Bath Imaginable

I tried playing SoloDark this week with three Level 1 characters delving into the Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur.

• Each time I consulted the oracle die is separated from the text.

***Some descriptive location text and dungeon elements are adapted from or closely paraphrase the Shadowdark RPG Quickstart Set and the Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur by Kelsey Dionne. All narration, character actions, and solo play outcomes are my own.

Yipnag–goblin scholar and robber–has recruited an unlikely duo of dungeon crawlers to help him recover the Essence of Malfune. It’s somewhere within the Lost Citadel, but no one knows where.

The crawlers? Brom, a dwarf warrior who grew up brawling on city streets and Nimed, an elf acolyte from the forest adorned in wildflowers carrying a knotted staff.

The group travels across the shimmering, emerald sea to the island of the Lost Citadel. There’s a tiny, coastal village in the shadow of its red cliffs where locals warn of opportunistic, grey-furred beastmen haunting the citadel. It’s rife with secret rooms and passageways.

Yipnag scrawls notes, pushing his spectacles up his greasy, pointed nose. Brom scoffs–he’s never met a beast or a man he couldn’t intimidate. Nimed looks toward the arid scrublands beyond the village.

• Is there somewhere safe to stay in the village? No, but Brom is comfortable sleeping on the streets and finds a secure alley between the leaning, sandstone buildings.
• Is there an encounter in the night? No, but there’s strange noises in the darkness of the city.
• Rolled on Low District Encounters–100! A dropped magic item glitters inside a filthy gutter.

Ancient Turtle Armor
1 Benefit, 1 Curse. 1 Virtue, 1 Flaw.
Leather Armor with turtle shell plating, +0
Once per day, deflect range attacks that would hit you.
Beneficial spells that target you are hard to cast (DC 18).
Gladly translates primordial for its wearer.
Insists on being reunited with its creator, living or dead.
Charming personality.

• Is the armor’s creator in the village? Yes, but he’s dead.

Yipnag wears the armor, but quickly understands why it was dropped in the gutter. It’s politely begging to be brought to the graveyard and be reunited with its maker. Yipnag reassures the armor it will be useful for reading primordial in the Lost Citadel, and the group rests.

Marching to the Lost Citadel
Cicadas buzz in the arid scrubland around the citadel.

• Is there anything outside the citadel? No, but there’s tracks leading in.
• Are they beastman tracks? No, but they are person-sized.
• Do the characters know about the other entrances? No, but they look around and find them.

The characters decide to enter the main entrance of the citadel, carved with bucking bulls mid-leap.

Round 1
Nimed casts light on his staff and motions for Brom to lead the way. Brom marches toward the door and listens. Yipnag lights a torch.

• Does Brom hear anything on the other side of the door? Yes, but it’s getting quieter.

“It’s moving away from us,” Brom hisses. “Let’s wait.”

Round 2
Brom opens the door quickly and quietly. The walls are floor-to-ceiling murals painted in vibrant jewel tones. They sparkle in the light of Nimed’s staff. Brom’s bulky shadow is stretched across red pillars, tapered and banded in black marble at the top and bottom. Brom moves to the back of the room to look behind the pillars, and to cover his allies’ entrance.

“Come on,” he hisses.

Nimed enters next, fully illuminating the room.

“All clear,” he announces.

Yipnag studies the murals by his torchlight. They depict people in white robes kneeling in a room of red pillars before a colossal, onyx bull with horns lowered.

“Anything about Malfune?” Nimed asks softly.

“No,” Yipnag says, “but this must be the place.”

• Does the source of the noise return from Area 2? No.

• Does anyone notice the hidden niche behind the bull statue? No.

Round 3
Nimed leads the way left into a room filled with terracotta jars. The air has a sulfuric smell. There is the sound of faint squeaks and hisses. To the south, white jagged lines gouge the stone. Nimed takes a closer look: “RIP Orwyn the Younger… There might be danger on the other side of this door.” Nimed scans the jars, each sealed with cork and wax. They’re stamped with images of people carving wheat and scythes. “Let’s move on,” Nimed clutches at his holy symbol of Gede–a wooden sheaf of wheat.

The group keeps moving.

Twin halls, a weighty stone bowl in each. Murals depict peasants pouring jars of gold coins and wheat into massive, grey bowls. Red-armored warriors with bronze spears supervise.

“Offering bowls,” Yipnag suggests.

“Offerings for what?” Brom asks, his hand firm on the hilt of his longsword.

• Does anyone leave an offering? Yes, but Nimed leaves a flower. No effect.

Round 4
“Watch out!” Yipnag hisses, “there’s someone behind the offering bowl!” The goblin crouches and points at a middle-aged human crouched behind the southeast bowl.

