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• Sep 23, 2026

  Let's Read DFRPG Adventurers: Chapter 3, Races

  Yes, this book still uses the term “Races”, having been written a few years before other games finally started getting rid of it. That brings a symptom of the main problem I have with this chapter: the options presented here mostly follow the cliches presented in older editions of D&D. I imagine they chose this because it provided a good and familiar baseline in 2016-2017, but it does mean we have to deal with some of the annoying fantasy racism that later games made an effort to remove. The text actually does acknowledge some of that racism, though that acknoledgment is a bit impaired by the general tongue-in-cheek tone in which the super generic implied setting is presented.

  You see, many social traits in GURPS like Appearance and Social Stigma are relative. Who thinks the bard is hot, and who looks down on the barbarian’s foreign ways? When a GURPS GM builds a campaign setting from scratch, they’re asked to answer that question by providing a reference culture. That’s the dominant culture in the areas where the vast majority of the campaign takes place.

  This chapter does not describe this concept, but it does introduce us to a reference culture by repeatedly mentioning it in the text and template descriptions: that of Ordinary Townsfolk(TM).

  Ordinary Townsfolk are those people who live in Town under the rule of the King. They’re human, they very rarely leave Town, and they don’t have good opinions about things outside of their daily experience. In other words, they’re the opposite of “open-minded” and “cosmopolitan”. Ordinary Townsfolk recognize adventuring as a profession, but not a very respectable one. I guess that’s in part because delvers will accept “just about anyone”, since Social Stigmas don’t apply between PCs. Still, they’re happy to sell stuff to adventurers, who always have plenty of money to spend.

  The very first sentence in the actual text of the chapter does state that “race” means “species”, so let’s use that term from now on in this post. It goes on to say that many nonhuman intelligent species can be found in the world. A lot of them show up as the opposition, inhabiting dungeons and other dangerous places: orcs, ogres, trolls, and so on. Ordinary Townsfolk consider those monsters. There are other species they consider “people”, and whom monsters consider enemies. These you can find living in Town, and available as options for delver PCs.

  Next, the chapter introduces the concept of racial templates (henceforth species templates), which work a bit differently than the professional ones.

  Each template has a fixed cost, which must be paid using the discretionary points from your delver’s professional template. Every professional template, as we already saw, has a listed point amount for buying advantages and powers. They also have 7 points for optional secondary skills, and can gain an extra 5 from quirks. You can use these to pay for a species template, which does mean you’ll be spending less points on stuff related to your profession. Someone without a species template is assumed to be (mostly) human.

  The cost of a template is the total cost of all of its components.

  Template Components

  Every species template has stat modifiers, advantages, disadvantages, and might have features. The stat modifiers apply after you’ve adjusted your PC’s stats from their professional template, and modify both the current score and the usual maximums. For example, if you have ST+2, you can also buy your ST up to 22 and not just 20.

  Advantages and disadvantages are shared by all members of that species, whether because they’re part of its biology, because they’re part of its dominant culture or because they model the prejudices of Ordinary Townsfolk. Features are cosmetic details that don’t cost any points.

  This is my second problem with this chapter, flowing right from the first: I’m not really a fan of having “cultural” or personality traits be a mandatory part of a species template. As I mentioned in this old post of mine, I don’t want a bigoted asshole who says “all dwarves are greedy, stubborn bastards” to be right. Plus players just love playing exceptional or rebellious members of a species that don’t conform to the cliche, and I’d like that to be easy. The templates I tend to write for my own campaigns tend to be far more minimalist than these, without most attribute adjustments and with no mandatory mental traits.

  You write the components of your species template down in the appropriate sections, together with the ones from your profession, which I think it’s a big improvement over the way core GURPS does it (“just write the template and its total cost with your Advantages and remember its components with your brain”).

  PC Species

  These are our species templates. All of them cost 20 points except for Cat-Folk, which cost 40. As mentioned above, most of their descriptions are well-trod and sometimes unfortunate cliches, so please note that I’m paraphrasing the book here and not stating my own opinion (which you can find way up there in the introductory paragraphs).

  Anyway, here are the species:

  Cat-Folk refer to themselves as cat-boys or cat-girls depending on gender. They have human-shaped bodies covered in short fur, feline facial features, and prominent cat ears and tail. That gives us a look closer to that of the Khajit from Elder Scrolls than to the Mi’quote from Final Fantasy 14.

  Their claws and teeth are natural weapons, they can see really well in the dark, they have Catfall, and a bit of Temperature Tolerance from fur. Their disadvantages are also cliche cat traits: impulsive, lazy, and with a mild phobia of entering water.

  They’re compatible with human armor (the tail can be safely tucked in), and they can buy gauntlets and boots that expose their claws but still protect their hands and feet at no extra cost.

  Dwarves are pretty much what you’d expect. Short, sturdy, excellent night vision, really good at mining and at killing people with axes. Also greedy and stubborn.

