Gaming Ballistic’s Delvers to Grow project is now live on kickstarter and apparently had a very good start. It’s authored by Kevin Smyth, who also wrote Norðlondr Folk and Hand of Asgard for Gaming Ballistic’s Norðlond setting.

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    <img src="/assets/delvers_to_grow_mockup.webp" alt=""/>


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    <p class="image-caption" class="caption-text"><p>DtG mockup from the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gamingballistic/delvers-to-grow-dungeon-fantasy-rpg-powered-by-gurps">kickstarter page</a>. Art by <a href="https://kseniakoz.com/">Ksenia</a>. Used with permission.</p>

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As with the previous session, Exxar is running an online game using pre-release Delvers to Grow rules (see also his opinions on the DtG ruleset).

This session’s motto apparently was “I think you guys need to play cliché last words bingo”, as proposed by Doug three hours before the session. I got a fast one in; my backstabber was cornered by four skeletons last session and shouted “You go ahead, I’ll hold them off and catch up” before being stabbed to death.

Starting party is

  • Knight
  • Sean (Backstabbing Thief)
  • Thwock the Barbarian
  • Olaf Treehuggir (Druid)
  • Wrestler (me)

with Thwock the only one who survived from the start of last session.

Quotes are from different people at different times; unfortunately, I usually didn’t write down attributions.

The Session

Last time, the session concluded with everyone at the base of the wall. This time, we started placing the ladders. Sean took an arrow to the knee (he’d need to become a guard later on had he survived the session), but survived. This was when I introduced my new character - I had only started building him at the start of the session. The Wrestler held one of the ladders to stabilize it.

While Thwock and the Knight climbed the ladders, we heard people lugging oil on the wall. On one ladder, the Knight blocked the fire with his shield (which was therefore now on fire). The Olaf Treehuggir, climbing behind him, was in cover. On the other ladder, Thwock was covered in sticky and burning oil, and the Thief failed his dodge roll. Taking six damage and a major wound. Only through his armour did he survive, at 1HP.

“I’m going to get busy on my next character”

“You actually survived!”

Up on the wall, defenders surrounded us on all sides. A total of ten cultists and two armoured demons, with five small flying demons to the south. The latter’ll throw fireballs. Not to worry too much, though, there’s already reinforcements coming in! For them, that is.

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    <p class="image-caption" class="caption-text"><p>Storming the walls. Cultists and armoured demons surround us, with more coming in from both sides. There’s also five small flying demons to the south. Thanks to Dalin for this and the other screenshots.</p>

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Generally, the cultists are making strong all-out attacks on their targets; the armoured demons usually go for the neck (and have range 2). Olaf Treehuggir draws first blood, getting a major wound in with his spear. He’s all out of FP anyway. First kill goes to the Thief (as last session, though it’s another thief this time around). They are very good at initial damage, but then quite squishy. Somebody mentions there’s a safe-ish area - at the bottom of the wall.

The cultists first attack the Knight - two cultists and the demon.

“I’m not even nervous.”

The demon misses, and one cultist is blocked. Against the other one, the Knight critically fails, rolling 6-6-6. Exxar rolls 1-1-1 (what are the odds?) on the crit table and the Knight takes triple damage - 23 damage, or 25 injury after DR to the torso.

“It turns out, he should’ve been nervous”.

Death check succeeds, and so the Knight holds on with half his torso missing. The next fireball that attacks him (to the torso) misses him.

“Most of my torso is gone, so that’s a miss”

Meanwhile, the Thief is attacked (and had one HP left before), fails parrying, and is knocked down and stunned. The flying demons throw fireballs, not doing much damage. Another cultist appears to the south-west, climbing onto some crates.

On our turn, the Wrestler throws one of the cultists from the wall. That’s something you’ll see a few more times.

“I heard it’s safer down there!”

Meanwhile, the Knight manages to just miss the vitals of one cultist, and then rolled minimum damage to the torso he did hit.

“Did I mention that before the game I pissed on a shrine to the Fates?” - Knight

That’s when our GM noticed that the Knight’s shield as well as the Thief (already stunned and on the ground, and just rolled 6-6-6 on his unstun roll) and Thwock would be burning, too. The Knight, in true munchkin fashion, mentions that his shield bash might do extra damage now.

