The Imaginary Island Waltrop

When the king of Kalimera sent an expedition to the island Chourmi to found another colony, the island Waltrop was discovered. It looks like a big fish. In fact, Waltrop, or Thassikos Chorios how the Greek call it, is a Karubi island that had somehow drifted 9400 km eastwards to the Mediterranean Sea not long ago. The Greek explorers under the command of brave Heracleides decided to land their ships on the beaches in the northeast of the island and to set up their camp there.

Dungeon for Lina and Hendrik / Level 1

I was in Dortmund for three weeks, tidying up my parents' house. One night I wrote a dungeon adventure for Lina (5) and Hendrik (3), my two older kids. (Joaquín is too small to play dungeon adventures, I guess. He just turned one.)

Before I left, I asked them what characters they want to play. Lina wants to play princess Blume, a girl with magical abilities who knows three spells: Fire, Lullaby and Glitter. (I suppose glitter is helpful if you are in a dungeon and forgot your torch.) Hendrik wants to play prince Marmelade, equipped with bow and arrows. They are the children of the king and queen of the island Kalimera.

The adventure starts in the royal kitchen. The cook needs olives to make a greek salad but doesn't dare to go into the cellar where they are stored. He is afraid of mice. (Musophobia.) He already sent the kitchen boy but the kitchen boy didn't return. So now he asks princess Blume and prince Marmelade, our two brave heroes, to fetch some olives for him. They are always up for an adventure and go down the stairs.

1 At the bottom of the stairs, they encounter a cat. The cat asks: "Which animal walks on 4 legs in the morning, on 2 legs at noon and on 3 legs at night?" The cat will follow the heroes around. It likes to be stroked.

2 A room full of stuff. Chests and baskets. Plates and pots. Potsheds. An old fisher net. A flute. A lyre, missing a string or two. A large shield covered with dust. A rolled up carpet.

3 A large room used to store white and red wine in amphorae. Alex, the kitchen boy, lies on the floor and sleeps. He snores in a scary way. He sounds like a giant insect. If princess Blume and prince Marmelade manage to wake him up, he will notice that he lost the keys, the cook gave him, and panic.

4 Another storage room, measuring 3m x 3m. One door is open, the other locked. More chests and baskets filled with stuff. If the prince and princess take a closer look, they will notice that there are traces of animals everywhere. The room seems to be the dormitory of large rodents.

5 The door to this room is locked. Looking through the keyhole, prince Marmelade and princess Blume can see 5 giant olives on legs, wearing red sneakers, and a pickled red pepper and a couple of giant tomatoes, also on legs, also wearing sneakers. As soon as the door is opened, the vegetables will try to get out and run away.

6 Another locked door, another 3m x 3m room. (I like 3m x 3m rooms, don't know why.) There is an opening in the floor, leading to level 2 of the dungeon with a ladder. A foul smell comes from down there.

7 This room is used to store cereals. It has 3 doors. The door to the west is open, the other doors are locked. Two very large mouse-like creatures are bend over a sack eating wheat. They are about 2 meters long and fat. They have grey fur and pink little hands, much like human beings. Taken by surprise, one of them picks up the missing keychain from the floor and runs for the door to the north to open it. (The creature stole it from the kitchen boy while he was sleeping.) The other dire mouse grabs a broom to defend itself. The creatures will try to escape to room 6 and go down to the second level of the dungeon, taking the keys with them.   

8 I think, Lina and Hendrik will like this room, especially if I use props. There is a beautiful little box on the floor, filled with cookies in the form of islands. On one cookie, it says "The Karubi Islands", on another: "You need to pass the pillars of Hercules, sail to the west and south for many days, fight the mighty sea scorpion, go on for 7 more days and if Neptun favours you, you will find the Karubi Islands."

Hamilax Eshmunazar Abimilki's Labyrinth

In May Krüger and I met several times in an Italian street restaurant, drank white wine and wrote a simple Gurps adventure for Sven, Bettina and Andi. Most of us hadn't played roleplaying games in a long time. For Bettina it was even the first time.

The adventure took place on the Greek island Kalimera, in the land house of the rich merchant Hamilax Eshmunazar Abimilki and in his labyrinth. Sven played the part of Stavros, a tough greek hoplite, veteran of the Persian wars. Andi's character was Sephalos, a runaway slave, claiming to be a tough Greek hoplite. Bettina was Viviane, an Amazon warrior, equipped with knife and bow.

So here it goes: They are led into the house by Ploriax, a dwarf wearing a bull's mask. They meet Abimilki. He  shows them around, talking incessantly. He stops in front of a large empty cage. Abimilki wants them to go to another island, see a merchant, buy a very valuable, rare item and bring it back undamaged. He offers a lot of gold if they succeed. The three adventurers agree. Abimilki wants to test them first. Stavros protest but gives in.

They are led into the garden by the dwarf, to the entrance of a labyrinth. He takes off his mask and tells them that Abimilki is an obsessive collector of strange creatures. Stavros, Sephalos and Viviane enter the labyrinth. A heavy door closes behind them. The walls of the labyrinth are about 3 meters high. They start to move forward. At different places there are numbers written on the walls, numerical series like 2 / 4 / 7 / 11 / 16 or 3 / 7 / 2 / 8 / 1 or 2 / 9 / 30 / 93 / 282.

From now on, I'm going to give some options the players had, instead of writing a session report.