  Elves represent “green” or “wood” elves with a hands-on approach to defending nature. They’re far more approachable than Those Other Elves, which are haughty, isolationist, and not statted up for PC use. Elves are a bit taller than humans, have the classical pointy ears, and these wood elves have bright green hair. Nothing unexpected in their traits here: they’re graceful, pretty, have innate Magery, are good at sneaking and shooting bows, and have a sense of duty to Nature.

  Half-Elves inherit elven grace, magical aptitude, and bright hair colors, but are a bit more robust thanks to their human parents. They have no duty to Nature, but suffer under the cliche where neither humans nor elves like them very much.

  Gnomes tend to follow the “tinker gnome” archetype in that they’re very good at mechanical skills in addition to being almost as sturdy and cave-adapted as dwarves. They’re also extremely curious, and are our first “small” species at SM -1.

  A bit of lore: there are rumors of “Hell Gnomes”, a tribe that went bad. Other Gnomes claim this term refers to actual demons, but don’t seem comfortable with the topic. I had something similar back when I GMed, a gnome cult who went around doing evil stuff and saying “Rawr, I’m a monster!”.

  Half-Ogre: The progeny of an ogre and an orc or human, half-ogres are smaller than their ogre parents and are just on this side of what Ordinary Townsfolk consider “people”. They’re very strong, tough, and fearless, but have an IQ penalty, are considered ugly, and bear a social stigma as “savages” due to their parentage.

  Half-Orcs: You can’t talk about half-orcs without talking about orcs, and the orcs in this game are subject to all of the old cliches. There’s a group of related species known as “Goblin-kin” whom Ordinary Townsfolk view as “borderline-civilized” brutes, and who discriminate among themselves on the basis of size and blood purity. Orcs are a part of this group: the medium-sized, “not-too-stupid” ones who bully the others.

  Half-orcs are “the product of generations of inbreeding among the offspring of orc rapine”. Yikes! This is about as bad as it was back in AD&D or D&D 3e, and it’s why it’s a good idea to modify or discard the implied setting.

  Anyway, half-orcs are as smart as humans but tougher, with better hearing and night vision. Some half-orcs are accepted by orcs and can be found among them. The ones who are rejected drift towards human settlements, where they suffer the same prejudices as half-ogres and often can only make a living as delvers.

  Halflings are so called because they have half the height of a human. This makes them tiny (SM -2) and weak compared to a human, but they’re very agile and very sneaky, in addition to being crack shots with a bow or sling. They’re also gluttonous and kleptomaniac. Unlike kender from Dragonlance, though, these halflings know what they’re naturally adept at thievery. The cliche halfling community here is not an idyllic pastoral village, but an organized crime family.

  Personal Impressions

  I don’t use most of this chapter in my games at all. I tend to go with versions of the species presented here that are free of mandatory psychological advantages and IQ penalties. My reference culture is also usually more cosmopolitan than the one here, which also removes Social Stigmas and the like.

  This does tend to increase template cost. I counteract that by also eliminating “small” attribute adjustments like a +1 to ST or DX. You can still say that the average member of this species is stronger or more agile than a human, of course, but PC delvers are the furthest thing from average. A starting barbarian is going to have ST 17 or a wizard IQ 15 no matter what species they are. If some of that is from a nonhuman physiology, the final effect and point cost is still the same.

• Sep 22, 2026

  Let's Play Hell's Rebels: Post-Adventure 01 Character Advancement

  Intro

  We’re officially done with Adventure 01. Its capstone dungeon is cleared and looted, and Barzilai has lost a large number of his loyal followers, including an important lieutenant. He also definitely knows someone out there is engaging in organized resistance against him.

  But for now, our heroes can sit back and spend the hard-earned points they got at the end of the last adventure. Everyone got 14 points, and some of them had been saving up even before. Everyone might be able to afford some big-ticket advancements!

  And not just that, between adventures is a very good time for our player (me) to stop and reassess our character builds, and “refactor” them if they aren’t working well or aren’t fun. And it’s also a very good time for our GM (also me) to maybe introduce some house rules that would have been potentially disruptive to implement mid-adventure.

  [GM] New House Rule Time!

  There’s a few rules I’d really like to try here. I’ve made posts about them all before, so I’m going to link them here.

  • Merging Weapon Skills
  • Merging Shield Skills
  • Merging Unarmed Combat Skills

  These is going to change our PC’s character sheets, and I even already planned out how this would happen recently, so what’s left to do here is apply those changes. Any points saved by the changes go into the unspent pile.

  [Player] Advancing our heroes

  We’ll go over them one by one in alphabetical order, and detailing both the refactorings and the advancement for each of them.