“Don’t hurt me!” The man cries out. He stands up, looks into the offering bowl. He picks up the dried flower. “Lamia’s grass,” he smiles as he eats it. “Please, I’m just an old herbalist, Giuseppe Baldini.”

“Why are you here?” The group asks.

“I came in here looking for treasure, what’s it to you?” The crochety old man spits.

• Does Giuseppe join the group? Yes.

“It’s not safe here, especially for a weak old man. You should go.” Brom insists.

Giuseppe isn’t intimidated. He’s seen worse–the Scarlet Minotaur. A savage minotaur drenched in blood stalks the citadel’s halls.

“We’re safer in a group, trust me…”

There’s a door to the north, and a door to the west.

• Does Giuseppe know which way leads to the heart of the Citadel? No, he’s completely lost.

The characters decide to scout ahead each way, peeking through the north and east doors. Each way is clear of danger, but the east is a labyrinth of narrow, tall corridors. Easy to get lost. The group chooses north.

Round 5
The characters march forward through a narrow hall wrapping around the centre of the citadel. It terminates at a wooden door. Yipnag peeks through the door. A lengthy, moonlit central courtyard. A bull statue, twenty-feet tall, black onyx with rippling muscles. Horns lowered and dotted with white.

The Scarlet Minotaur, a hulking beast covered in shining black blood. It wields a glistening greataxe. Steam rises from its heavy breaths and disappears into the stars above.

“We should go back,” Giuseppe warns. Yipnag tries to close the door quietly. Everyone holds their breath. Silence.

“Now what?” Brom mouths.

Everyone looks to Yipnag.

“I thought you wanted treasure, Giuseppe?” Yipnag starts, “I saw a good deal of treasure piled at the minotaur’s feet… You should distract it. You got away from it before. The three of us will grab the treasure, and meet you outside.”

“No way,” Giuseppe says, “I barely got away last time. Why don’t you distract the minotaur, while I grab the treasure. How do you like that?”

“Fine,” Yipnag says. “I’ll distract the minotaur-“

“Yipnag, don’t, we can go around.” Nimed suggests.

“No, I’m small, I can get away from it. No doubt one of those doors circles back around. But that’s not the hard part–your job will be the hard part. You have to search through the treasure and find something that points us toward Malfune.”

“What’s Malfune?” Giuseppe asks.

“How will we know it when we find it? You’re the expert,” Brom says.

“He was a powerful sorcerer,” Yipnag says, “anything magical might have been made by him. Grab anything odd.”

“Screw that,” Giuseppe spits, “I’m grabbing some of those jewels and scramming.”

“That’s fine with me,” Yipnag says, “just don’t get in my way.”

Round 6
Yipnag swings open the door, stepping into the central courtyard with his torch held high. The minotaur turns and charges before Yipnag can act! It moves shockingly fast, its horns dip low scattering the red dust on the ground. Its horn strikes Yipnag in the chest, goring him in an instant and pinning him against the shattered wall behind him.

“Gede help us!” Nimed lunges forward, his staff blinding the minotaur as he reaches for Yipnag. He pulls Yipnag from the horns of the beast and places his hands on over the goblin’s bleeding wounds. “Gede, please.” Nimed’s tears fall, sparkling as they descend toward his healing hands. Yipnag’s eyes shoot open. His life restored.

Brom grabs Giuseppe and barges forward through the doorway. He throws Giuseppe toward the hulking minotaur–“unhand me!” The old man cries as he crumbles to the dirt.

Brom drags Yipnag back toward the black bull statue at the end of the courtyard. Nimed stands between the minotaur and his allies.

• Does the minotaur ignore Giuseppe? Yes, but Giuseppe doesn’t leave he hides behind a pillar.

Round 7 *Chaos Mode–Re-rolled Initiative*
Yipnag looks behind him, thirty human skulls in various states of rot punched onto horns like necklace beads. Some have traces of grey fur. A pile of trampled and crushed bones, metal, and broken weapons are left at the feet of the statue.

“We have to run!”

Yipnag turns to his right and pushes through the door into a bas-relief hall. Brom and Nimed follow. Brom closes the door and begins hammering iron spikes into the ground. “This won’t keep that thing out for long!”

Nimed pokes his glowing staff against a gangly-furred person sprawled out on the ground facedown. He holds a lumpy burlap sack. Yipnag picks it up and peeks inside.

“Dead rats.” Yipnag drops the bag onto the floor.

In the courtyard the minotaur turns on Giuseppe–with a swift swing of its greataxe, Giuseppe is cleaved in two. The minotaur turns toward the door. It won’t budge, but the minotaur swings its axe. The door is mostly broken down after two swings.