1: Above their heads, they see a net with 3 large spiders. They are poisonous but will try to run away when attacked.

2: More spiders.

3: A room, 3m x 3m. A little green body lies on the floor, half eaten and already starting to rot. It's covered by cloth. Something is moving underneath it. A classical D&D monster. A Carrion Crawler.

4: The adventurers are attacked by a goblin with a morning star. He is going berserk and probably ends up hurting himself before he reaches anybody. He might even knock himself unconscious. A couple of meters behind him, more goblins with long ears and sharp teeth are hiding behind a large shield. They shout something in broken Greek. "Please don't attack! He is drugged."  If attacked, the goblins throw sticks.  In close combat they fight with large knives and bite. If the adventurers want to talk, a goblin with an oversized helmet steps forward, the goblin king. He gives orders to grab the fanatic with the morning star and bind him. Then he tells the adventurers how his group was captured by elven slavers from Nitz Oxib Tzaq, sold to Abimilki and put in the labyrinth. In great detail he describes the beautiful Karubi Islands where they are from and how sad their life is now. He is very clever and tries to barter a couple of useless marbles for some of the equipment the adventurers carry. He is especially interested in shiny weapons. It is likely that the adventurers will give in. Before wishing them good luck, the goblin king talks about mushrooms which can be found in the labyrinth, red mushrooms that make the eater go berserk, blue mushrooms that cause deafness.

5: A room, 3m x 3m. A long-nosed monkey sits on the floor in the middle of a colony of red mushrooms, eating. He attacks immediately.

6-9: The provisional home of the goblin tribe. A couple of chests which serve as tables, chairs, closets and beds. The floor is covered with straw and bones of rats and other small animals.

10: A room with a well in the middle. Lilies cover the dark water. The air is damp. After a while a nymph appears. She is chained to the bottom of the well. She will talk to the adventurers, try to seduce them, negotiate, giving pieces of information about the other inhabitants of the labyrinth and its construction. She can't be entirely trusted. She is bright and charming. She might be helpful. The only thing she really wants is to be freed from the chain. If attacked she will withdraw to the water, taking somebody with her if she can. (Not that she needs company. She likes the taste of human flesh.) 

11: The adventurers meet a large friendly creature, a brain golem. The golem was created to invent numerical series. The creator of the golem got bored and sold him to Abimilki. Unfortunately Abimilki has no interest in numbers. Now the golem is looking for a new master. If the adventurers show enough interest, they gain a very helpful servant.

12: The brain golem's room. There are numbers written all over the walls: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97 ...

13: Now this is strange. The air is filled with smoke. Chests are piled up next to the walls. Rats are squeaking from within. Green and pink liquids are boiling in kettles. It's some kind of lab. A goblin lies on the table, surrounded by 3 man-sized tentacles. They try to transform him into a tentacle which is probably as difficult as turning a stone into gold. The goblin is still alive and can be rescued.

14: Two hyenas. On their way through the labyrinth the adventurers have probably already heard them giggling eerily several times. If the adventurers had gotten into a fight with the goblins, the hyenas might have appeared to fetch some corpses.

15: Another 3m x 3m room. Blue mushrooms grow on the floor. If you eat some, you turn deaf temporarily, if you eat a lot, forever. The golem, the nymph or the rescued goblin might advice to eat the mushrooms as an antidote to sonic attacks.

16: A 5m x 5m room with a large hole in the middle, 3 m wide and at least 10 m deep. Looking around, the adventurers notice that little channels lead to the hole from other parts of the labyrinth. They are filled with the blood of the creatures that were slain by them. A large demon crawls out of the hole, a mixture between an octopus and a cock. You can see pictures of it here. The more blood the adventurers have shed before, the stronger he is. He attacks with tentacles, claws and a long beak. Every ten seconds he lets out a horrible scream which causes the adventurers to attack each other, unless they have a strong will or are deaf.

Imaginary Ancient Islands

I like the concept of imagi-nations which is popular among wargamers at the moment. There is a fascinating blog network called Emperor vs Elector which connects different blogs about imagi-nations and there is even a wargame written especially for gentlemen who want to field horse and musket armies of their imaginary nations against each other: Maurice by Sam Mustafa. All of this is very inspiring. 

I have been talking a lot with my cousin and Krüger about how we can introduce narrative elements to our tabletop battles. First of all we want to start using maps in our games. Do you know Cartographers' Guild, a forum dedicated to making maps of fictional places?

I started to collect 28mm ancient Greeks about a year ago, so I made this island. I don't know much about it yet. Sven suggested the name Kalimera which sounds good. Our hack and slash GURPS game next Saturday will take place on the island Kalimera which reminds me that I need to buy a bottle of Ouzo for my friends and some olives.

Since this post talks a lot about sources of inspiration, I would like to share a couple of pictures which fascinate me. I found them on Steve Dean's forum.

This samnite was sculpted by Kev White, one of my favourite sculptors. It's a portrait of Duff who commissioned the miniature and painted it.

This is a scene from RuneQuest. The samnite has a large helmet now which makes him a Rune Lord. The Walktapus was sculpted by Snuurg for Fenris Games. Both miniatures were painted by the very talented Duff.

Makes me want to get some old RuneQuest books. Ancient Greece + Beastmen + Cthulhu + Ducks sounds cool.

Yamas!