Other than that, the Wrestler is attacked for 11 damage after his all-out attack. 8DR is quite nice, though, at reducing that. In contrast, Olaf Treehuggir is hit by 9 cutting damage, and doesn’t really have armour.

“Well, I’m a caster. I didn’t really buy much armour. My next character will.”

Thwock is hit by more damage, bringing him down to -8.

On our turn, the Wrestler throws another enemy off the wall.

“Try to hit the cushion below!”

“You’re like a conveyor belt for cultists”

In the meantime, the Knight manages to impale one of the cultists into the vitals, killing him. The Thief, meanwhile, unstuns and is hit again but makes his second death check. Thwock is hit and is stunned himself, but his player has an alternate character already worked up.

“Shouldn’t the thief have taken burning damage?”

“Well, if you insist”

Meanwhile, Treehuggir gets missed, the Knight fails to parry one attack (parrying really isn’t his strong suit today) but it doesn’t penetrate his armour, and none of the three attacks on the Wrestler penetrate armour.

Olaf is then attacked by a demon, who tries to decapitate him. He’d need a crit to parry and fails, which makes 20 injury and a death check. He fails. First death of the evening, as his head falls from the wall. It’s safe at the bottom now.

His player immediately introduces Sven Wodenson, a martial artist with the Brutish upgrade. Probably aiming to counter the assertion that you can’t build an effective martial artist at 125 points. Spoiler alerts: He’s going to be pretty effective.

Sven Wodenson enters play by rapid-striking two cultists with his balanced dwarven dueling halberd and kills both. He’s hitting them despite his penalty:

“I’ve got -2 for footing, right? That’s the penalty for standing on the druid?”

The other new character is a knight, named Sir Cumstance (I’ll refer to him by name and to the unnamed knight as Knight), who does a move-and-attack but misses. Our other knight, meanwhile, misses his two parries again but only takes four injury total. He’s still alive, at -18 HP.

At this point, we noticed we forgot that wrestling is close combat, not reach-1. Didn’t matter for this turn, though, as the Wrestler grabbed a demon’s sword as a parry. He fails to improve his grab next turn, though.

The Thief misses his HT roll and is stunned. As we’re playing fast-paced, stunned means out for us, and a new Mage enters the fray. He’s starting to concentrate on concussion.

“Oh, wait, I wanted to apply more burning damage to the thief but he’s already stunned. Hell, I’m going to do it anyway!”

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    <p class="image-caption" class="caption-text"><p>Current situation. Many dead cultists, some at the bottom of the wall. Many dead delvers.</p>

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Sir Cumstance is attacked twice by a demon blade and fails to defend against both. At a total injury of 15 after armour, he’s at -3 HP. The Knight defends. The Wrestler is hit by a demon (and again that’s completely deflected by his armour) and judo-parries one of the cultists.

Sven attacks two cultists, killing both - one of them by essentially cutting him in half.

“Sweet. I owe some people some death.” - Sven

The Wrestler, having just judo-parried someone, throws him too. Off the wall. Because that’s just how I roll.

Sir Cumstance rolls maximum damage, killing another cultist, as does the Knight, whose shield is still burning.

“If I shield-bash someone, does it put the fire out?”

Meanwhile, our Mage finishes casting concussion and aims at the guy on the crates. Who, at that point, throws something at us. Alchemist’s fire, to be exact, hitting everyone but the Wrestler. At least it doesn’t reduce armour as much or stick to people when thrown on the ground.

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    <p class="image-caption" class="caption-text"><p>Now everything’s on fire… Well, just the area marked in red.</p>

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The Wrestler is hit by a demon blade to the neck (which doesn’t penetrate), but judo-parries both cultists. That’s a setup, for on his turn he double all-out attacks, hoping to throw both of them off the wall. He doesn’t quite manage that (the attack on the north one, close to the edge, fails) but throws the south cultist into the north one and that knocks him off the wall. South cultist is stunned and therefore, due to mook rules, down anyway.

Meanwhile, Sven cuts down yet another cultist (but his attack on the demon is blocked). The Knight knocks out another cultist, but Sir Cumstance falls unconscious! And therefore another character is introduced.

