out directly without even looting and decided to regroup in the relative safety of their camp.

They healed up in camp but realized that neither Sture nor Kent would be able to walk on the injuries they'd received in the fight (Kents leg was lame, Stures was broken) so they decided to leave them in camp when they headed back to the orc lair the next day. During the night they heard some strange shuffling around the camp but decided not to investigate and nothing came forward to attack them either. When they ran into the Bloodspear Orc lair for the second time the next day it the entrance was almost unguarded. Only a single orc not dressed for battle was guarding the gong and this time they stuck to their plan, silencing the area around the gong while taking care of the confused orc. After a short discussion about how to move forward and a quick check into the neighboring room to see that it was empty they charged down the stairs to retain the element of surprise. Directly outside the stairs a net-trap had been set to catch intruders. D'Jonna and Börje ran straight past it but Wår who was staying behind got tangled and spent the better part of the fight trying to get out. Meanwhile D'Jonna and Börje made orc stew out of at least a half dozen surprised orcs and another gnoll. One of the female commanders they had heard about was in this room aswell, visibly pregnant. Her cheek was knocked off by Börje and she was knocked out but they opted against killing her (I'm not sure if that was even the most lenient thing to do). During the fight at least as many non-combat orcs had scuttled out of the room to it's sides.

After resting up for a short while they continued through one of the the two passages leading out of the room to it's sides finding a locked door and a corridor leading into a large dark hall filled with blinking red orchish eyes. They checked the room which seemed to be some kind of sleeping quarter filled with orchish women and children cowering behind each other, among them was also a human woman which seemed to live with the tribe. They didn't want to risk starting a massive fight so they left them and then ran out through a door by the entrance to the room and nearly fell down a narrow hewnout ledge looking out over a larger natural cavern. About five meters down there were a huge pile of excrement with mansized glowing red creatures digging into it.

They decided to explore the cavern at a later time and headed back to the entrance of this floor and through the other passage. When passing through the scene of the previous battle they noticed that there was a path of blood along the floor and into one of the rooms to the side they were going while the pregnant woman was missing. One door was chained and barred while another was merely closed so they decided to kick in the closed door upon which a boss-fight ensued. The orc leader was a berserking axe-thrower standing behind a waisthigh pile of stuff in a 4x6 m room which took a minor hit to the torso before hurting D'Jonna badly from one of his two thrown axes and crippled her speararm. Around the side of the pile another one of the female commanders, this one berserking aswell came charging with two katars, both of them were all but naked. Wår immediately started healing D'Jonna back up but she was going to experience another crippling hit to the same arm before the fight was over. She was almost cut off from the other two standing a meter or two further into the room when the commander tried to force Börje back with her Katars but he stood his ground and after a few rounds managed to inflict enough damage to her to make her drop and then moving on to take care of the leader with skull-hits from behind while D'Jonna was fighting for her life with Wår chainhealing her.

In the back of the room on a lavish bed the pregnant woman they'd beaten before was now in labour, unconscious but her whole body twitching and spasming while blood was soaking the sheets and floor below. This gruesome scene made a lasting impact on Börje who will not get close to pregnant women again for a long time. After taking care of her (now he thought it was the most humane thing to put her out of her misery) they proceeded to loot the room and their former adversaries that occupied it, finding jewellery, a bag of copper coins tied with a long rope, weapons and some fine wine and clothing. They didn't find any keys for the barred door though. While resting up in the leaders room they heard some shuffling outside due to an exceptional hearing-roll from Wår but were too weary to investigate.

After an hour or two of rest and meals they headed out of the room and immediately noticed that the locked and barred door had been opened, inside was a pen of some kind to one side and a big cage with three kobolds in it chirping and clicking exitedly when they saw the PC's. For once they went the bloodless path and just released the kobolds which crawled through a hole in the back of the pen and out of the lair. On one of the walls there were also signs that someone had been chained to it until recently. They headed back to the sleeping quarters where they now found the last of the three commanders, holding two semi-tamed gnolls in chains around their necks like dogs while two orchish brutes held the human woman they had spotted before aswell as the tortured orc at swordpoint. By using the woman as translator she agreed not to kill the hostages and also give them the keys for the rest of the rooms if they gave her safe passage out of the lair with what was left of the tribe.

In a small storage room they found a bowl of herbs, some foodstuffs and about 100 sq ft of oxhide. In the back of the other passage there was another prisoncell, this one with three hobgoblins, a goblin and a barbarian inside it. After clearing the lair for loot they had one last surprise. Back in the camp Börjes Allies were missing!

A nice set of sessions in all, the largest amount of loot money-wise this far. XP was three each I think plus XP for loot which we didn't have time to calculate during session but it will render about 2-3 additional XP each. MVP was for Wår which really made the difference in the bossfight with his healing, keeping D'Jonna from falling over which definately could've ended the fight on a sour note.

Laws of the dungeon: Light and Darkness

A big part of GURPS DF and the tradition that it tries to emulate is the dungeon, it's even in the name of the product. A dungeon implies cramped, dark and creepy spaces, often situated below ground.

This means a lot of the story of a DF game (and of course the fighting) will take place in various degrees of darkness, and also that a lot of the monsters and humanoids that you meet there will be adapted to that darkness (and to varying degrees the PC's as well).

Me and my players have grappled with the rules for darkness penalties for a while, not satisfied neither with the way it's written in the Basic Set nor the DF-specific rules. For me as a GM it comes down to letting dungeon-dwellers with appropriate advantages enjoy an edge in their natural habitat compared to surface-living PC's unless the PC's find creative ways to mitigate that edge and maybe even turn it in their favor.

Dungeon rooms are rarely fully illuminated due to their inhabitants relying on various levels of Night Vision, Dark Vision or Infravision. So it's up to the PC's to illuminate them. This is what basic equipment the PC's have a their disposal:

• Helmet Lamp, Shield Lamp - 5 yard Beam
• Bull's Eye Lantern, Light Jet - 10 yard Beam
• Torch, Lantern or Flaming Weapon - 2 yard Semi-Circle
• Continual Light Stone or Glow Vial around neck - 1-3 yard Half Circle depending on strength of spell or amount of pills in vial
• Sunlight spell - Area as big as the caster decides
• Alchemist's Fire - size of fire +2 yards Circle 

And this is the rule I'm proposing: Give all dungeon rooms a darkness score ranging from -3 (torches or strong candles spread out all across the room or corridor providing passable back-lighting) to -10 (total darkness). On each attack (or other action based on vision) that penalty is used if the players haven't got extra light-sources affecting the target of their action. For the first light-source used the penalty will be lowered to -3. For each additional light-source or if the darkness score of the room already is set at -3 the penalty will be lowered by an additional point. So a total of four different sources of light is needed to completely mitigate darkness-penalties in a room that has no proper back-lighting to begin with.