  Arcturus Pankrator, Knight of the Deep

  Our boy Art ends up with the following new combat skills from the new house rule:

  • Grappling (A) DX+5 {20} - 20
  • Knife (A) DX+1 {4} - 16
  • Unarmed Striking (A) DX+2 {8} - 17

  This frees up 4 points for him, meaning he has a total of 18 to spend. That’s not enough for Extra Attack or Unarmed Master, which are the big ticket items I’m after. He just got a pretty cool suit of armor so I’m betting that he won’t need any more DR from Tough Skin or other powers, either.

  So I think I’m just going to hold until I do get those 25 points, and then I’m getting Extra Attack 1.

  Jade Irinka, The Sixth Raven

  Jade’s Saber skill changes its name to Fencing and becomes a little more conceptually broad, but otherwise remains the same, as does her number of unspent points. However, she has 20 of those!

  There’s a lot of things I could do with this, but I think I’m going to be straightforward and get her 2 points of ST, bringing it up to 13. That lets her do a lot more damage with her backsword swings, potentially wear heavier armor, and gives her a tiny bit more HP.

  Jania Moonshadow, the Phantom Thief

  Jania has 17 points, and I think we’re way overdue for that third level of Spell-Thief Expertise for her. That’s 11 points, and it will make most of her spells hit that magic skill level of 15. The one exception is Great Haste, which remains at 14, but we can remedy that by spending 1 extra point.

  4 of the remaining 5 points to go buying Observation at 15, and the last one goes to buying the Weapon Channeling perk (first presented in this blog way back in 2016). This lets her use weapons enchanted with Staff, which is good because we want to replace her cane with a proper sword in the next post.

  Rosalia Savory, the Mysterious Satirist

  Rosalia’s Saber skill changes its name to Fencing, and before I spend her 14 free points I’d like to refactor her a little.

  Right now I’m setting her up to be good with guns because that’s what I had done in a previous solo game, but I don’t think I want to do that here after all. In the last delve she could only fire that gun once, and she missed. While there are several solutions to the rate-of-fire problem, I think I’m going to reserve that for Jade, and go in a different direction with Rosalia. I’m going to make her an archer instead.

  So if we remove her Off-Hand Weapon Training perk and her Gunslinger (One-Handed Guns) advantage, we free up 16 points. Her Guns (Pistol) skill at 16 becomes Bow at 15. We’re left with 30 free points. 20 of those go towards Heroic Archer, 4 go to bringing Bow back to 16. 3 of the remaining 6 points go to increasing Singing to 18. We’ll keep the other 3 in reserve for now.

  Urist Stortebeker, The Last Archivist

  The skill changes don’t affect Urist’s skills in any way that needs renaming or rewriting. I’ll spend 4 points to increase his Axe/Mace to 15, and another 4 to increase Shield. The remaining 6 go to buy 2 points of Energy Reserve.

  Coming up next!

  We have $38K in our party’s treasury, so I think they deserve some equipment upgrades.

• Sep 21, 2026

  Let's Read DFRPG Adventurers: Wizard

  The descriptive text on the book paints a picture of the wizard as someone who’s very smug about being smart and about wielding magic that doesn’t rely on fickle supernatural entities. So at least on the fiction front, it’s business as usual.

  They do have plenty to be smug about. Their spell list includes everything that’s not specifically part of the cleric’s or druid’s central niches, and there are many situations that can only be solved with the help of a wizard. However, “an entire fight” usually isn’t one of them, as we’ll see below.

  Wizards become delvers more to find buried arcane secrets than to find money (though the later always helps). Because of this, they’re often the delvers with the best training to identify and handle those secrets.

  Basic Stats

  Wizards start with ST 10, DX 12, IQ 15, and HT 11. Their Perception is lowered to 12 and their Speed bumped to 6.

  This is the highest starting IQ of all professions, and the most specialized “caster” stat block we’ll see here.

  Advantages

  Wizards start with three points of Energy Reserve (Magical) and Magery 3. Magery is their “power talent”, and unlike most of the others doesn’t have a separate pre-requisite advantage because it has a “level 0” that acts in that function as well. Magery 0 is enough to learn most spells and lets you detect nearby sources of magic, but doesn’t add any bonuses to spells like subsequent levels do.

  Energy Reserve acts as a “parallel” pool of Fatigue Points that can only be used to power spells and arcane powers. It costs the same as Fatigue, and the main advantage is that it recovers concurrently with Fatigue. The other casters all have their own variants of ER as part of their optional advantages, but it’s factory-standard for wizards. It fits their theme to have vast reserves of magical power but to get winded easily from physical exertion…

  Discretionary advantages include mental stat boosts, more Magery or ER, stuff that makes you smarter than your IQ indicates (like Intuition and Language Talent) and stuff that makes you more magical (like Spirit Empathy or some custom traits we’ll see below).

  Disadvantages

  That Per reduction takes up some of our disadvantage budget, so we only need to pick -35 points of further problems. Part of these make you less physically strong, a few others make your nerve break easily in combat, and a bunch make you into different flavors of eccentric genius. Are you an absent-minded professor with a heart of gold, or a fantasy mad scientist?

