In the Vicinity of Gyrfalcon, Everybody Has Their Hand Out

This week we had the second session of our GURPS Dungeon Fantasy campaign, "the Dungeons of Zyrd." It found the PCs bribing the snooty butler of the vintner and crime boss, Pnathfrem Lloigor, to gain access. They offered Lloigor their services for--well, something.

He admitted to doing a bit of trade in counterfeit world stones. These he acquires from the dwarf excisemen encamped near the Tower of Might in Castle Zyrd. Another group of adventures had gone to secure more forged jewels from the dwarves, but that party (led by the Brothers Salasius) were late in returning. They agreed to complete the task. They were to make contact with a dwarf named Rogov.

Setting out, they paid a flatboatman to take them across the Broad River and to wait for their return. A mile up the road, they found the way blocked by a group of hobgoblins who demanded tribute. The price was rather steep (every coin they had), so the party entered combat rather than negotiate with such an unreasonable group of humanoids.

Art by Iain McCaig

The hobgoblins had been neglectful in securing distance weapons, and this cost them. A rain of javelins, sling shot, arrows, and magical fire dropped two of them quickly and sent the other three running for the woods. Fearing reprisals from a larger hobgoblin band, the party pursued them, and cut them down in the forest.

That unpleasant business out of the way, they continued on toward Castle Zyrd.

Treasure: None; Deaths: 5 Hobgoblins.

Dungeon Fantasy: A Local Gazetteer

I allowed myself to be convinced to run a GURPS Dungeon Fantasy game. My plan is to do it in a self-aware, classic Gygaxian dungeoncrawl sort of way. We'll see how that goes. Anyway, much of the setting is only vaguely defined (and much recycled from my pre-internet D&D campaigns), but I do know the focus is the Dungeons of Zyrd which are situated (naturally) beneath the half-ruined but still sanity-imperiling Castle of Zyrd. Zyrd in this case being a mad archmage and near-deity.

Base-camp for most delvers is the nigh-lawless boomtown, Gryfalcon. The town squats on the left bank of the River Fflish across from the old Imperial fortification of the same name. Located at the head of navigation, it provides a convenient place to deprive delvers of their haul and to bring new treasure seekers from elsewhere. 

Lake Murrn is north and west of Gryfalcon. Rustic Mudfoot halfings live in stilt-houses. Villages sometimes build out on the water. There are rumors of human sacrifice of outsiders to appease the giant, alligator snapping turtle, Old Ironjaws. There is quite possibly a crashed alien flier half-buried in silt beneath its waters.

Lichwode, north and somewhat west of Lake Murrn, is a small forest dotted with several burial mounds. The locals assume these barrows hold ancient Elvish treasure or even far older Coleopteran refuse, but they also assume them to be haunted. The man-shapes burnt permanently into the grass and the curiously life-like statues of some pockmarked stone with faces contorted in abject terror, found in the area may support this belief.

The Dharwood is floodplain bottomland forest along the Fflish, haven for humanoid tribes, escaped slaves, and outlaws.

Carsulth is a bustling Imperial port at mouth of the Fflish.  Its broadminded folk are friendly with smugglers and pirates, when proper recompense is offered for their lack of prejudice. Some, perhaps many, of its nobles practice diabolic heresy (a perversion of the already self-serving Rannite Cult of Ascension) at least in private.

Thund Tribes in the foothills of the northwest dwell barbarians who pride themselves on their warriors' flowing locks and feathered, barbaric finery.