Example: A knight and a barbarian is standing in the front row of a fight in a corridor with a darkness-score of -7 (candlelight along the walls), the knight has a helmet lamp and a continual light stone around his neck, the barbarians two-handed sword is enchanted with flaming weapon. Behind them a torchbearer is standing with a torch held up. This will negate the darkness-penalty for the knight (four light sources), the barbarian attacks the same enemy  from the side it will be a -1 to hit (three light sources: flaming weapon, continual light and torch). A target one hex behind the line of scrimmage will be at -2 to hit since the torch only affects a two yards radius.

Rule add-on for dazzle and light blindness: Just as easy as it is to be blinded by darkness it is to be blindness by sudden flashes of light when your eyes have adapted to darkness. Any light-source of at least 2 yards that is present in a hex between an attacker and his target or a beam of light hitting the front side of an attacker will give the attacker -2 to hit. A sudden flash of light can also cause Dazzle. Roll against HT with -2 for a beam of light, -4 for sunlight spell, -6 for Alchemist's Fire. On a failure you are dazzled for -4 to vision-rolls until end of combat. On a critical failure you are blinded for seconds equal to margin of failure then dazzled.

Anyone with Infravision is only susceptible to the negative effects of light-sources also emitting intense heat like a torch, flaming weapon and Alchemists Fire.

References: DFRPG Exploits p.19 "Light Sources", Gurps Tactical Shooting p.18 "Shooting in Darkness"

Post-Session Report: KotB Session 07

We played a short session last week but it was mostly bookkeeping and travelling to the Caves to nothing to write home about really. The one we played today was much more interesting.

* A group of orcs in a guard tower claimed to be "good orcs, peaceful orcs" after surrendering and was listened upon in the very last minute (a lucky dodge prevented the last conscious one from getting his head smashed in before D'Joan decided to give orcish diplomacy a go)

* A surprisingly eloquent orchish leader desperate for help with cleansing his former lair of a rival tribe, aswell as rescuing of one of his best men from the "evil orcs, despicable orcs".

* What looked like an easy surprise-attack on a couple of orc guards turned into a drawn out battle when the orcs managed to sound the gong in the last possible moment.

* Some interesting stuff happened during the fight like a dying gnoll rolling around the floor on fire, an orcish eye was pierced neatly and an orc who managed to keep his leg grapple on D'Joan for almost the whole fight, for her complete annoyance. One of the Knights allies was also 1 dmg from getting his leg decapitated, instead tearing his artery. There was much blood.

All in all a very fun evening. At last it seems like we're starting to get the hang of the combat-system (me included). There were some rules-checkups during the fight (like if you needed to tie or win an ST-contest to Break Free) but my impression was that they were pretty few and far between.

Session 05: The beating of the Hobgoblins

Date: 2018-09-18

Players:
D'Joan - Amazon Warrior (Barbarian Template)
Boerge the Beef - Human Thug (Knight Template) - 259p
 - Sture the Stone (Guard)
 - Kent the Ball (Torchbearer)
Father Wör - Human Priest of the Lord of Light (Cleric Template)
Honest Ernst - Human Ranger (Scout Template) - 256p

This game started off where sessions #3 and #4 had ended, at their camp set up a few hundred yards away from the Caves of Chaos with the injured and poisoned D'Joan and Ernst meeting up with Boerge and his allies and Father War. Amore were nowhere to be seen. The informed each other of their respective adventures and D'Joan introduced herself to the party and was welcomed into the group with some lay on hands by Father War.

After hearing about the Hobgoblin lair from the other party members D'Joan was certain that was the one that the Hermit had wanted them to clear and the others were pretty keen on exploring that one some more aswell. Boerge in his usual style suggested they would immediately walk down the slope to enter but D'Joan convinced him to get some time to scout the area since she hadn't seen it before they took to action. Said and done, she noticed nothing new apart from what the group had already seen before. Then they sent Ernst forward to scout and then, if the coast is clear, Bird Call for them to walk around the slope to enter the old strip mine from the roadside to avoid the risk of falling or alerting groups hanging out around the other entrances on the south side.

They managed to enter the same entrance again and saw the same thin rope hanging by the ceiling across the cave as last time. They figured it must be an alarm for the Hobgoblins to alert the sleeping bear they saw a few sessions ago so the set Ernst on disarming it with a DX-based Traps and succeeded (they didn't hear any bells ringing when he did anyways and no bear came charging. They decided again to leave the bear and go for the Hobgoblin door again. On the way there, Boerge critted his Vision to spot a fishline ankle high a few yards before they reached the door. Ernst disarmed this one aswell without setting it off. When they arrived at the door it had a new sign on it: "Closet for Ranovation". D'Joan wanted to break down the door but realized that it would probably be to sturdy, even for her without any special tools available. Boerge used the door clapper instead to see if someone would open anyways. By the second try they noticed that the rope that was hanging by the ceiling started moving but nothing more happened. Now they got the idea to start sounding like they were attacked by the bear to maybe lure the Hobgoblins out. Both D'Joan and Ernst used Animal Sounds to sound like an angry bear while everyone made shouts and sounds of battle before turning quiet. A few seconds later the door slowly opened....

D'Joan was ready to pull the door open as soon as it started moving and the battle was on. Boerge charged ahead and instantly knocked the one opening the door to the ground with his patented Flail to Jaw-move. D'Joan had to move around the open door which slowed her progress down. Ernst had some trouble finding a clean target in the narrow corridor (at least they are now 2 yards wide and not 1 as they were before I realized every square on the map is 2x2 yards and not 1x1) but managed to shoot another one in the face anyways. Two crossbowmen standing further down the corridor also waited to get clean shots which happened when Boerge felled another one of their comrades and D'Joan decided to close in on them. One bolt missed and the other one hit Boerges shield. Then they turned and ran down the corridor but only one of them managed to escape, the other getting an arrow in the back. Boerge forgot to mention to D'Joan what was beyond the turn in the corridor last time they were here (2 hobgoblins behind a table with ready crossbows). They only managed to anger D'Joan though who critted her Forced Entry to not only break the table but in the same move managed to use it to bash at the two Hobgoblins behind it, knocking them out in a pile of splinters.

