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Play report: Deluge at Drizzle Distillery

Spoiler alert for Deluge at Drizzle Distillery by Munkao. As established in my Het Thamsya report, significant rulings and judgment calls are indicated with highlights.

We ran Deluge at Drizzle Distillery over the equivalent of 2, 3 to 3.5-hour sessions. We had 5 players for the first half, 4 for the second. Once again, we really enjoyed the adventure but we also ran into a bit more friction with the printed material than with Het Thamsya or Zaya's so this play report includes some tips for prospective GMs from our experience.

Before getting into the details, I want to summarize some of the more general rulings relevant to the setting here, rather than in the rooms in which they came up. Prospective GMs may rule differently on these:

Buoyed by surviving Zaya's Theatre but still a little gun shy after Het Thamsya, our intrepid meddlers found themselves at a guesthouse next to Drizzle Distillery as it was engulfed in a very intense and unnaturally localized rain storm. The party, thankfully, has internalized the directive to meddle for meddling's sake.

They met Granny Kud and received the request for help. They asked her for a map of the place and they got this rather unfortunate piece of work (this pic shows the handout after the first half of the adventure, with some player annotations):

Poor-quality, hand-drawn map of a roleplaying game setting with the addition of a smaller, higher-quality sketch of a mole in another hand.

I'm not comfortable with giving the players the full, unkeyed map. In both Drizzle and Het Thamsya, I think that would have given away too much. Great discussion in postmortem about the pros and cons of different approaches to mapping - in my fantasies I have the time to capture that in a blog post but not in reality. Anyway, back to our story.

The three faction reps made their bids to the party. One player tried to talk up the rate and was bummed that I didn't let him ("how about we talk again when you have the drawing?").

One PC already had an umbrella as an heirloom and another (our King from Zaya's) decided to buy the fanciest one he could out of vanity, even before learning about the mechanical effect of the rain - I ruled there were some on hand to buy (after all, the distillery is frequented by a local rain god). Once they did step out and learned there was damage, they went back and bought another umbrella: one PC didn't want to lend his because it was an heirloom, and the other didn't want to lend his because of his newfound regal vanity, so they relayed the rest of the party to the door of the distillery with the 3rd umbrella.

R1: as soon as the worm-beast started slopping toward them, the PCs bust out "Sapling Grow, Snail Dance, Turtle Walk" (the poem Zaya gave them at the end of Zaya's, which has a 5 in 6 chance of putting the target to sleep).

R2: they dodged the Swimmer Worm-beast's attack open entering then gave that pool a wide berth. They looted the Awat Guild Member's body and read the scroll of What Happened. One PC has a scroll of Animate Type (and the Spell Scrimp skill to use it twice) so he took What Happened as fodder to animate. I think I told them about the Awat Guild and the possibility for reward upon delivery of a report, but now I'm worried that I omitted this. Otherwise, they didn't spend much time here right away.

R3: they assiduously noted the operation of the talismans and kept careful inventory of these hereafter. They also equipped all outstanding party members with umbrellas (one of which turned out to be a 1 Armour shield, per the table for the room). Inspired by their predecessors' experience in Het Thamsya, they also took the ceremonial robes.

R4: the party noted the handles but didn't really care too much about them and left them both. I can't recall if they crossed the room or not, but they noticed the zombies in the next room and noped out. Still conflict-averse from Het Thamysa! They never came back this way and never discovered the Library (R7).

So they returned to R2 and decided to get at the bracelet in the SW pool by using a Capricious Carp Reject to melt the ice and jet it into the empty pool (see ruling, above, on the action of the talismans). They rolled a 4 on the reject table and it sprayed everywhere, and now they had a sense of the unpredictability of the rejects.

North to R8: the party was keen to tidy the shrine and try to propitiate Maragak, but it's clear from the module that he's insensate to reason. I ruled that they could add the blessing described here to the ones they received at the outset (see prior discussion of when and where PCs can pray). They received all 3 bonus ticks to the storm tracker.

R9: quick work made of the room with a talisman, and up the stairs.

R10: The party noticed the worm in the injured worker's ear and the PC with Animate Text used it to commanded the letters from What Happened to remove the worm. He also used the remaining letters to block his own ears. I liked the idea and the desire to creatively engage with the less obviously useful character abilities, so I allowed it. They treated the injured worker, were disappointed at the limited helpfulness, and continued.