  Of note here is Weirdness Magnet, which gives the GM carte blanche to come up with extra weird things during adventures that feel inexplicably drawn to you and generally make your life harder. If you need -15 points to reach your limit, take that and let your GM have some fun!

  Skills

  Wizard melee weapon packages are the classic “staff” and the somewhat novel “wand and shield”, which is such a good idea I have to wonder about the quality of the curricula of magic schools in other games. Wands in this game are a little heftier too, and can be used as light sticks with the Smallsword skill.

  For ranged combat, they can choose to go old-school and throw darts, wield a sling, or learn Innate Attack, which is what you use to attack with missile spells. Most wizards who have those spells will want the latter.

  Their primary skills are all about lore. They can teach, compose well-written texts, speed read, make proper use of research libraries, work with alchemy, dispose of magical hazardous material and recall all sorts of knowledge about a variety of magic-related subjects. Their optional secondary skills include the usual delver basics and also further intellectual pursuits, including Cartography for drawing those dungeon maps on the go.

  Spells

  You get to choose 30 different spells here, with a point spent in each.

  Wizards have access to nearly all of the full glory of the classic GURPS magic system. If you compare their spell list with the one present in the Magic supplement for core GURPS, you’ll see a few omissions. These are mostly stuff that the authors of Dungeon Fantasy thought didn’t fit with their intended flavor: Enchantment spells because magic items should be found as loot, and most teleportation because having casual access to that lets you skip too much of the game. And obviously, anything that’s part of the cleric’s and druid’s core niches is exclusive to those professions.

  We’re also back to dealing with prerequisite spells here. Spells are divided into Colleges, and each College has a prerequisite tree that’s a cross between a college curriculum and a skill tree from a game like Path of Exile or Diablo. If you want to learn Fireball, for example, you must know Create Fire and Shape Fire. The more complex and powerful a spell is, the more prerequisites it has.

  Bards have to deal with this too, but they only have access to a limited set of colleges. Wizards obviously have access to all of wizardly magic.

  Special Wizard Traits

  This is where you get the official description of Magery, which I gave you above. Magery is the whole reason to even play a wizard in the first place, but they do have a few other special tricks available to them.

  • Gizmos (5 points/level): Like the thief version, but for wizard-themed minor gadgets instead of thief-themed ones.

  • Improved Magic Resistance (5 points/level): Like the base Magic Resistance advantage available to everyone, this penalizes any spell cast on you. Unlike the base version, though, it doesn’t interfere with your own spells.

  • Wild Magic (21 points/level): Once per session per level of this trait, you can cast any wizardly spell as if you knew it at a level equal to IQ + Magery. If you succeed, have a point to spare, and already know the spell prerequisites, you can also permanently learn it then and there, though you’ll get a small penalty to cast it for the next month as you get used to it.

  Customization

  It’s all about spell selection! There are so many to choose from the sample builds mention whole colleges instead of individual spells. Examples given are artillery mages with area damaging spells, controllers with a large collection of save-or-suck effects, or thaumathologists that specialize in meta-spells and magic knowledge skills.

  Every mage wants extra Energy Reserves, and those quirk points can be used either for an expensive and high-capacity Power Item, or for more spells.

  The “This Ain’t D&D Section”

  As said above, wizards have plenty to be smug about, but this isn’t the same set of things that makes D&D wizards feel smug. The hardest thing for habitual D&D players to get used to here is the fact that they won’t be able to win an entire battle by snapping their fingers.

  Yes, DFRPG wizards have access to plenty of strong damage-dealing spells. And yes, they also have access to plenty of control spells that can stop a monster on its tracks. But casting spells takes time and energy.

  To cast that classic explosive fireball, a wizard needs to spend one turn casting the spell and from 0 to 3 additional turns growing it to the desired size and aiming it before they can attack. If the party is readying for an ambush, that big firebal is a great opening move. But if you start casting it during a fight, it’s likely the Knight and the Barbarian will have killed all enemies by the time you’re ready to throw it. Big area-effect control spells take a similar amount of time and even more energy to cast.

  DFRPG wizards really shine in the “utility magic” department. That’s where you’ll find most spells that are both relatively cheap and quick to cast, and do stuff that no other profession can replicate. The wise wizard keeps an open mind regarding their spell selection, and plans explosions in advance.

  The upside here is that you don’t have to worry about “spell slots” or any of that nonsense. You always have access to all the spells you know, and recovering your energy when it runs out results in “fifteen-minute rests” instead of “fifteen-minute workdays”.

• Sep 15, 2026

  Let's Read DFRPG Adventurers: Thief

  Contrary to popular belief, Dungeon Fantasy isn’t all about fighting monsters: there’s also exploring the dungeon, looting the dungeon, and selling the loot back in town (sorry, couldn’t resist). The Bard takes care of the last of these very important activities, but for the others you want a Thief.

