Frostgrave club league - Week Five

On Sunday, we held the latest round of our Frostgrave "league". This time, the game was slightly different as Andy had designed a scenario, so he didn't bring his Band of Frogs, instead acting as the game Umpire (in a sort of Dungeon Master way) and Kevin handled the role of Undead and Monsters player.

The scenario was all about bands of adventurers exploring a location in the Frozen City that was known to be a place of dread; the burial place of a great necromancer and three of his most important underlings. The tombs were surrounded by a wall that no one had ever climbed over, well no one had ever come back again so the assumption was that there was some terrible force at work here. The tomb enclosure had four entrances, one at each corner. Surrounding the enclosure were a variety of rooms and courtyards, some which had clearly served as libraries, refectories and storerooms for the necromancer's entourage, plus a number of smaller tombs and monuments. The only ways into the necromancer's domain were via secret doors which opened from behind bookcases.

Unusually, Owen, Richard and me all decided not to attack one another, because there were unknown perils that had to be dealt with first.

All of the photographs below show various points in the game. The domain of the necromancer was, unsurprisingly a place where the Dead stalked the passages and open spaces and, whenever a location was explored something horrible was likely to emerge, even if there was treasure to be found as well.

Here is my band's first appearance. There were lots of places here when treasures might be found.

Unhappily, there were also many Ghouls, some of which emerged from a noisome privy just outside the Refectory area. These would cause me a lot of problems.

There were also piles of treasure scattered around. Sadly, most of these proved to be nothing more than enchanted rubbish of no value at all.

My fighters spent a lot of time trying to eliminate one particularly tenacious and unpleasant Ghoul.

Elsewhere, Richard's Apprentice, accompanied by a Knight explored a scriptorium just inside the tomb enclosure.

Owen's desperadoes spent no time at all in penetrating into the tomb enclosure.

The gems here represent small items of treasure that have been found. None of these were large and were no impediment to movement, although they did hamper a fighter in combat.

Owen's band were now close to the actual tombs of the evil wizards.

Having finally seen off a number of Ghouls, Skeletons and Bony Hands which grasped my treasure hunters by their ankles, my band was also inside the tomb area.

We were running out of time. However, We were all successful in finding at least a few small items of loot, plus a major treasure. When the time came to tot up our gains, each of us had found part of a map and a key, as well as some gold coins. I also found a Magic Dagger. Unhappily, my Infantryman, who had been incapacitated in the game never recovered from his wounds. Sic transit .............

The pieces of the map. when joined up purport to show the real location of the Necromancer, and the keys will open up doors, hopefully revealing great treasures, but probably more likely a host of undesirables. Once again, our three bands will have to cooperate for our mutual benefit if we are to triumph.

In the post-game reckoning, I decided to replace my Infantryman with another Treasure Hunter and I have given the Magic Dagger to my Thief. My wizard has now advanced to Level 10, so not bad overall, really.