CastleVania 2024: The Mappers and the Trappers

 Its been 5 years since we had a Concentric here in Adelaide, so as soon as I saw tickets on sale, I grabbed mine, signed up for the Roleplay GMing and .. sat on my hands until the very last moment. 

Worst luck, I put out my back 3 weeks before, and was for 2, unable to really move. Luckily with some help from my Chiropractor (not the back clicky type, the physio type), I was mobile in time to run my game.

Luckily, the bag with all the CV gear was the same as it was, stashed in the carport, a quick dusting and I was ready.

CastleVania: The Epic Legacy Game.

Incase you're reading this for the first time:

Based on the Computer games, The Castle of Castlevania, Players represent the 'next' generation of the Beaumont family, arriving at the castle in the next 'phase' of the moon and magic leylines, that affords the more successful possible time to enter the castle. 1 day after a full moon, 7 years on. Dracula is asleep, the Werewolves are devolving down, but their is enough light from the moon to make things visible enough at night. The Players arrive 2-3 hours before sunset (after a 9hr journey) at the castle gates.

If you follow the map of the game, this shows that you've skipped past a whole section, from the town, the forest, the main bridge to the mountains, and that's correct, because other players have already completed and cleared those regions, and set up rangers camps to keep them clear.

And that's the rub:  This is a legacy game, players have made decisions to make it easier for the 'next' group to be able to progress further. 

So our next group, The Monk, The Ranger, The Priest and the Knight, entered with a mission. MAP everything.

In the last play of 2019, the group spent some of their family fortune investing in a papyrus/parchment craftsman's house and imported the goods. It breaks even, but mainly it gives the family parchment. So now the players get 2x sheets of parchment and  some charcoal to draw out their findings.

They progressed. slowly, then at a decent rate, avoiding all pitfalls and combat, and finding what was needed. The front gate was burnt down, but the towers appeared accessible, So they took to the stairs and climbed. A few broken stairs and swearing, but they reached the top. A Spectral Crossbowman guarded the opposite tower, so the Monk lept across the parapet and ran at it, while the Ranger with arrows blessed by the Priest, took shots. Sadly the monk was injured, but they managed to take down the Spectre, but not before his blazing fists set fire to the roof eventually destroying the innards of the tower.

Yet from here, they spotted some creatures in the castle and with a perfectly aimed shot, the Ranger managed to penetrate the skull via eye socket of one of the creatures inside the castle. 

Now, exploring the roads leading to the sides, they encountered spectral demon horses, so terrifying they turned hair white. Something their grandfather had warned them of, but they had forgotten in the moment.

Returning to the castle proper, they entered the main front hall. Covered in dirt and debris from years of neglect, yet strangely a set of saw horses, a box of tools and several trees worth of wooden beams sat here. They noticed one of the front doord had been heavily repaired from the back half.

The creatures had fled through the doors. 

The room was empty, stripped of anything of worth years before by previous adventurers, they had nothing to do.

The room that followed was a great hall, intricately carved archway held a roof 30ft above, while the room itself was easily 200 feet wide, a giant crack across the floor allowed them to see down to the servants quarters below, but they too were torn asunder and their floors let down to further rooms, and below them water was heard to gurgle its way through unseen caverns.

The shortest distance across was 7ft, fairly easily jumped by someone with help, but the creatures from before were huddled against the far wall, and once a torch was lit, they retreated to a place beyond this.

The heroes searched out the corridors to the right and left of this great hall. One led down to the chasm but also to a large opening spilling into the stables.. the eerie light reminded them of the spectral horses, so they quickly retreated.

The opposite corridor let to stairs up, to a small 10m alcove leading out to a giant ballroom. immaculate in comparison to the rest of the castle, and guarded by two stone statues of armoured warriors that did not hold weapons. A clue, that weapons should not be held beyond this point.

Regardless characters approached with weapons drawn, and the statues turned in place towards the closest weapons, as if to beckon them. the ranger, slowly with no weapon drawn moved into the room, and it sprang to life. The 10 candelabras and chandeliers lit up with a ghostly blue flame and 12 dancers faded into view, dancing to some unheard music, they moved gracefully around as long as they remained undisturbed, but once a weapons was drawn, scimitars materialized at their sides and they struck at the armed opponent.

The ranger, as dangerous as it would seem, braved sliding along the very edge of the room, focused on the spectres, so failed to noticed anything else, made his way to the opposite side, but the doors here were locked from the other side. Upon return, noticed that if he approached the candles with his holy-blessed arrows the candle flames would flicker and he ghosts flicked in kind.

The knight suggested he put an arrow into a flame.. so the Ranger did, which snuffed out a ghost like a flame, but instantly the remaining 11 ghosts turned red with anger and rushed to kill him.   

The Knight was caught off guard and slashed at, but beat a hasty retreat so the spectres could not get to them, as they were bound to the ballroom. The team realizing they had missed the opportunity to use the blessed arrow to snuff at least half of the flames & ghosts in one go, decided to retreat.

Night had truely fallen, and some new ghosts were beginning to emerge from the castle, they would be surrounded. The retreated as quickly as possible, but the Priest was injured while attempting to draw on the map while retreating, and taking an attack from something, the map torn in half. one piece fluttered to the floor, and the other bloodied, shoved hastily in his pocket.