  Stats

  Thieves start out with ST 11, DX 15, IQ 13, HT 11. They bump their Perception to 14, decrease their Speed from 6.5 to 6, and increase their Move to 7.

  The four stats are pretty similar to the Martial Artist’s and the Swashbuckler’s, but emphasize IQ more since this is our official skill monkey.

  Advantages

  All thieves start out with Flexibility, High Manual Dexterity, and Perfect Balance, all of which are excellent boosts to anything involving tricky movement and most physically-oriented “thief skills”.

  They get 30 extra points for discretionary advantages, and their selection is actually a bit low on stat boosts: just DX and IQ instead of all four, and just Per, Basic Speed, and Basic Move instead of all secondaries. The rest of the choices are all stuff that offers further specialized bonuses to the same areas enhanced by the standard advantages. Thieves are one of the only professions that can start out with above-average Wealth, which gives them extra starting money and helps with selling loot in town. And they can pick Weapon Master (Knives) if they want to go in a fightier direction.

  Yes, “all knives” count as a single weapon here because their base stats are worse. If you take this, you probably want to wield them with the Main-Gauche skill instead of Knife.

  Disadvantages

  The thief’s mandatory disadvantage is one of Greed, Kleptomania or Trickster, explaining why they chose the profession in the first place. Discretionary choices can make them either someone who needs money fast and constantly to fuel a gambling or partying addiction, or someone whose anti-social personality and criminal record has locked out of getting legitimate jobs.

  Skills

  A thief’s melee weapon skill choices are the same as the swashbuckler’s plus Knife, though their skill level will be “only” 15 or 14 and they lack most melee support abilities. The most recommended option here seems to be “weapon and shield”, instead of the swashbuckler’s single blade. You’re not a god of parrying, so having a shield or cloak in your off hand is a big help.

  You do get a lot of mundane non-combat skills. All that sneaking and exploration stuff that’s secondary and optional for everyone else is part of your starting spread, at much better levels. You’re particularly good at the stuff that maps to D&D’s traditional thief skills: stealth, climbing, lockpicking, trap detection and disarming, etc. Also acrobatics and escaping from bonds.

  Your secondary skill choices are mostly more “niche” areas of spying and crime like forgery, poisons and lip-reading, and also include a selection of social skills.

  Special Thief Traits

  You get no enhanced advancement limits, but you do get a lot of exclusive mundane skills in your template and a few special traits:

  • Catfall (10 points): you suffer much less damage from falls.

  • Expert Backstabbing (2 points/level): Adds its level (which has no cap) to your ST for melee attacks that allow no active defense. That means they can’t see you coming: they’re unconscious, or you start your turn behind them, or you’re invisible, or you’re in a social situation where they didn’t expect you to attack. You need to put in the work to get into one of these situations maybe once per fight, but the extra damage will be worth it.

  • Gizmos (5 points/each): Each Gizmo lets you pull one small item out of thin air per session. This can be either something you have on your sheet but didn’t specify you were carrying, or an item you didn’t have subject to certain price limits (which are more generous if the thing is thief-themed). This isn’t magic, it’s advance planning combined with a little bit of cinematic trickery.

  • High Manual Dexterity (5 points/level): This is a Talent that gives bonuses to a bunch of common DX-based thief tasks.

  • Sensitive Touch (10 points): Gives a large bonus to perception rolls involving mainly your sense of touch, and to rolls where being good at “working by feel” is an advantage, like searching bodies, lockpicking and disarming some traps.

  • Silence (5 points/level): Like the Scout ability.

  Customization

  The book recommends three example skill and advantage selections that can take a generic thief and turn them into a sneaky burglar, a stabby assassin, or a smart and silver-tongued mastermind.

  Generally speaking, it’s all about your mundane skills here. Unlike in D&D, thieves never stop being relevant, even when there are utility spellcasters in the party. Utility spells usually don’t let you skip skill rolls entirely. Therefore, those casters won’t be casting spells on themselves to make the thief obsolete - they will casting spells on the thief to make them even better at their job.

  Your thief’s quirk points should be spent on more skills! There’s some sweet high-tier thief gear out there but it’s outside a starting character’s price range. But it with your ill-gotten gains after you start adventuring.

  The “This Ain’t D&D” section

  The DFRPG Thief is equivalent to the old school Thief class in terms of intended function and combat ability. The difference here is that their starting success chance in those traditional thief duties is much higher.

  You can take them in a fightier direction if you want, with access to Weapon Master (Knives) and to something that works a lot like the classic AD&D Backstab ability. But if your main desire is to have a cool sword and deftly weave through a fight while stabbing enemies in sensitive spots more or less at will, you want a Swashbuckler.