After a short round of looting which only bagged them a few weapons and a couple of coins they opened another door and Boerge charged in. Inside was four battle-ready Hobgoblins ready for ambush. One managed to impale his right buttcheek with a Halberd, creating a nasty wound before he and D'Joan managed to turn the fight in their favor. Neither Ernst nor Wör had any LoS on the opponents through the door and didn't feel risking running into the room. Instead two additional Hobgoblins charged in from behind. One got instantly arrowed in the face by Ernst but the other one reached them. The Fearless torchbearer Kent decided to get in the way and took a nasty wound, knocking him out cold before Ernst and Wör could finish the other one. After Wör had tended to Boerges butt and Kent's nasty wound they Searched the room. Boerge critfailed and accidentally opened and entered another door with Hobgoblins behind it, he quickly closed it while getting hit at to give his companions some time to prepare. They waited for a another few seconds without acting only to get attacked from behind, through the door from which they entered the room. With the last two Hobgoblin guards were a leader in plate which didn't pose much trouble in the end, his main-gauche was useless against Boerges flail and his Longsword unable to avoid Boerges blocking. When entering the room from which he came they encountered three Hobgoblin women huddled in a bed looking scared. They decided to leave them after checking them for loot (and finding one gold coin on one of them). In a pile of firewood they found a nice-looking wand. On the way out they took another haul from the armoury they found the last time they entered the hobgoblin lair.

XP was 3 for loot, 1 for exploration and another one for first leader kill! MVP went to D'Joan for nice combat tactics.

Actual Play: Gurps DF over Roll20

Yesterday I participated in a Gurps DF-game over Roll20 for the first time (it was actually my first time as a player playing Gurps DF aswell) and it was great fun. I ended up getting a character handed to me from the GM which was interesting and it happened to coincide pretty well with my ideas about what character I wanted to play anyways. I will try to write a proper session recap if I have time and I hope I will have time to throw my gemstone worshipping Dwarf Felicia into the fray again in the next couple of weeks.

Post-session report: Session 05

We had a short session yesterday but it was very intense in that it started at the caves which meant there was fighting pretty much from the start to the end. These are some of the things that happened:

* Some newly set traps were disarmed

* The Hobgoblins were fooled yet again, this time they didn't want company but the PC's tricked them into opening the door.

* Three consecutive fights with hobgoblins ending with a fight with the chieftain of the clan. This gung ho attitude could've spelled trouble for them but they were fine this time with only minor injuries which could be healed by the cleric.

* They found a secret entrance into the armoury and looted what was left of it.

Session 04: A trek through the Wicked Woods

Date: 2018-09-02

Attending:
Honest Ernst, Scout, 256 points
Warrior Princess D'Joan, Amazon (Barbarian template), 250 points

With the rest of the party already gone to the Caves, it was Ernst job to find out what the elf meant with his mysterious message about the man in the forest and then try to find him. Ernst is not a man used to socializing but after forcing himself to ask a few of the hunters camped outside the city about the forest man it was clear that it was a hermit living deep in the forest. Ernst tried to find someone to follow him there or at least show him the way but everyone just kept telling him he was crazy for even contemplating finding him, the Hermit was a mad and dangerous man and hated everyone apparently. At last he found a newly arrived woman who was huge and carried a spear who was willing to tag along. She had heard that he might have some information about an ancient artifact lost by her tribe centuries ago.

D'Joan made some inquiries on her own, earning the trust of a local fisherwoman and although she failed to convince her to guide them she was told to meet with Eric, a leader of one of the hunter families. He told them he didn't know the exact location of the Hermit's lair but that it was probably close to an old cabin about a days hike north used by him and his comrades before the territory was taken over by the Hermit. He marked the site of the cabin on their map and told them that if they managed to find it he would appreciate it if they brought him an old bow that he had left there when they were forced them to abandon it.

After finding out where to go they decided to head off right away. They followed the edge of the forest for a half day while the rain was pouring down. Just when they where about to head into the forest they noticed a wild boar poking around inside a shrubbery, they considered slaying it but with no pressing need for food and having heard that the Hermit doesn't like hunters or people hurting animals they opted against hunting this time and let it be. Inside the forest they were quickly confronted with the dangers of hiking in the wilderness. A big tree trunk fell on top of them but both managing a Dodge. D'Joan tried to determine the reason for the tree falling, critfailing her Naturalist-roll convinced her it was put there on purpose by someone they that knew they were heading this way. That Eric guy sure seemed conspicously nice to her, being used to scorn from humans more "civilized" than her.

A few hours later they noticed they were being followed by a curious pack of wolves. After assuring themselves they were not dealing with the dire kind of wolf or that they were not particularly hungry D'Joan stopped to let them have a sniff and rolled a 16 on her reaction roll (with +1 from animal friend) which ended the encounter in a pile of cuddling and the wolves following them for another hour or so. Ernst deftly managed to raid a bees nest of some honey using Survival before setting up camp. The heavy rains during the day had slowed them down and they decided to not press it toward the cabin. Nothing particular happened during the night and in the morning they spotted the cabin after an hours hike as expected.

From afar they could see flying creatures heading into and out of the loft of the cabin. They started sneaking forward carefully to investigate further but when they were about 20 meters from the clearing where the cabin was a mountain lion jumped out in front of them, bared teeth and growling, between them and the cabin. They considered their options for a second but with D'Joan failing to read it's motivations they readied their weapons but was careful not to provoke it and started walking slowly backwards. When the mountain lion started advancing D'Joan made an Intimidation-roll as a last chance to make it stop it's advance before taking physical action and it worked! The mountain lion stopped and for a while there was a stand-off between them at about 20 yards distance. Then suddenly the puma changed posture, moved forward and started talking to them in common amidst growls and snarls.

The mountain lion introduced himself as Puck and told them that this was his territory. He said that he was the protector of the forest and warned them of hunting in these parts of the woods. He usually dealt with threats himself but if they were friendly as they said they were then they could show it by helping him with a beast his abilities didn't affect. It had moved into a cave about half a days walk east. The mountain lion was going to show them the way. After revealing the wanted information about the Caves the hermit told them that he promised to help them if they dealt with the Kobolds living there. Apparently they had been out hunting in his parts of the forest numerous times. As soon as they set off the weather took a turn for the worse and now it was pouring down. The RP's were more than a little skeptical of the talking puma but it held it's distance until it sensed blood at about the same time as Ernst spotted an injured hunter huddled in a tree. Before passing out he told them his name was Rodrick and that he had been attacked by a horrible monster, nothing he had ever seen the likes of before and begged them to help him get back to town. He was then given an ok round of First Aid (ok in the PC's minds anyway, Ernst basically tied a bandage around the leg, effectively cutting the blood supply which stopped the bleeding). They had a little argument about what to do with him but in the end D'Joan brought him along on her back. 