R11: upon entering, one PC uncovered Mo Sokow, the Guardian of Ageing, who panicked and threatened attack. One of two PCs to learning Dance Techniques of the Elites as a skill after Zaya's to calm it. The resulting conversation went nowhere, Mo Sokow being concerned with roosting over again Drizzle Water. I ruled that the party could fill a single bottle of Drizzle with the drippings on the floor but, upon re-reading, I think that was a mistake: a talisman should probably be able to freeze the disparate puddles but not collect them together. Oh well.

Back to the foyer (R2) and the party finally melted the ice wall. The crossed R12 uneventfully with umbrellas and into R13, where they made quick work of the zombie. They were convinced that the dry fountain was a puzzle, trick, or trap, so one used Animate Text (his second use with Spell Scrimp) to send the letters of a scroll marching through the pipes and then spelling out what they learned ("NOTHING INTERESTING"). He then sent them up the wall, to the ceiling, and had them drop the Power Parasol Component down to them without know what is was. They risked several random encounters during the several turns spent in this room, but the dice went gently on them. They did meet Kripik on a random roll, giving her coins and flattering her, but the conversation didn't go too far at this juncture.

Through R14 and east to R20, where we had out first proper combat due to the ambush. One PC took critical damage in the fight but they handled the worm-beasts easily and stabilized the downed character. I rolled a 6 on the random encounter table (worm-beasts chasing a bottle of the Drizzle) but it didn't feel right to have it happen in this room, so I ruled that this happened by in the big hallway at R14 behind them, which created a threat for them to avoid (I also ruled that the worm-beasts would be taken by mysterious, wormy business to stay in R14 until something happened).

Then to R21, which really gave us some trouble conceptually. More detail in the GM notes. Someone cast Banana to summon a banana tree to serve as a bridge, and the trapped workers escaped. We determined that there had to be a walkway around the perimeter of the room (how else would the workshop at R22 be accessible to employees) so the party was able to access R22 and R23 from there.

Things got a bit silly in R22. Having failed to clock the valve handles from R4, it never occurred to them to create their own moulds. In fact, they arbitrarily and gratuitously dumped the large tank of wax on the heating elements in R21 and never explained why. They did, however, get very excited about the existing moulds, which they took and made all of the items. One PC (our King from Zaya's) got very excited about the ice pipe and made it his gimmick for the rest of the adventure. I almost decided to make it an heirloom, but I thought that it might be a big cruel to saddle him with one that would melt. The found and grabbed the Power Parasol Component (having missed the library, couldn't figure out how to activate it even after assembling the components).

Past the now-smouldering banana tree in R21 to R23. They noticed the swimming shapes and decided to use a talisman to freeze the water. They used a defective one and the result rolled indicated that less volume transformed than desired, so I ruled that it only froze a top layer of ice. Uncertain of how it would hold, only one PC zipped across (succeeding a DEX save to avoid falling through) to explore the kitchen in R24. He looted it (using Baby Spirit to get into the Wooden Case atop the cupboard) and came back DEX-saved back to the party.

The backtracked R21 > R20. Cautiously sticking their heads into the hall, they saw the worm-beats doing wormy things at the other end, and snuck across into the Sanctum Labotatorium at R15. Our text animator commanded his letters to arrange themselves into a diagram of the Purification Apparatus, which he annotated for completion - I ruled that this cut the drawing time to 1 turn, while some PCs looted the room and others kept a careful eye on the ceiling worms.

At this point the storm moved to the Daggerstorm Phase and the roof collapsed.

The party dashed out to the room, across R14, into R20 where they slammed the door before that roof, too, collapsed, and into R21. They spent a turn or two mandhandling the banana tree into a new position, as a bridge across the thin ice of R24.

They entered R25, stomped the worms, and were alerted to the presence of the secret passage of the warm draft. They removed the cupboard and lit a torch for the first time in three adventures to navigate R27 into R32 where they found Kripik again. They asked her about Balub, and I ruled that she was generally indifferent, if a little annoyed by them. They noticed the bottle of Drizzle Water and one PC discretely gilded a boning knife from R25 and offered it as a "magic weapon" (another fantastic quip from a player, which I unfortunately forget again, about its "power"). I felt this was close enough to the spirit of the room description to allow it. They didn't try to get into her lair or ask for access to the tunnels.