  That said, in games that allow “multiclassing” the Thief does have an easier time becoming a Swashbuckler than almost everyone else.

• Sep 9, 2026

  Let's Play Hell's Rebels: Adventure 01, Scene 15

  This post is part of my solo Hell’s Rebels campaign.

  Intro

  If we were simply reading the book, we would already be done with adventure 01. But we’re playing, and there is a vital part of the adventure’s capstone dungeon delve that I’ve been putting off until now: the looting!

  I’ve ran this delve as a “brutal raid”, so our PCs were mainly interested in clearing the cultists infesting the place as fast as possible, and whenever they found some loot they just made a mental note to get to it later.

  Well, Nox has been defeated, and it’s “Later” now. The book doesn’t really mention how often the diabolists here checked back with Thrune, but I figure our heroes have enough time to gather and tally all the loot, though I guess they might need to call in a couple of Silver Raven teams to help haul it all back to base.

  I’m labeling this “Scene 15” because it’s technically part of the first adventure, but we’re not doing any Mythic stuff here this time around.

  [GM] Delver: The Lootening

  Unfortunately, the very fact that Thrune’s minions know where the Monastery is and have successfully raided it in the past means that they cannot use it as a base, so they have to stay in the somewhat cramped Wasp Nest for now. But they can still loot the place!

  I think we can abstract our actual procedure here. The PCs use a Silver Raven figurine to call their Freedom Fighters and Sneaks teams and strip this place bare. I’ll roll Perception for the PCs when stuff is hidden, but we can assume the teams take care of carting the loot out, and dropping Azvernathy somewhere beyond city walls with instructions to never show his face in this town again.

  The next section gives talks about the XP they gained from this delve. Then we get a high-level overview of what the PCs found, and what they did it with it after bringing it to the Wasp Nest.

  And finally, for the completionists, you get a full tally of the loot found in the dungeon, complete with costs and weights in the format I use for my home-brewed gear tallying script.

  [GM] XP Rewards

  I’m not sure I specified how I’m handling XP here. That’s in part because I hadn’t 100% settled on a system yet. I went with the one suggested in Exploits for a while but I think I’m going to go with something considerably more generous given the slow pace of play in this campaign and the lack of proper “sessions”.

  Every time the PCs complete a significant quest, they get 5 character points. If we have a capital-P part in a Hell’s Rebels book that has one single linear goal, that’s a significant quest. If we have something that’s labeled as a Mission, usually in the middle part of a book, that’s also a significant quest. So, for example, the Aria Park Riot was one such quest, then we had the various missions I played, and then the capstone delve was another quest.

  Additionally, every time the book specifically calls out a story-based XP award for something, they gain 1 character point if they achieve that goal.

  And finally, they get another 5 character points at the end of the adventure.

  We’re using this new system starting from the capstone delve in adventure 1. So at the end of this delve, they got:

  • 1 point for gaining access to level 2 of the dungeon.
  • 1 point for deactivating the Cubic Gate.
  • 1 point for recovering the soul tomes.
  • 1 point for discovering the clue within (see below).
  • 5 points for clearing the dungeon.
  • 5 points for finishing the adventure.

  That’s 14 points each, making all of them into 289-point characters (they were at 275 when they started the delve).

  We’ll deal with character advancement in a later post.

  [Player] Loot Disposition

  Obviously we’re taking the money right away and taking it into the common party stash. I want to use this to upgrade the PC’s gear, and most of what’s left when I’m done will go into the Raven treasury. Already that’s $8700 right there.

  Next we have our “art objects”, mundane but valuable items with no associated game benefits. We’re keeping the Victocora signet rings to hand off to Rexus, but everything else should be fenced. The rest consists mainly of books, with some miscellaneous fancy writing and reading tools thrown in. Urist will only part with the books if he’s sure they can go to someone who will make good use of them outside of Cheliax, but Jania assures him she can make it happen (and as the GM I confirm it). She’s going to talk to Lady Mialari Docur in the space between adventures, and I she will handle the rest.

  Our loot pile in this category totals a whopping $51250 and weights 43kg. The process of carting it around to various fences and selling it probably takes a couple of weeks, but we can sum up the results here. Per the standard rules, that amount up there is the loot’s nominal worth. Our heroes will be able to fence it for 40% of that value, or 50% if one of them can win a contest of Merchant vs. 15. Jania does win, so we’re looking at $25625 for the lot. 64 gold, 1 silver, 5 copper.

  Next we have our “tools”, items which have a game effect but are not what I’d consider “equipment”. This includes consumables like potions and scrolls, as well as the useful tomes we found and the Bookplate of Recall. I think we’re keeping everything here except for the Bookplate. I roll another Merchant roll for it, and it gets sold off for $5000 (12 gold, 10 silver).