After a short while more they started seeing signs of spiderweb in the surrounding trees but this time Ernst combined Overconfidence and Stubbornness got the best of him and he decided they might aswell Sneak through it to make it to the cave of the beast before nightfall. Said and done, they both failed their rolls and before they knew it three spiderlings were crawling out of a hole in the ground and were all over them, twice injecting poison into D'Joans left arm, paralyzing it (one critfailed defence roll and one missed all out attack). One of them bit into Ernst leg aswell and fell just one point of tox short of paralyzing that aswell. A paralyzed leg would've severly cut their mobility for days since they had no means of quick healing available. When they had finished off the spiders they quickly pondered crawling into the lair but were content with marking the position on the map and maybe deal with it later. After getting away from the spiders nest they bandaged each other (D'Joan getting double HP back which meant she was in positive territory again at least, it also means using the double amount of bandage) before continuing. Their hurried exit also robbed them of the chance to gather some spiderweb or extracting some poison from the now dead spiderlings. They also realized that they had left the hunter by the spiders nest but left him to his fate (he was probably partly eaten by the puma already but they were not sure).

The paralyzed arm (and Reeling status) of the Amazon aswell as the heavy rain meant they had to wait another night before they found the Cave of the Beast. Luckily they were not disturbed during the night and could make a quick plan before springing to action. The mountain lions intention was very much to stay out of the fight so they decided to approach it head on, luring it out of the cave and toward the Amazon while Ernst stood above the cave entrance shooting it in the back after it was out in the open. It wasn't hard to rouse it and after it came out they immediately realized it was an owlbear. D'Joan threw a harpoon at it from about 20 yards distance but missed and Ernst got two or three arrows in it before it had reached the Amazon in front of it, it didn't even take notice of the arrows coming from behind. It tried to slam D'Joan to the ground but missed and ran passed and had to turn around. Meanwhile D'Joan got a hit or two in but that didn't bother it either. Only now they realized that the Owlbear was Undead and arrows was pretty much useless against it. D'Joan retreated back toward the cave now, aware that one hit from the owlbear would most likely get her back to negative HP (she presently has no DR, natural or otherwise). Luckily for her, the Owlbear decided to go for the grapple, successfully grabbing D'Joan with it's front paws but then failing the takedown which most likely would've meant the end of the proud Amazon, instead losing it's grip. They still had no clue really what was effective against it and now Ernst had to shoot through D'Joan's hex to hit the owlbear, almost hitting the Amazon in the back once. Only in the 7th or 8th round D'Joan managed to get a big hit in, crippling the owlbears back foot, making it almost immobile but only after herself getting hit in the torso, failing her HT-roll and falling unconscious. The same turn Ernst finally decided to try his cutting arrows which finished the owlbear off with another big hit, cutting off one of it's front legs before it had a chance to start biting into D'Joan with it's beak.

While D'Joan came to again Ernst scouted the cave, found an Owlbear cub (it was not undead) which he killed in cold blood to skin, also finding a useable bow and a few coins but no proper hoard. Then he dragged the huge barbarian into the cave for rest and bandaging while marinating owlbear meat in honey to feast on. When the Amazon came to he told her it was already dead when he found it but that the meat was good, she was in no position to question any of it. They waited for the rest of the day in the cave, sent the mountain lion back to his master with the news of the slain beast before heading bruised but not beaten towards the Caves of Chaos to hopefully meet up with a Healer there.

XP was one each for exploration and another one for awesome non-fighting resolutions to a lot of the problems they faced in the forest. D'Joan got MVP for being the proxy to alot of those resolutions.

Quick review: Hall of Judgement

A couple of months ago I ordered my first ever PoD-book, this is my first kickstarter-backing! My copy of Hall of Judgement arrived in the mail a couple of days ago and I must say it looks pretty solid.

I've only had time to have a glance at it this far but I can tell right now that I will at least use some of the creatures in the books extensive monster directory in my current DF campaign. The adventure as such might get baked into my campaign or played as a one-shot later on, depending on where my players want to take things.

The only thing I have a little trouble with is the authors view of norse mythology baked in with the classic fantasy tropes.  For me "nordic fantasy" has always been John Bauer's Trolls (see picture below) coupled with the dire animals like the Fenris Wolf or the world encompassing Jormungandr and gods that walk among men to test or challenge them on a whim or just to pull a prank or two. So if I play it I will probably not play it as a norse mythology kinda thing but rather a barbarians in the frozen wastes kinda environment.

Writer's Dodge: One room a day keeps the doctor away

Before finally deciding to give it a go, I had been pondering a GURPS Fantasy campaign for a long time but it was Peter Dell'Orto's very amusing session reports on playing the Keep on the Borderlands with GURPS Dungeon Fantasy-rules that both introduced me to GURPS DF and made me kick off my own campaign.

My scope widened (as it usually does) after having read KotB to first redrawing the dungeon map into four floors, removing one or two sections that I didn't think fit very well into the feel of my setting, converting the monsters to GURPS stats, converting the loot and now I'm in the process of converting the actual room key descriptions using Justin Alexanders method in his The Art of the Key-series.

To keep the text flowing I'm trying to write up one room each day, if I feel I have more time after that I can use it to edit an old room or write notes on the next few. Right now I'm about ten rooms into a dungeon with approx. 60 keyed rooms so we'll see in about two months time if I'm finished or not...

Laws of the Dungeon: Alternative swing damage

After reading this old post about reducing swing damage to make for less deadly hand to hand combat aswell as more viable thrusting weapon options and less need for armour in the DR 10-15 range for tanks to not get one-shotted by big guys I've been thinking alot about introducing them in my game as a houserule. At first I though it was going to be a lot of work but then I found out it is already included in Gurps Character Sheet as an option which is awesome. Now I only need to explain the change to the players and adjust their Character Sheets to account for the cheaper ST-increases.

Said and done, it was less work than I first thought, now it only needs some playtesting to see if it makes the cut as a new houserule for future fantasy scenarios and campaigns aswell.

