Unplanned Grim North

With one of our players having to miss the session last night we decided that the campaign was at a point where potentially crucial decisions might need to be made. Not good if you’re absent. 

So we decided to play some Grim North to pass the time, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Not just because one of the PCs fell to her death. 

The advantage of running the GN at short notice is it’s a simple OSR game powered by random tables. It also allows for a certain amount of whimsy on my part that a more serious game of Dragin Warriors does not.

So we happened to pick up where we left off with Rufus Rose (a fighter) and Pansy (a thief) found themselves trapped on the wrong side of a sprung steel door, deep in the Undercity. They had originally headed down there to obtain the liver of a Ghost Snake for a wizard, which is a as good a reason as any. They fought some mole men, declined to investigate an underground ziggurat, Pansy fell to her death while trying to escape a cavern, Rufus teamed up with newcomer Tulip (also a thief) and they found a slew a Ghost Snake. They also recovered a fill-in-the-blanks death warrant, signed by the Autarch. 

I remain unhappy with the current process for generating Grim North characters. It needs something along the lines of WFRP’s careers alongside its basic class and level structure. These would help tie the characters to the setting, add a little bit of flavour and provide quick starting equipment. I’ll get round to it eventually but I’ve never really been one for making my own classes or mechanics or whatever. Hmm.

The fragility of 1st level Swords&Wizardry characters remains constant. Perhaps if Pansy/Tulip’s player chose a class that had more than 1d4 hit points it would help. 

However: 

Pandora Set (thief) killed in a tavern brawl after being hit over the head by a plank with a nail through it.

Calypso Seth (monk) killed in single combat with the champion of the Amphibious Gods despite having imbibed several “toad brews” and receiving associated mutations.

Pansy (thief) fell to her death while climbing down a chimney style passage in order to assist Rufus Rose in climbing up. 27 feet was her downfall.