  And finally we have our “Equipment”. Armor and weapons and things that can be worn and wielded for continuous effect. Here we have Nox’s and Azvernathy’s armor and weapons, the Headband of Will +1, the Ring of Swimming, a scroll belt, and a humble belt pouch. Total value $61134, total weight around 39kg.

  Our heroes are keeping everything but Nox’s glaive, which no one specializes in, and Raul’s shield which is redundant. That’s $240 (12 silvers) added to our party treasury. Art will take Nox’s Armor, Urist will take Raul’s mace and armor. Jade takes the Headband and Ring of Swimming, Jania the scroll belt.

  I’ll charge the group a $500 “refit” fee for the two suits of armor and the mace, which is roughly 10% of their value. They have to be cleansed of all that Asmodean iconography and Raul’s armor has to be adjusted to fit Urist’s dwarven frame. Total fee: $1500 (3 gold, 15 silver).

  [Player & GM] Detailed Loot Ledger

  This goes over each room in the dungeon that has treasure in it, and lists the treasure in detail. The list is formatted for human readability. I had some extra characters here that also made it readable to a script I wrote for tallying up costs and weights, but my blog software turned those into hard-to-read tables so I removed them.

  We start from the entrance to the Phantasmagorium level (rooms E1 to E10), and then go through the Monastery level (rooms F1 to F7.

  Room E2:

  They looted this one on the way in during the delve. The Ring of Swimming used to be weaker than this, but I thought hey, why not go all in?

  • 4 x Silver Coin: $20, 0.01kg.
  • Ring of Swimming: Grants Amphibious but not Gills while worn. $25000, 0kg.

  Room E4

  We already searched this room on the way in, so this list is a reprise. The scrolls have already been looted, the rest is being taken now.

  • 1 x Gilded souvenir medal: $250, 0kg.
  • 19 x Silver Coin: $20, 0.01kg. (total $380, 0.19kg)
  • 1 x Scroll Belt: 10 waterproof compartments for scrolls. $60, 0.5kg.

  The scrolls are all universal and charged:

  • 1 x Scroll of Panic: 1m radius. Universal, charged. $400, 0kg.
  • 1 x Scroll of Bravery: 2m radius. Universal, charged. $400, 0kg.
  • 1 x Scroll of Curse: 1 point. Universal, charged. $300, 0kg.

  There was also a scroll of Deathtouch (2d, $200) but it has already been used by Jania.

  Room E7

  • 1 x Alabaster Snake Eye: $1500, 0kg.

  Room E8

  The party isn’t going to sell these rings, but I’m listing their value for completeness’ sake.

  • 2 x Victocora Signet Ring: $750, 0.1kg. (total $1500, 0.2kg)

  Room E9

  Perception -1 to search the room for left-over valuables. The PCs pass this the test, and so find everything.

  • 1 x Bottle of lead-based ink: $500, 0.25kg.
  • 5 x Miniature ivory doors: $50, 0.01kg. (total $250, 0.05kg)
  • 1 x Roll of copper Wire: $250, 4kg.
  • 12 x Silver Coin: $20, 0.01kg. (total $240, 0.12kg)
  • 1 x Diamond: $1000, 0kg.

  Azvernathy’s belongings were also left here when he was imprisoned on E10.

  • 1 x Balanced Dwarven Mace: enchanted with Puissance 1. $5450, 2.5kg.
  • 1 x Medium Shield: $80, 7.5kg.
  • 1 x Suit of Armor: DR 6 on body, DR 2 on limbs and extremities, no helmet. Lighten 1 and Fortify 1. $4674, 11.7kg.

  Room E10

  This is where Azvernathy was imprisoned, but he won’t be able to sneak any treasure on his person as the Freedom Fighters escort him away.

  The book listed below also contained a clue to opening the way to the Monastery, but we didn’t need it because Urist already knew the trick.

  • 1 x Book: This is an ornate tome sacred to the dead god Aroden. $1000, 6kg.

  Room F1: The Sacred Archive

  • Miscellaneous Books: $2000, 30kg.

  • Bookplate of Recall: Metal plate with space to write the owner’s name. When glued to the inside cover of a book it allows the owner to summon it to their hand once a day. $10000, 0.01kg.

  • 1 x Elixir of Water Breathing. Breathe water for 1d hours. $600, 0.25kg.

  • 1 x Paut: Recovers 4 FP lost to magic. $135, 0.5kg.

  • 2 x Scroll of Analyze Magic: Universal, charged. $800, 0kg. (total $1600, 0kg)
  • 1 x Scroll Silence: Affects a 3m-wide area for 1 minute. Universal, charged. $600, 0kg.
  • 1 x Silver Magnifying Glass: $1500, 0.25kg.
  • 1 x Owl-shaped Platinum Letter Opener: $800, 0.01kg
  • 1 x Ivory and Gold Bookmark: $200, 0kg.
  • 10 x Gilded Page: $100, 0kg. (total $1000, 0.0kg)

  Room F4: Artifact Recovery

  Dust of Emulation interacts with Use Magic Device and we don’t use that here, so let’s replace it with a dose of Paut.