Laws of the Dungeon: Wealth in DFRPG

The new player who is joining my game (a Barbarian) will start off with the disadvantage Wealth: Struggling (-10p). Noone has chosen a wealthlevel thus far so now I'm thinking how to make it impact the game. Basically my approach is that a players "loot xp" gained is based upon what that player is selling (counting base sale value). This means that a player with Wealthy could sell everything to score the party some extra coin but it would also mean that player will get all the xp for that loot. For Struggling players this means that the party will lose some coin total if that player is to gain the same amount of xp from loot as the others.

ACT: Chainmail

My second entry in my series of Armour Customization Tables, today focusing on Chainmail and Elven Chainmail.

Chainmail

Chainmail is a flexible weave of riveted links. It's made by linking the individual links together in a strong weave that covers parts of or your whole body. It's very timeconsuming which means that pretty much anyone with enough time and riveted links on their hands can make a passable piece of chainmail. The metal quality needed to make wire is very low aswell, making the cost of materials a fraction of the cost of labour unless you want to make it out of Mithril which I will return to in a later post.

Since chainmail is made out of thousands of tiny links it is very easy to repair and maintain, you simply replace broken or damaged links with new ones as needed, this also means that it's not very effective at stopping blunt force and is almost always used with cloth or leather padding underneath.

Availability

Chainmail of regular quality is generally available off the shelf as long as there isn't active conflict in the area where available armour would quickly become requisitioned by the military, used mail armour could reasonably be found anywhere though. Chainmail of fine quality requires Apprentice-level (Armorer 9+) skill to make and usually needs to be commissioned, breaking apart a regular quality mail and fitting it to the wearer takes a quarter the listed time. Very fine quality chainmail requires Journeyman (Armorer 12+) skill and always needs to be commissioned. Linking mail counts as routine work so up to six armorers can work together, effectively dividing time consumtion by six.

 

Elven Mail

Chainmail made by elven armorers use the same materials and takes as long time as regular chainmail but are more resistant to blunt force. Whether it is a special technique used to make it or if magic is involved in the process is lost to armorers outside the elven communes. Elven mail-makers are usually resticted to making regular mail until they reach a higher skill-level which means that fine elven mail requires Journeyman skill(Armorer 12+) and very fine requires expert skill(Armorer 16+). Expert Elven Armorers can also start making Elven Mithil Mail but that will be covered in a later post.

Availability

A PC's ability to buy Elven Armour is resticted not only by the availability of Elven Armourers of high enough skill but also his standing among the elves. Any PC without the "Elven Gear"-perk will have to add 10% to the price of Elven Mail. If the party is not on friendly terms with the community in with the armorer resides they might be barred completely from commissioning Elven Mail.

			Chainmail
			Regular Mail		Elven Mail
Bulk		Work Qual	Wt (lbs)	Cost	Cost	Work (h)
Light Flexible	DR 3	Regular	27,0	$ 2 352	$ 3 051	891
		Fine	21,6	$ 4 257	$ 5 681	713
		Very Fine	18,9	$ 10 794	$ 14 610	624
Medium Flexible	DR 4	Regular	34,0	$ 2 961	$ 3 842	1122
		Fine	27,2	$ 5 361	$ 7 154	898
		Very Fine	23,8	$ 13 592	$ 18 397	785
Heavy Flexible	DR 5	Regular	41,0	$ 3 571	$ 4 633	1353
		Fine	32,8	$ 6 465	$ 8 626	1082
		Very Fine	28,7	$ 16 391	$ 22 185	947
		Traits	DR -2 vs cr
		Routine work	Up to six armourers of high enough skill can work on the armour in tandem, dividing the work hours among them

Play Session 03, KotB 03: A dark encounter

This was also a little shorter session and quite heavy on information gathering.

Boerge the Beef, Human Thug, 257 points
 - Sture the Stone, Human Guard, 63 points
 - Benny the Bee, Human Weapon Caddie, 63 points
Amore son of Casanova, Human Duelist, 254 points
Father War, Human Cleric, 253 points

We started off in town with a short recap of what happened to Father War while the others were away trying to book a table at the hobgoblin restaurant. There had been a festival to the god of light in town (it was real world Easter during last session) and that was the reason he couldn't join the party to the last delve but had to attend some ceremonies instead. He also was a bit sick from being bitten by rabid rats so there was a wierd episode where he was holding mass for the people of Northern Gate, reciting a verse of pure inspiration while having a high fever, swaying the crowd to an almost exstatic state and then suddenly waking up in his bed in the chapel: cold, sweaty and feverish.

After they had sold the loot Sture was immediately off with his share to do some gambling, returning after a day or two asking for more but Boerge was intent on keeping half of his share for him as a future big payment which he sulkingly accepted.
The party used some holy scrying to really make sure that the ornate platearmour that they found during last session really was the commanders (they're 99% sure), then they had a fairly long argument about what to do with it and decided to keep it in the pawnshop/bank in a sack for the time being, trying to get a better deal on returning it (the commander hadn't promised them anything yet beside his gratefulness).
The day after giving the exotic-looking chainmail to the beggar-elf, a mystical message was left for Ernst which urged him to seek out the "old man of the forest" for answers to what's lurking in the Caves.
Then they were once again called up to the commander, he wanted an update on how they were doing, he had heard the rumors running around the tavern that they had returned from the caves with a cart full of loot. They made a fairly bad work of avoiding to arouse suspicion of the above mentioned plot (none of them are much of the talking type) but the commander didn't pressure them, he actually even offered 20 gold coins for returning the armour fast (he really needs it for a banquet he's holding in two weeks times). He also told them his guards had captured an orc in the woods that the PC's were free to question if they liked, but sadly the bloodythirsty, orc-hating Boerge just saw this as an opportunity to get some targetpractice with his flail so no new information was gained (none of them are the interrogating types either).
Before heading back towards the caves Amore was presented with a book by a shady-looking woman outside the tavern which he after some haggling decided to buy. It was magically sealed but Father War managed to temporarily dispel the magic. It was a diary of some kind from an inhabitant of the Caves, it's last entry was a few weeks old and said that the writer "Was heading back to the academy for further studies of the obtained items" with a reminder "to bring more jewellery for trading next time" before the dispel magic expired and the book slammed shut, nearly trapping War's fingers within.

