So, I ran the second installment of my DarkSun/Gamma World AD&D game, based more or less on Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It was a total blast, even though we hardly got anywhere in the game. By the way, I hear Marvel is releasing a comic adaptation of DT next February. I'm so there.

Anyhoo, here's a rundown of the major happenings in my game. Warning: Dork Alert!


Player Characters:

-A misunderstood 16-year-old ghul lord necromancer

-A spiritually broken Space Marine who fears he has been impregnated by a thri-kreen

-A bird-phobic lizardman from another world

-A burly half-dwarf gladiator (think a grey-skinned Ving Rhames).

The adventure began at the edge of the Silt Sea, upon which the lizardman and Space Marine had been drifting in a dune sailer which was part of a bone caravan (since metals are somewhat rare, weapons are often made out of bone, so they make valuable raw materials). They were delirious with thirst when the ship ran aground on a cracked hardpan desert that stretched out for what seemed like forever. With no food or water, the only possible action was to begin crossing the vast, lifeless plain. They began to die of thirst. When they were at death’s door, they came to an utterly inexplicable shack. In it was the young necromancer, who had been binging on an amphetamine-like cactus and had no idea how he’d gotten there. The unlikely trio found that there were unmarked cans filled with the food of the Old People, as well as a metal pipe coming out of the floor. They were able to fill up their waterskins from this, and continued on their way.

Eventually they made it to the city of Tereon, carved out of a great shelf of obsidian sticking out of the desert. There’s some sort of strange plague here, one that involves weeping sores and hair loss. The dwarves, who long ago built this city, have been subjugated by the humans, and are confined to the ruined ghettoes of the outer city. The humans take the inner city, which includes an imposing black spire (above which there appears to be a dark cloud! And out here, water falling from the sky is the stuff of legend).

Our heroes made their way to a tavern with batwing doors, where they were befriended by a toothless half-dwarf gladiator. Of course they decided to pick a fight. It was immediately a bloodbath, which pissed off the barflies who had bet on the guys who died. The Space Marine let one of his opponents live, but not before giving him a permanent grin by slicing through his cheeks. We may hear from him again…

The fight was interrupted by commotion from the dwarven bazaar. A mob of sick humans, blaming the dwarves for their plague, began turning over their carts and beating up the just-as-ill dwarves. In the ensuing confusion, The PCs were pushed into the ghetto and sealed in. There they eventually found some common ground with the beleaguered dwarves, and were given an audience with Golden Elder Khazi, a priest of stone who is the dwarven spiritual leader:

“The Templar’s magistrate, or rather, his vizier, has taken control of the Spire. It’s the vizier, for the magistrate is a weakling, a spoiled Templar brat. He has awakened one of the gods of the city, and they are draining our life away for their dark magicks.

You saw those dark clouds around the Great Spire? The templars say it’s smoke, but I smell water in the air, such as were commoner when I was a dwarfling. My da’ said water used to fall from the sky each spring, and I believe him. And if you get near enough to the Spire, your very beard will stand on end.”

Khazi also revealed an ancient prophecy:

“It is said that at the top of the spire is a great Dwarven God, a spirit of wisdom trapped in one of the old machines. The legends tell that if anyone can outwit this old god, he will reveal the path to the dwarven homeland, and release us from our bondage.

We cannot survive here. The city is dying, and we will die too unless we are delivered.”

Golden Elder Khazni led them to a stairway covered in tiny ancient tiles, which were cracked and faded. The stairway led far, far down, dozens of stories. The trip takes several hours, and the priest never says a thing. He doesn’t light a torch either. Golden Elders don’t have much use for light.

Finally he stopped in the darkness. “This is your path.”

The PCs were in “a concrete sewer with a bar of iron, a Templar’s ransom of metal that runs lengthwise down the middle of the floor, and seems to go on forever.”

“Follow the path of the Beam”, he said, pointing into the tunnel. “This will take you to the tower.”

The four adventurers headed down the tunnel. A few hours later they came across a flatcar, the kind pumped by hand with a see-saw motion. They traveled like this for unfathomable amounts of time before they began seeing splotches of luminescent fungus on the wall. They knew that water must be nearby, and soon hear it trickling from a large grotto ahead (which was actually an ancient subway station, now overgrown with fungus and other life).

What they didn’t know was that their patch was blocked with giant larvae. Inside the larvae were ustilagor, the larval stage of intellect devourers (basically a brain with legs which can attack psionically). The cart was blocked, and when the necromancer set several of them on fire, they all began to hatch. Melee ensued, and the Space Marine’s night vision goggles were destroyed. Fighting blindly, he fell into a crowd of brains and was attacked like crazy. The necromancer, with no night vision to begin with, blindly cast a burning hands spell which pretty much lit everyone on fire. They lived, but just barely. Our heroes dragged their asses over to the trickling water, and were just about to rest, when they hear the skittering of feet. It is a posse of mutants, here to eat the larvae. Descriptions here:

"From the other track you hear the sounds of skittering feet. There appear to be a couple of dozen creatures. They seem roughly misshapen and lumpy in the dim luminescence of the fungus. Many of them have extra legs and other dangling appendages. An 8-legged monstrosity with a human-looking face (even has a mustache) A shriveled, sickly looking 5-foot rat with pink tumors poking through its fur. A fleshy pile with hundreds of fingers and giant eyes on 4 thick stalks. Several of them look very much like cockroaches. These ones seem slightly more alert, and stick together more than the others. There is also a large contingent with ratlike features, and they also huddle together as they feast on the brain larvae. One thin, almost skeletal mutant has two giant eyes and a grey beak embedded in mottled grey-pink skin. Stray feathers just out from odd-looking wounds in its skin. "

And we stopped the game just as the PCs saw all these creatures, not knowing whether they would be friend or foe, and certainly not able to fight them off if they are hostile. Whee!