The Group decided that they'd reached their limit, with 2/5ths of their party injured, night fallen, they packed what they could, returned to the carriage and set to driving home.

Only a few huge bats and a wolf were encountered on the return, so they arrived home safe and sound. Map adventure complete. they contributed their findings to the family knowledge store, the Map, vital to future endeavors, they were safe and alive, unlike many of their family before.

Seven Years Later

The Younger siblings of the group above, armed with some of this knowledge and a copy of the map, arrived at the castle for their turn. The castle was cleared, surely its just the Vampire himself, past the dancing spectres.

The Group, A Mage, Barbarian, Ranger, Monk and Rogue.

They entered the castle, skipped past the overgrown carnivorous plants, after taking a sample, entered the first hall, and while taking note of what was around, taking a giant leather pelt, went through quickly to the next room. The family of knolls were no where to be seen, the corridor to the stables, quickly skipped when the Monks hair turned white from a mere glimpse, they too went to the ballroom, but instead of approaching the statues with weapons, realized that the weaponless statues was a clue. They 'gave' over their daggers to the statues, which 'ignited' the ballroom, but this time faint music could be heard. The Cleric and the Ranger, tapping their feet, realized, the dance being done was about a bakers dozen, 14 step song, but only had 12 dancers, there was a gap. They began the dance, yet clumsily, they fell out of step only part way and rushed to the walls edge before the dancers were angered. Here they found too, the doors locked, so attempt number 2, they somehow managed to dance in time back to their group, angering only one ghost for a brief moment.

They returned to the carriage, took turns to watch

Disheartened but also relieved (that they didn't need to figure out the dance), they returned to the ground floor to try the huge darkened doors at the end of the great hall. It opened to a balcony over looking a great chasm. 50m distance. But curiously the doors opening this side, also opened the doors on the other. in sync. They looked up, further balconies. Surely this was where the ballroom opened to above.

Their Rogue climbed above tied all their ropes together, and using some pitons, the Ranger shot an arrowed tied to the rope through the lower doors and had the barbarian shut the connecting doors at the same time, securing the rope as a zipline to get across. with some more pitons and some clever shenanigan's, flipped the rope around, because, their is nothing worse than needing to flee and not having preset the ropes to flee upon.

The room in the opposite side was, for the most part pristine, but for some small hornet nests and hornet bodies on the floor.. some an inch long, some a foot long.. but the worse part was when they glanced into the corner, a nest the size of a house.. the entrance a circle the size of a dog.

The Monk.. some inner desire for bugs to die.. set their fists afire with their psy powers and punched the nest, igniting it. Two gigantic hornets emerged, but the Ranger dispatched them quickly.

Meantime, the Barbarian wanted to inspect the room. there was a strange circular blue pattern with tiles on the floor. The Mage had repeatedly attempted to detect magic, and time after time had just not been able to concentrate, exacerbated by her cousin the Rogue who could constantly 'do' the required mental agility, but had no clue what he was looking at. She got agitated time and again at this.. but at least identified that the magic was purple and therefore necromancy in nature. 

All too late, one of the Hornets  landed inside the circle and something started to happen. 

The Mage, maybe in a panic, threw a fireball into the nest, somewhat to dislodge the Hornet from the circle and knock it outside, the Ranger quickly knocked out the other, as two more emerge and were dispatched, also falling into the circle, but dislodged. 

What could have been a disaster was averted, the Ranger made the required 'zombeez joke', but they'd been damaged in the fight, so they said they'd stand guard and make sure the escape was not blocked. (players had to leave for another event) and they proceed to climb the nearby stairs.

The room above was a great hall, where an upper floor balcony looked down.. up there what appeared to be ghosts were very faintly seen, but maybe due to the sunlight, were barely visible and did not appear to react to the heroes (maybe at night)   

There were alcoves with large statues, but these statues had obvious cracks where joints might be, the Barbarian approached sword drawn and as soon as he did the statue fought back. It was a formidable statue in combat style, so the barbarian had to apply all his skills and stances to keep pace.

Meanwhile the Rogue and Mage approached the centre of the room, staying back from the other statues, but not entering the centre, they cautiously approached. yet  it did them no good. some ghostly manifestation appeared to rise from the last of 7 large purple flagstones. it then proceeded to float over the flagstones in a zig zag pattern, slowly forming into some head shape, a head shape with lots of strange braids, until those braids formed into snakes. too late the rogue was turned to stone. The mage realising what had happened, turned aside and ran. The Barbarian not listening to the words, turned to see what had happened  and too turned to stone.

The Mage running back to her companions.. they climbed the pitons, slid back across the chasm, raced to the carriage and set off as quickly as they could.

Upon returning to their family castle, they relayed what had happened and wrote down notes to teach their siblings and cousins. They Vowed to return and save their cousins from this stone curse. The Mage put their time into dispel magic.

What happens next? in 2025 at Concentric, I'll continue the Castlevania quest for the next group of Beaumont siblings, and we'll see if they can figure out the dancing ghosts, the stables, the werewolves, the kobolds, the Zombeez and the Medusa heads in time to face off against the 2nd major boss.