R30 they saw the furious Magarak but didn't trying to engage with him based on their attempts at supplication in R8. A random encounter saw a single thrall come running from R31 and attacked the party - again, a handy win. Then, on to Balub.

R31: the party attempted to parlay with Balub at length, first taking a conciliatory approach (not sure what the end game was there). When Balub offered the Compelling Earworm, they balked and tried to reason from justice and the merit of acting on Balub's behalf as independent agents. I ruled that Balub could not be swayed, being very practically interested in a guarantee of loyalty until Maragak was dealt with. While a few PCs parlayed with Balub, another explored the pipes and figured out that there was a supply of water on the other side, but I ruled there was no way to open the pipes from here. Another used his inaudible bamboo flute heirloom (core book, p. 26) so summon the area's mynah birds to try to pick the worms to death. I thought it was a brilliant idea but, plausibly, it didn't make sense for a flock of birds to brave the weather could seriously injure humans. I ruled that a few made it to the distillery but not enough to be more than a nuisance.

And then the storm progressed and, once again, the roof fell in. The timing was pretty great, in fact, because everyone was getting annoyed with the impasse and I felt that Balub would soon get hostile. Per my ruling on the mechanics of the roof collapse, the players had a brief warning that collapse was imminent. One of our PCs decided, as a dramatic gesture, to use his Dance Techniques of the Elites and to beseech Balub through flattery to fight Maragak directly. The ruling on a successful WIL save, Balub would be beseeched but, on a fail, Balub would turn against the party. The player succeeded, so Balub and the worm-beasts went charging down the stairs to get their asses summarily handed to them by Maragak.

And so ended the battle for Drizzle Distillery with Maragak reasserting control and the worms dissipating. We played through the party's discovery of Gadul but we were pretty clearly done with the module so we jump-cut the rest. The party took its money from the Distillery, the envoy from Naris South, and House Itsiang, but I ruled that the Lazy Eyes would have freed themselves and absconded when the storm escalated.

GM notes

We found that this ran less smoothly than Het Thamsya and Zaya's Theatre. However, the variety of environmental, puzzle, and NPC challenges gave the players a lot of room for creativity. They really aced Zaya's as a social adventure and the module offered little friction but, as a GM, I found Drizzle a little more engaging even when frustrating because of the inventiveness of both the challenges and the players' attempts to overcome them.

There was a lot of opportunity to increase the lethality: calling for DEX saves when sneaking around the worm-beasts, when repositioning the banana tree in R21 and laying it across the ice in R23, and every time they re-entered R2; rolling a few more random encounters and making them happen in the same room. I don't think it suited this table to play that way, but it might do for others.

The dry pool room (R21) was a stumbling block for us. The purpose and layout of the room wasn't clear to us, which made it difficult to play. How deep and wide is the pit around the platform? Does the pit go right to the walls, or is there a walkway around it? Where is the heat controlled? We didn't understand how the room would operate at the best of times, which made it difficult to answer questions that arose in gameplay. Why would it be located between a fridge, a workshop, and a canteen?

In our postmortem discussion, we agreed that the layout of the place made less sense intuitive sense to us than either Het Thamsya or Zaya's Theatre. It's also a much larger setting. We thought that maybe there was a specific reference we were unfamiliar with, or maybe SE Asian architectural idioms we don't know about, or maybe this was just being more of an abstract dungeon by design than either of the others. I envisioned an agglomeration of shacks that joined with enclosed hallways as need arose. Regardless, the transitions from one space to another could feel quite jarring and we weren't always sure why some rooms flowed into others. Like, why is there an acid gallery next to the dorm, on the only path to the library? That might be difficult for players bent on dungeon ecology or simulationism so, you may want to consider how you'll handle that at the table.

If you're running from the print version: there couple minor typos in the room keying, but they should be easy to figure out from context (they have been resolved in subsequent versions of the PDF). See the inset key on page 31 (the hot pond room given as R20 when it should be R21) and the description of the staircase in R30 (it should say that it leads to R31, not R24).

Granny Kud's map of the distillery, annotated by the players (portrait of Kripik by John Bilodeau): Poor-quality, hand-drawn map of a roleplaying game setting with the addition of a smaller, higher-quality sketch of a mole in another hand.

And another player's own work of mapping:

A high-quality, hand-drawn map of a roleplaying game setting with marginalia and sketches

More mechanical thoughts on Kala Mandala

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