  The PCs do find the secret panel, so they take everything in the list below.

  • Ruined Cubic Gate: Lost its magic but still worth money as a collectible. $30000, 1kg.

  • Tome: +1 to Hidden Lore (Magic Items). $500, 6kg.

  • Silver and mother-of-pearl ink pen: $2000, 0.01kg.

  • Platinum disc depicting a leering angel: $1000, 0.01kg.

  • 1 x Paut: Recovers 4 FP lost to magic. $135, 0.5kg.

  • Headband of Strengthening Will +1 : Bronze circlet that grants +1 Will when worn $20035, 0.25kg.

  Room F6: Common Room

  These books are a pile of mostly unredacted historical documents which can be worth selling to an interested foreign collector. The dead redactors don’t have anything of value.

  • History books: $9000, 7.5kg

  Room F7: Meditation Garden

  The books Nox was perusing here are soul tomes created by Yiliv the Scrivenite. They became mundane books when the original owners of their memories died, but remain valuable for the knowledge they contain.

  In addition to that knowlegde, they also contain stories about how the archive used to contain a copy of a section of the Broken-Winged Crane, a terrible eldritch tome about demons of all kinds. They also make mention of a scholar named “Trailbrazer Huni” who visited the place and convinced the archivists to let him study the book for a single hour. The PCs have not read this one yet, but when they do they should have no problem decoding the anagram and figuring out this was Thrune in disguise.

  We also have Nox’s possessions, originally described here.

  So we get this list, with prices and weights formatted for the use of my home-grown tallying scripts:

  • Soul Tomes: +4 to History or Area Knowledge rolls about Kintargo and Ravounel if consulted. $16000, 10kg.

  • Nox’s Armor: DR 7 to the front of the body, 4/2 everywhere else except the head. $5425, 13.5kg.

  • Belt pouch. $10, 0.1kg
    • 20 x gold coin. $400, 0.01kg (total $8000, 0.20kg)
  • Dwarven Dueling Glaive: Damage sw+2 cut (Reach 1,2) or thr+3 imp (Reach 1,2). $400, 3kg.

  Nox actually used a different suit of armor during the fight with DR 6/4 all over, as the stats I had for her were an earlier version. But let’s use the published one as loot.

  The Silver Ravens (End of Adventure)

  Includes Sentinel bonuses.

  • Rank: 4/5
  • Focus: Secrecy
  • Members: 22
  • Supporters: 28
  • Population: 11900
  • Treasury: $9400
  • Min. Treasury: $200
  • Notoriety: 5
  • Org Skills:
    • Loyalty: 14
    • Secrecy: 17
    • Security: 14
  • Actions: 2
  • Max Teams: 3+1
  • Danger Rating: 20
  • Active Events:
  • Teams:
    • Crow Sisters (bonus team)
      • Tier: 1
      • Members: 3
      • Actions: Earn Money, Gather Information
    • Freedom Fighters
      • Tier: 1
      • Members: 6
      • Actions: Reduce Danger
    • Sneaks
      • Tier: 1
      • Members: 3
      • Actions: Secure Cache.
    • Rumormongers
      • Tier: 2
      • Members 6
      • Actions: Gather Information, Spread Disinformation
  • Allies:
    • Laria Longroad
      • +2 to Recruit Supporters as long as she’s a member.
      • Leadership-12, Streetwise-12
    • Rexus Victocora
      • -1 Notoriety per Upkeep phase as long as he’s a member.
      • Administration-12, Public Speaking-12
    • Vendalfek
      • Grants use of the Spread Disinformation action even if no other team does the same.
      • If a team does grant the action, gives a +2 bonus to the skill roll for the action.
  • Officers:
    • Demagogue: Rosalia
      • May use complimentary skills on Loyalty checks.
      • Skills: Propaganda, Public Speaking, Leadership.
    • Partisan: Laria Longroad
      • May use complimentary skills on Security checks.
      • Skills: Strategy, Leadership, Tactics.
    • Recruiters: Urist; Arthur
      • May use complimentary skills on checks for recruiting supporters.
      • Adds rebellion rank to the number of recruited supporters, and this stacks with multiple recruiters.
      • Skills: Public Speaking, Streetwise, Savoir-Faire.
    • Sentinel: Jade
      • Occupying this post gives a +1 to the rebellion’s non-focused skills.
      • May use complimentary skills on any check used to resolve an Event.
      • Skills: any of the ones listed for the appropriate category.
    • Spymaster: Jania
      • May use complimentary skills on Secrecy checks.
      • Skills: Intelligence Analysis, Streetwise, Administration.
    • Strategist: Rexus
      • Occupying this position grants a bonus action. May use its complimentary skills on the bonus action.
      • Skills: Strategy, Tactics, Administration

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