“We are leaving!” Brom shouts at his allies, picking them up from the floor.

Round 8 *Chaos Mode–Re-rolled Initiative*
The beastman on the floor is woken by the smashing door. It jumps to its feet. Sees the characters, its suspicious, but there’s no time. The minotaur is coming!

“This way,” the beastman hisses. It picks up its bag of dead rats and crawls toward the northwest corner of the room. It pulls back a false piece of the mosaic wall and reveals a secret passage. It slips inside, leaving the passage open.

Brom and Nimed look to Yipnag. He grips his torn armor, one of its turtle-shell plates is shattered. I just want to be with my maker… Please, I beg you. The armor whispers to him.

“What choice do we have? Go. Go!” Yipnag shouts. The group slips into the secret passage and closes it behind them. They hear the minotaurs hulking footprints through the false wall. It grows closer and closer until it passes and disappears down the corridor.

Round 9
The characters are met with the smell of damp fur and filth. Within the walls of the citadel, fifteen hunched grey-furred humanoids chew on centipedes and snarl in harsh whispers. One lounges on a mat of rat pelts, picking his teeth. The beastman lumbers toward it holding the dead-rat-bag with outstretched paws: “Rogath, for you.”

Rogath stands, tall and scarred, the biggest beastman by far. “I have enough rats, Brell,” he says softly. He pushes Brell aside and steps forward toward the characters. He lifts his paw to shield his eyes from the light of Nimed’s staff.

Yipnag extinguishes and discards his torch among the littered bones and splintered wood littering the secret hall.

“I’m much more interested in these outsiders you’ve brought, who are they?”

“They were fighting the minotaur, brother.” Brell whispers.

• Do the characters speak quietly? Yes, but it’s still not quiet enough.

“We were running from the minotaur, actually.” Brom says.

“Quiet your voices,” Rogath hisses, baring his fangs, “we survive by staying quiet.” Rogath steps forward. Sniffs Brom’s beard.

“Watch it,” Brom says.

“I don’t like you,” Rogath whispers. “I think I’ll eat you once the minotaur has killed you.”

Brom reaches for his blade.

“Brom,” Yipnag says, “don’t.” The group is surrounded by snarling beastman. Their leader snarls proudly.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Rogath, we’ll leave now.” Yipnag whispers.

“Beetle,” Rogath whispers to a scuttling, almost-hairless beastman, “watch where they go. Bring their meat back for the group.”

“Tee-hee!”

Round 10
The group steps outside the secret passage. Yipnag lights a new torch as the light from Nimed’s staff begins to fade. Nimed whispers a prayer and further restores Yipnag’s wounds. Brom listens for the minotaur.

• Did the minotaur keep going beyond the next room? No, but its still further from the courtyard.

The group decides to rush through the broken door, past Giuseppe’s bisected corpse glistening in the moonlight, and through the door across the courtyard.

• Did the minotaur hear them moving? No.

Yipnag secures the door behind them with iron spikes. The corridor turns sharply to the left. Yipnag leads the way.

Round 11
The group marches straight but there’s the sound of a bloody clash in the corridor ahead. Hissing, yelping, and screeches. Around the corner, two wounded beastmen claw and bite and a lanky spiderfolk–an ettercap.

• Is the ettercap between the characters and the beastmen? No, but the characters have marched straight between the beastmen and the ettercap.

“This is our chance to win favor with Rogath,” Yipnag whispers.

“Stay back, beastmen! Let us kill this wretched thing.” Brom declares.

The ettercap acts fast, crawling onto the ceiling of the corridor. It sprays a stinking web at Brom. It lands at his feet.

“Ha!” Brom laughs. “Get down here, you weakling!”

Brom ties his grappling hook to rope and begins twirling it. “I’m going to get ya!”

The grappling hook bounces off of the stone as the ettercap skitters back, hissing.

“Let me try,” Nimed says as he grasps the rope. The grappling hook disappears into the darkness, the rope falls limp on the floor. “Damn it!”

Yipnag takes a knee, sets his torch carefully on the floor, and readies an arrow. It cracks against stone, missing.

The beastmen hoot and holler. The whip stones from their slings. The ettercap shrieks.

• Does it fall to the floor? No, but it almost did. It fails a subsequent morale check.

The ettercap skuttles away along the ceiling and disappears into the shadows.

Round 12
The beastmen are called Bugg and Ludo. Bugg is stooped and short, he scratches at his wounds. Ludo is missing a tooth, he creeps back away from Yipnag’s light.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” Nimed says.

“But we will if we have to!” Brom boasts.

“We’re looking for something,” Yipnag says, “it’s called the Essence of Malfune. Do you know where that is?”

