Game Night Extrordinarie and a Game Prop of Epicness

First off just look at this...

This is a kickass game prop made by my friend Dwayne, using Hurst molds.  Below the cemetery top are two levels of dungeons below.  Dwayne wrote an adventure specifically for this prop and wanted to playtest it.  So +Rob Conley and myself volunteered.  There are a lot of pictures and I encourage you to click on them to make them huger. 

First off we were using GURPS 4th edition, but I believe when Dwayne releases the adventure it will be for one of the d20 systems. 

So the intro goes something like this.  There is a sacred burial place called Sanctuary, Father Donavon is the caretaker, but no one has seen the little fellow in quite some time.  The Bishop asks us to see what happened.  I was playing a rogue type who was known only as The Hand.  I do the dirty work for the church.  And Rob played a mercenary type called Corvan. 

We get supplies for the five day journey.  Head out for a casual stroll.  On the third day we encounter a farmer and her daughter.  Corvan exchanges pleasantries with them.  I believe it went something like this.

"Hello strange, what news of the north?" ask Corvan.  Followed by an exceptionally poor reaction roll.

"Don't speak to me or my daughter."  The farmer muttered and hurried by.

"Fuck you.  And your daughter is uglier than a magpie."  Corvan added.  The magpie was not exactly what was said, but he did have a comment about how homely the daughter was.

Fast forward to the forth and a half day.  We come across a bloody battle scene, but there are no bodies.  Since neither of us has any skill to handle this situation and our goal is to check out Sanctuary.

We enter Sanctuary.  It is unnaturally quiet.  No birds.  No frogs.  Not even a good strip joint.  We climb the dirt ramp and check out the area.

We check out the crucified guy.  After some serious consideration and detective type work we figure out that this is in fact Father Donavon.  He's seen better days.  So I decide to check out his place to see if there are any valu....er clues.

We find this letter amongst the debris.  So we read it.  Reread it.  And reread it a few more times. 

What's this?  One of the crypts has a matching symbol.  Well shit, open it up.

Whoops.  Wight attack. 

Just liked this picture.  Spooky. 

When the wight was killed we found a grave with another symbol from the letter and began to dig.  Well, we attracted a few guests. 

I hid behind one of the crypts and moved around to the back while Corvan fought the skeletons with his bare hands.  I won't mention he kept dropping all his weapons.

With the skeletons defeated we do a little Walking Dead protection and use the crypt lids to block the entrance. 

This mausoleum had the third symbol on it.  In we go.  I want to also mention, all these crypts and coffins have removable lids.  So fricking cool.

Another angle of the scene.  We managed to collect the stuff and do the ritual.  The way opened for the dungeon below.  We lifted off the crypt to reveal the dungeon below.

 This is what the 1st dungeon level looks like under the cemetery.  Dwayne uses little strips of felt velcroed to create a fog of war.  Worked very well. 

A warning as we dare to enter. Tip: When there is a warning sign on the wall before you enter a dungeon, you might want to consider turning around.  Sometimes to signs can be your best friend.

But of course we barely spared the time to read the sign and ran in the first guardian.  The sign warned there would be three.

I'm not going to go into too much detail for some of these rooms just because Dwayne is planning on releasing it.  I'm minimizing the spoilers.  But this was one of the tests we encountered.  And we did very well.

Guardian two.  When playing GURPS, aiming for the face is always a good thing.

I may or may not have failed to detect a trap.

Another test.  I liked this one a lot.  Very cool.  After a few tried we figured it out.  Well, when I say we, I mean Corvan did.

Another test that we passed.  This is a very good and interesting test.  heh

The third guardian.  Okay, so since this was a playtest Dwayne allowed us to handwave the combat because we weren't going to win.  It is an adventure for 5th to 7th level characters and about 4 to 6 people in the party.  So we did not have the body count to be truly effective.

This was another very interesting test.  Corvan got himself killed.  He had it figured out, but then went and did exactly what he shouldn't have done.  My guy tried to drag him out of the room to safety...but...

This is what a TPK looks like.  I was able to drag Corvan out of the room only to step on a pressure plate that release a boulder trap.  SQUISH! 

Our PC spirits rising ever higher over the killing scene.   

But the GM wanted us to test out the last couple of rooms, so like most video games, we respawn and continue.

Level test.  Corvan figured this one out quickly.  I still didn't get it even after he solved it. 

And we find the entrance to the second level. 

The fog of war is in place for the third level, but that's where the adventure ends. 

It was cool to have a face-to-face game.  Love that.  We are going to try and make it a monthly thing.  This prop is incredible, Dwayne does amazing work.  I draw my little maps, but he is able to bring them to life.  It was a blast.