Now off to the dungeon again, this time intent on taking care of the cursed ground problem on the way there. When they arrived on dusk the first day a large treetrunk had grown up in the center of the ash-colored piece of earth, without leaves and pitch black as if it had burned. When they walked closer they saw a body, charred and blackened by soot, impaled on a branch with arms held out in front of it, palms toward the sky. Father War fainted while the others attention was drawn to a ravens croak behind them, on the edge of the cursed area. Boerge didn't wait for it to react but started unleashing maces upon it while it transformed into a human shape, hitting the semi-translucent shape over the leg while it materialized but then stopping when it held up it's hand in front. The shape was of an old woman wrapped in dark robes, urging them not to go near the Caves because of the unspeakable evils within before disbanding into a pack of ravens shooting for the sky. At the same time they felt the ground under their feet move and hands started grabbing them from beneath as they had to drag the unconscious cleric out of the cursed ground while fending of two undead gnolls charging them. After taking care of them they waited for Father War to come to and decided to exorcise the ground which made the tree and body dissolve and both it and the ground peel of and take to the sky like the remains of a burned out book meeting a gust of wind.

When arriving near the caves, they did their usual routine of failing strategy and perception rolls and just headed straight for the goblin-entrance again, this time with the cleric falling behind and tripping as they ran down the hill, he hurt his leg but quickly healed himself and continued while the gnoll-camp started preparing to give chase on the lone prey but in the end they all made it safely into the caves. They immediately noticed a poorly concealed line of rope hanging across the roof of the entrance cavern, from the hobgoblin entrance to where they spotted the bear during last session but decided to let it be for now. They continued down the middle opening instead towards where the goblins came out of and found a room to the side filled with sawdust and (by goblin standards) fine quality carpenters tools lying about but nothing of value apart from that. They heard some shuffling of feet and following it found a staircase hewn out of the rock further down the main cavern. To keep a little of the element of surprise they decided to charge and met up with about six goblins preparing for battle in the first room down the stairs. Some nice acrobatics and sword-skill from Amore while Boerge was doing his trademark jaw-shot routine with his flail made the goblins a fairly easy work, with goblin spears and swords managed to get one or two hits in but only minor damage was made and easily healed up.


We decided to start next session outside the dungeon to keep the game moving. We're all still pretty new on the combat-rules (especially my players) so I think they're fine with things moving relatively slow from the start. 1 xp was awarded for exploration and MVP went to Boerge for his attempt to pry more money out of the commander's armour quest.

Play Session 02, KotB 02: A visit to the Hobgoblin restaurant

After finally finding a date which most of my players could attend they set off for another delve, this time scheduled for a whole day instead of just a half like last time.

Boerge the Beef, Human Thug, 253 points
 - Sture the Stone, Human Guard, 62 points
 - Benny the Bee, Human Weapon Caddie, 62 points
Amore son of Casanova, Human Duelist, 250 points
Honest Ernst, Human Ranger, 253 points

First off, I took a moment or two to let Amore account for his actions during the week that had passed since the rest of the party last saw him (he missed the first session so I thought I'd give him a chance to present himself while the other two were occupied with spending the XP they recieved last session). While the rest of the group gathered some minor quests and rumours in town and then set off to scout the caves he basically set off on a path of seduction, starting off with the tavernkeepers daughter. When she agreed to take him on a walk and show him the keep surroundings he snubbed her to spend the night with a warrior woman named Steira that he met on the caravan. On the next day he finally met with the keep commander like Boerge had done the day before and among other things promised him not to touch his daughter. Then he went to the travellers inn to look for Steira again but got the attention of the stableboy Godrick who after some flirting took take him for a romantic ride on one of the stables horses outside the castle. Amore was careful not to take it further though for the time being and kept his distance to all of them until the party came back.

When they were back from the first delve a week of rest was sorely needed for Ernst though who had hurt his arm in a brawl with some rats, after a few days he also got down with the sewer rot which was swiftly cured by Father War who in turn he got sick and could not follow the party out on their second delve. They gathered a few more more bits of information about the Caves but not much they didn't already know. When they left the first time the rain was pouring down and they quickly decided to go back, rest another day (paying another $20 upkeep each) to see if the weather was better the next day, it was! They decided to use the same campsite as they had done the last time but when Ernst scouted it out he was spotted by a couple of undead that seemed to be guarding the place. Not wanting to take any risks or get into any unneccessary fights they decided to set up camp a bit further down the road instead.

The next day they walked for another few hours, camouflaged their wagon about an hours march from the Caves and set Sture to guard it and then walked the last hour. Ernst failed his Observation-roll and saw nothing out of the ordinary down the slopes of the old stripmine. Boerge critfailed his Strategy-roll which resulted in them running straight down the slope to get to one of the south side entrances. Ernst fell on the way down but didn't hurt himself, a few surprised gnolls at another entrance about twenty yards away growled and stared with beady eyes at them as they ran by.

Inside the entrance a cavern opened up with further openings in all directions. In the mud covering the floor at the entrance to the cave footprints of small, humansized and big humanoids could be seen. From the left opening there was steps carved out in a slope leading downward, the party started down but turned around when they heard noice coming from the middle one, they also heard a snoring, growling sound from down the steps similar to the ones in the owlbear cave. Back in the entrance cavern they met a group of goblins on patrol which they made short work of: Boerge smashed a face in with his flail, Ernst pierced the throat of another with an arrow, a third one hacked down by a flurry of blows from Amores shortswords. The rest of the goblins broke and started fleeing, one of them got shot in the leg but two were heard running down a flight of stairs further inside the middle cave. Now the party went back to the steps they'd started down before they were interrupted, on their way down a sour odour was spreading and when they had Ernst peeking inside the opening at the end of the steps the only thing he noticed was the contour of a sleeping bear beside piles of tattered cloths and animal bones. They decided to let that particular cave be for the time being and headed back up towards the entrance.

Goblinfight starts, cave entrance is to the left.

Instead of following the fleeing goblins they noticed a skull of a humanoid hanging from the wall in the third opening which proved to be a passage with additional skulls leading to a robust door without a lock. On the door was a message written in broken common: "Welcom! We woud lav to hav you for diner.". The group failed to read this as anything else than an invitation to a restaurant, possibly even giving away the food for free and ensthusiastically knocked on the door and a wierd conversation ensued (Disadvantages such as No Sense of Humor, Honesty, Gullibility and Overconfidence doesn't help in these kinds of situations).