“does the tide turn in favor of our heroes?”

“12 cultists left, and all six armoured demons. And the five flying demons. And the cultist who threw alchemist’s fire.”

so…“No. We’re not “almost there.” Stop asking.”

A new character - Slickfingers, a thief without the backstabber module - appears behind a cultist and cuts him down.

And then, finally, the wizard throws his concussion, only just managing to hit the cultist and doing 7 damage with 4 dice (2-2-2-1). Everyone within ten hexes - and that’s everyone at that point - has to make a HT-3 roll to avoid physical stun. Of the heroes, only Slickfingers succeeded. Everyone else is stunned. Two of the six armoured demons are stunned, as are eight of twelve cultists. And four of the five flying demons get stunned, fall down, and die. That’s the silver lining.

“Concussion was worse than the fog in the first sessin, but did take out 5 bad guys” - Wizard

Slickfingers is hit in the torso by a demon for 9 injury, only just avoiding stun. Sven Wodenson, the swashbuckler, is attacked by two demon blades. He’s at -5 to defend (from stun and either standing on a body or burning, not sure). He fails to defend against the first one and would need a crit to defend against the second - and he does get a crit, but a critical failure. He dies.

“I’ve been decapitated twice in a row now.”

“You should play a triger…”

The Wrestler, meanwhile, is attacked by a demon with a strong all-out attack. That one penetrates for 9 injury. He’s reeling, but critically succeeded against stun.

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    <p class="image-caption" class="caption-text"><p>“They’re mowing through PCs at a steady pace, but we are making some progress.”</p>

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The Knight, meanwhile, critically hits - and rolls a damage of 4.

“And then I rolled a “4” for damage which I thought was a crit, but was actually just a bad roll.”

On the other hand, he’s now permanently stable until taking more damage (at -20 HP!) after criticaly succeeding.

At this point, people needed to leave, leaving us with almost all cultists dead, all demons still alive, and a total of five delvers dead.

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    <p class="image-caption" class="caption-text"><p>Final state of the session.</p>

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Conclusion

That was incredibly fun - not serious roleplaying, obviously, but a very nice romp nonetheless. We saw these 9 characters in play:

  • The Knight incredibly survived throughout the game despite his horrible luck (his parries were cursed, he often missed, and he rolled minimum damage multiple times) and almost being cut in half. He was quite amusing.
  • The Backstabbing Thief did what backstabbing thiefs are apparently booked to do in this game: Disappear behind one enemy, killing them instantly, then being killed themselves. This one by being hacked apart by cultists.
  • Thwock the Barbarian, our only surviving start character, showed why you need more armour in this scenario. He was already on fire, though, which hurt his chances and was sliced to death (well, stun) over multiple turns.
  • Olaf Treehuggir (Druid) was already out of FP on the wall and stabbed surprisingly effective with his spear. He was decapitated by a demon.
  • The Wrestler (me) was a very fun character, throwing cultists down the wall all day long. I feel these were pretty unique circumstances. On the other hand, he’s very amusing to play defensively, with at least 8 DR against everything but crushing while keeping no encumbrance. All-out attacks are still a risk for him, but less of one.
  • Sven Wodenson (Martial Artist) was introduced into the fight by killing two cultists, and he continued doing so throughout. He killed at least five cultists. Then, he too was decapitated by a demon after being stunned by the Mage’s concussion and therefore at -5 to defend.
  • Sir Cumstance (Knight) seemed unlucky, too. He was hit early and then soon stunned. He did kill at least one cultist, though.
  • Slickfingers (Thief) is the only character that wasn’t stunned by the Mage. He’s quite damaged.
  • The Mage’s main contribution was to stun almost all of the delvers. He did take out four flying demons, though, which was nice.

I want to stress that this is a very unique way of playing. Being in combat almost constantly, and being mobbed by these cultists, means that you have to prioritize armour and defences to survive. At the same time, since you’re playing disposable characters, you don’t much care about saving them.

From a character building PoV, which is what the book is about, this was incredible. People were building their characters during play, and everyone (except me, because I was trying to post everything live into discord and managed to survive anyway) had characters ready to go the instant their previous characters died. It was extremely fast and streamlined.