• Do the beastman know about Malfune? Yes, but they only know he was a great sorcerer-warrior of the past.

“Long ago,” Bugg explains, “we were warriors. But we must stay in the citadel, stay quiet. There are statues of our ancestors, that way.”

The beastman point to where the ettercap retreated.

“Let’s go.”

Round 13
The characters proceed to the Hall of Kings, where three alcoves contain bronze, lifelike statues of men on raised pedestals. They’re draped in robes, wearing diadems with pearls. Each holds a weapon. There’s no sign of the ettercap, it must have retreated even further.

“Finally,” Brom says, “some damn treasure.”

“Trapped,” Yipnag points to the statues joints. Cracks from repeated articulation.

“Can you disarm them?” Nimed asks.

“It’ll take some time…”

There’s heavy footsteps from down the hall.

“I don’t know if we have time.” Nimed says. “The minotaur is coming!”

“It’s perfect!” Yipnag declares, “we can use these traps to kill the minotaur!”

“Have you lost your damned mind?” Brom replies, “that’s insane, we need to run.”

The footsteps are growing louder.

Yipnag sets his torch on the floor of the doorway. Steps back; he nocks an arrow and waits for the minotaur to turn the corner.

“Position yourselves in the corner,” he orders the others, “force the minotaur to put its back to the traps!”

The minotaur turns the corner, its damp fur reflects the amber torchlight.

Round 14 *Chaos Mode–Re-rolled Initiative*
The minotaur charges! With unnatural speed it hurls itself toward Yipnag with its horns lowered. Yipnag is gored for the second time, the light leaves his eyes.

• Is the minotaur in position to be struck by the trap? Yes, but Yipnag will be struck as well.

“Do… it…” Yipnag coughs up blood.

Brom rushes the minotaur, swinging his longsword and pressing his shield against it, backing it up toward the trap. The minotaur effortlessly deflects his strikes. Yipnag is crushed and killed.

“Oh no!” Brom gasps.

Nimed steps around the minotaur and carefully touches his staff to the pearl imbedded in the statue. The statue lunges forward, striking its greataxe toward the minotaur. The minotaur turns in time to deflect the trap with its shimmering axe.

“This is it…” Nimed gasps, “we’re going to die.”

Round 15 *Chaos Mode–Re-rolled Initiative*

The minotaur swings its axe against Brom. The dwarf deflects the first swing with his shield. He’s struck on the backswing, knocking his shield to the side. Brom is struck a third time and brought to his knee.

“You’re doing great, Brom!” Nimed shouts, “this time the trap will hit him!”

“Screw this,” Brom says, “I want to live.” He runs from the minotaur, into the next room–into the unknown.

Nimed follows, casting light upon his staff.

Round 16 *Chaos Mode–Re-rolled Initiative*

The cave ahead is chilly and damp, its ceiling high and covered in dripping stalactites. A pool of crimson, murky water occupies the centre of the cave. An injured ettercap clings from the ceiling, hissing at the characters.

Before they can act, Brom is gored from behind by the stampeding minotaur and killed.

The ettercap skuttles toward the mouth of the cave, fleeing at the site of the minotaur.

Nimed rushes to Brom’s side, tries to heal his wounds–manages to barely bring Brom back from the brink of death.

“We have to move!” Nimed runs for the mouth of the cave, circling around the minotaur.

Round 17 *Chaos Mode–Re-rolled Initiative*

Brom rushes to catch up to Nimed, watching as his wounds magically close. The two run as fast as they can straight through the Hall of Kings, jumping over Yipnag’s body, and dashing straight down the hall.

The minotaur lumbers behind them, roaring and thrashing its axe against the sandstone walls.

Round 18 *Chaos Mode–Re-rolled Initiative*

“Brom, I can see light!” As they continue to run, the characters see a shaft of moonlight at the bottom of some crumbling steps ahead. “It’s a way out!”

A skeleton blocks their path! A dead adventurer, wearing tattered chains. Its bones are stark white in the moonlight.

Nimed holds his holy symbol out: “be gone, undead fiend!”

His prayers go unanswered. The skeleton lurches forward.

“I’ll handle this,” Brom steps forward swinging his sword. He misses, the metal of his blade clinks against the stone. The skeleton swings its shortsword weakly at Brom’s shield, pressing against them and blocking their path in the tight corridor.

“This fucking skeleton is going to get us killed, Nimed!”

The minotaur appears behind them, its close enough to charge. It lowers its horns and… Nimed is gored by the minotaur, his ribs flayed open before Brom’s eyes.

“Saint Terragnis save me,” Brom whispers.

Round 19 *Chaos Mode–Re-rolled Initiative*
The minotaur throws Nimed to the side and swings its axe on Brom. Everything goes dark.