Throught the door a dark voice asked in passable common:
 - "Ha many?"
 - "Four"
 - "Av' you booked reservations?"
 - "No..."
 - "Am sorry, we only av' room fer two at the moment, you other wait outside."
 - "Okay"
 - "Wa' name shall I put you on?"
 - "Boerge"
 - "Mkay, come in, ba only two o' ya, okay?!"

A bar was lifted on the other side of the door and it was unlocked and a large hobgoblin opened and let Boerge and Benny in and barred the door behind them. Around this moment Boerge and Benny finally realized that it might be a trap and told the bouncer politely that they wanted to leave again, he refused and told them to move on in to the cloakroom to get their weapons and armour checked in. When Boerge tried to force himself out he shouted "Guards!" and another two hobgoblins with crossbows pointed at Benny showed up from the "cloakroom". Benny convinced Boerge it was useless to resist and they started giving away their weapons while commenting on the bad service of the establishment. Meanwhile Amore and Ernst heard the commotion from the other side of the door and knocked again, the bouncer unbarred and unlocked the door, inched it open and asked what all the fuzz was about. They asked if they could at least see the menu while waiting but he told them to wait for their turn and slammed the door shut but forgetting to lock and bar it. Ernst took a peek inside and now realized that Boerge and Benny were being taken captive and decided to engage the bouncer that had turned back to face Boerge.

The bouncer was taken out quick with two consecutive bodkin arrows in the back from point blank range while a disarmed Boerge took a bolt straight through the hand of his shield arm, crippling it and continuing through the chainmail into his abdomen, ouch! Before he had time to fight back he took another blow to the same hand from a dogslicer while Amore ran straight through the pack and made short work of the other crossbowman (first his three hits barely made a scratch, then we realized he'd forgot to add bonus damage to his shortswords from Weapon Master which resulted in an unconscious hobgoblin instead). The guard with the dogslicer held his ground well for a good five turns using a shield and incredibly good active defence rolls to enable two guards behind him throw a few spears, none finding a target though. When his shield finally broke he was put down and the fight ended with the crossbowman who shot Boerge begging for mercy but recieved none, his face was duly slammed in by Boerges flail.

Boerge put his shield back on and recieved some quick treatment on his hand from Ernst, Benny had to use Serendipidy to find a used first aid kit in the room since noone in the party had brought one. After inspecting another closeby door (it was locked), they started discussing just taking what was on the guards (which wasn't much more than their weapons basically, they had a few gold coins though) and leaving, I was nice and informed Boerge about his Forced Entry-skill which he made instant use of, forcing the weak door open and finding the Hobgoblin Armory, all of a sudden there was more loot than they could carry in one go in the form of weapons and armour that seemed to be pretty much all human-made, the prize item being the commanders lost Plate Mail! Just as everyone had entered the armoury the inspect the goodies they heard shuffling from further down the corridor, they just managed to get into formation again before another two hobgoblins came at them, they almost immediately drove them back though and when Boerge gave chase he was met with a volley of bolts coming from another guard room at the end of the corridor which he just managed to dodge before diving back into the corridor for safety.

Corridor in the center, barricaded, The fallen bouncer lies by the entrance to the left.
The PC's stand in the armoury with hobgoblins on guard on the upper right side

After that it was late and they decided to barricade the corridor and carry with them as much and as valuable loot as they could carry. They managed to salvage a total of three crossbows, three chainmail shirts which seemed a bit special though noone knew exactly what it was (all the players insisted it was probably mithril), the plate mail and a couple of swords of different kinds. Nothing much happened on the way back except that they went through the forest instead of on the road for the first day and Ernst failed a navigation-roll which made them spend almost a whole extra day getting back. Outside of town they once again met the sickly elf begging and threw him the copper coins they hadn't bothered counting. Inside town they sold all the weapons and one of the chainmails to the armourer who couldn't see that there was anything special with it. Amore asked if any of the other two fit him and one of them did (he has pretty much the same frame as who they were made for so I let it fit him on a five or six on 1d). When the beggar-elf was shown the last chainmail his eyes filled with tears and he explained that it is elf-made and was worn by one of his lost elf-companions when they tried their luck at the caves a few weeks before. He asked if he could keep it and the party first hesitated but then gave in to his teardraped elf-eyes and gave it to him.

Even though they didn't manage to salvage more than maybe one fourth of everything in the armoury the loot was still much better than last time, earning all PC's present three points each and another one from exploring. I also rewarded another point to Ernst player for her roleplaying in getting past the hobgoblin entrance which was a bit wierd but great fun. MVP was also rewarded to Ernst player.

ACT: Mundane & Exotic Leather Armour

My first article in my series of Armour Customization Tables (ACT) begins with the kind of armour that any aspiring delver should look to for protection before she has looted her first dragon's hoard or troll's bounty and can look to more expensive gear: The Leather Armour. Mundane leather is the cheapest armour available and it is also usually available off the shelf unlike plate or mail armour which can take months to commission if your going for full body armour.

Example #1: Light Soft Leather Jerkin
DR 1 (0 vs pi, imp) Torso + arms to elbows (42%)
Cost $61, Wt 7,56lbs

Armour Types

Basically there are three types of armour:

Example #2: Medium Lamellar Leather Cuirass
DR 2 Chest + Abdomen (22%)
Cost $130, Wt 7,68 lbs

• Soft Leather Skins: flexible cured but not hardened leather or fur, basically leather clothing. Has a DR penalty of -2 to pi and imp but flexible means it can be worn under or over other kinds of armour.
• Hardened Leather: Cured leather skins handened and formed into plates. A little heavier than soft leather and isn't flexible but in return has no DR penalty. The hardening process makes it a little more expensive than soft leather aswell.
• Leather Scale or Lamell: Hardened Leather punched into scales or lamells and then riveted or laced to itself or to a leather backing. Takes a lot more time to make than Hardened Leather due to all the riveting or lacing but results in a slightly tougher(Lesser Wt / DR) piece of armour.

Even to the weight of the end product differs, all three types of armour uses the same amount of raw materials which equals Wt of soft leather of the same DR and leather quality.

The making of all types of mundane and exotic leather except very fine exotic leather count as artistic work which means that Work Hours are halved as long as there are at least two leatherworkers present.

Leather Qualities

There are also three different qualities of leather:

Example #3: Fine Medium Hardened Leather Chestplate
DR 2 Chest + Abdomen (22%)
Cost $147, Wt 6,82 lbs

• Mundane Leathers: Made from skins of Rabbit, Fox, Goat, Cow, Ox, Elk, Deer etc etc. Cheap and Regular quality armour made of mundane leathers is generally available off the shelves while an Apprentice (skill 9+) can make fine armour and a Journeyman (skill 12+) leatherworker will be able to make very fine quality. Price of cured mundane hides is $ 5 per lb.
• Exotic Leathers: Extra tough hides from exotic animals like wyvern, dire wolf, owlbear, giant ape, frost snake etc, it's up to the GM to draw the line between what counts as regular or exotic. Exotic hides could also possess small bonuses like +1 poison resistance for wyvern skin or +1 DR against cold for frost snake etc. Exotic leather is generally not available in cheap quality due to the cost of the material. At least one kind of Regular quality exotic armour is usually available off the shelves  (GM’s decision what kind of exotic game there is to be found in the surroundings) while a Regular (skill 12+) leatherworker can make fine armour and a Master (skill 16+) leatherworker will be able to make very fine quality.Price of cured exotic hides varies around $ 20 per lb depending on availability of hides in the area.
• Otherworldly Leathers: Skin or Scales of truly fantastic beings like demon skin, pegasus hide, astral tiger fur, mermaid scales, etc. On the high end we find hide and scale of dragons. These kinds of leathers always possess magical abilites on top of Damage Resistance (like DRx3 against fire for Dragonhide/scale). Otherworldly leathers will be elaborated in a later post.

			Soft Leather Hide
			Mundane Leather		Exotic Leather
Bulk	Protection	Description	Wt (lbs)	Cost	Wt (lbs)	Cost	Work (h)	Work Qual
Light Flexible	DR 1	Pelts from small animals or young medium sized ones	22,5	$ 96	16,9	-	52	Cheap
			18,0	$ 146	13,5	$ 381	67	Regular
			14,4	$ 278	10,8	$ 627	81	Fine
			12,6	$ 560	9,5	$ 831	88	Very Fine
Medium Flexible	DR 2	Pelts from medium sized animals or large young ones	38,8	$ 262	29,1	-	90	Cheap
			31,0	$ 328	23,3	$ 967	116	Regular
			24,8	$ 540	18,6	$ 1 329	139	Fine
			21,7	$ 1 019	16,3	$ 1 648	152	Very Fine
Heavy Flexible	DR 3	Pelts from Large animals	55,0	$ 646	41,3	-	128	Cheap
			44,0	$ 686	33,0	$ 2 252	164	Regular
			35,2	$ 943	26,4	$ 2 590	197	Fine
			30,8	$ 1 600	23,1	$ 2 955	215	Very Fine
		Traits	Basically clothes made of leather or fur. Can be worn under (or over) other kinds of armour. DR -2 vs pi, imp

Example #4: Fine Light Soft Leather Hood
DR 1 (0 vs pi, imp) Skull, Neck and Shoulders (16%)
Cost $44.5, Wt 2,3 lbs

Example #5: Heavy Soft Leather Jacket
DR 3 (1 vs imp, pi) Torso, Shoulder, Upper Arm (39%)
Cost $268 Wt 17,16lbs

			Hardened Leather Armor
			Mundane Leather		Exotic Leather
Bulk	Protection	Description	Wt (lbs)	Cost	Wt (lbs)	Cost	Work (h)	Work Qual
Light	DR 1	Pelts from small animals or young medium sized ones	28,1	$ 108	21,1	-	68	Cheap
			22,5	$ 176	16,9	$ 443	88	Regular
			18,0	$ 352	13,5	$ 775	105	Fine
			15,8	$ 722	11,8	$ 1 046	115	Very Fine
Medium	DR 2	Pelts from medium sized animals or large young ones	48,4	$ 282	36,3	-	118	Cheap
			38,8	$ 381	29,1	$ 1 073	151	Regular
			31,0	$ 667	23,3	$ 1 583	181	Fine
			27,1	$ 1 297	20,3	$ 2 019	198	Very Fine
Heavy	DR 3	Hardened Leather Sheets from Large animals	68,8	$ 676	51,6	-	167	Cheap
			55,0	$ 761	41,3	$ 2 403	214	Regular
			44,0	$ 1 123	33,0	$ 2 951	257	Fine
			38,5	$ 1 995	28,9	$ 3 482	281	Very Fine
		Traits	Hardening makes this type a little heavier and more timeconsuming (and thereby more expensive) to make than Soft Armor but has no DR penalties

Example #6: Very Fine Heavy Exotic Hardened Leather Chestpiece
with Shoulderpads, Vambraces & Tassets
DR 3 Torso, Arms except elbows and top of hand (52%)
Cost $1.811, Wt 15.0 lbs

Example #7: Fine Furlined Heavy Hardened Leather Tassets
DR 4 (3 vs pi, imp) Pelvis, Waist (12%)
Cost $168, Wt 7.0lbs

			Leather Scale
			Mundane Leather		Exotic Leather
Bulk	Protection	Description	Wt (lbs)	Cost	Wt (lbs)	Cost	Work (h)	Work Qual
Light	DR 1	Soft Scale or Lamellar Leather	25,3	$ 185	19,0	-	171	Cheap
			20,3	$ 388	15,2	$ 866	229	Regular
			16,2	$ 914	12,2	$ 1 900	293	Fine
			14,2	$ 2 336	10,6	$ 3 198	384	Very Fine
Medium	DR 2	Hardened Lamellar Leather (Laced) or Hardened Scale (Rivetted)	43,6	$ 330	32,7	-	246	Cheap
			34,9	$ 589	26,2	$ 1 410	315	Regular
			27,9	$ 1 227	20,9	$ 2 640	378	Fine
			24,4	$ 2 562	18,3	$ 3 633	413	Very Fine
Heavy	DR 3	Scale or lamell riveted or sewn (brigandine) to hardened leather armor	61,9	$ 485	46,4	-	279	Cheap
			49,5	$ 807	37,1	$ 2 053	391	Regular
			39,6	$ 1 517	29,7	$ 3 386	447	Fine
			34,7	$ 2 970	26,0	$ 4 371	469	Very Fine
		Traits	Scrap leather can be used for making scale lowers material cost. Rivetting or lacing is very timeconsuming but yields a lighter armour compared to sheets of hardened leather.

Example #8: Heavy Scale Cuirass
DR 3 Torso, Groin, part of shoulders (35%)
Cost $282, Wt 17.3lbs

Example #9: Fine Light Scale Sleeves
DR 1 Arms (18%)
Cost $165, Wt 2.92lbs