Solo Delving - The City of Terrors

In anticipation of a play-by-post, Tunnels and Trolls game that I have joined, I decided to give a solo adventure a go.

I own a small number of them, but have never given them much thought. I've always intended to try them; however, I had not gotten around to it. I decided upon Michael Stackpole's The City of Terrors. From what I read, I knew I was picking a tough one to start out with, but I've wanted to dig into this one since I bought it. The edition I own is pictured in this blog. It is a Corgi edition.

From what I've read and the little I've chatted with other T&T enthusiasts, this is a classic. The adventure takes place in the city of Gull. From what I understand, this solo is detailed enough to stand as a gazette of the the city.

For those that care about such things, I used the standard rules included in the solo itself. One change I did make, is I rolled 4d6 for character creation stats, dropping the lowest die and keeping the highest three.

My stay in Gull was short lived.

My character:

Name: Halk the Pretty

Kindred: Troll

Type: Warrior

ST: 45

INT: 15

IQ: 13

LK: 16

CON: 36

DX: 11

CHR: 13

SPD: 11

Personal Adds: +35

Armor: Complete Leather (6 Hits Taken doubled for being a Warrior to 12)

Weapons: Scimitar (4d+0 adds)

Trappings: Warm dry clothing & Pack (I didn't have enough money left to buy anything else)

Money: 5 gold

Halk the Pretty, named so for his charisma score of 13, didn't last long.

SPOILER ALERT: For those that wish to play this solo, be warned I'm handing out spoilers beyond this point. The text in [brackets] indicates where Halk went and/or the decisions I made for him.

Halk, after finding himself a room and paying a rather exorbitant amount of money for it, made is way to the city square [115] just outside his hotel. Wishing to explore, he headed east on the Dark Way [152] .

On the Dark Way, Halk entered a room in the center of which was an old woman. The old lady was gray haired, wore a shawl and had cats everywhere. Halk decided to speak with her [8].

She told Halk her name was Madame Chayalla. Apparently, she does not like intruders and deals with them ruthlessly; however, Halk is "Halk the Pretty" (and since he is a troll, the old bat is obviously near sighted), she told him that since he was so handsome, she would grant him one chance to save himself. Behind her were two doors. Halk was told to choose one: left or right. Halk flipped a coin, and chance took him to the right [51].

Fate was not kind to Halk. Beyond the door was a vicious tiger with an MR of 100. Combat lasted two rounds, neither of which went well for Halk the Pretty.

Thus ended the short adventuring life of Halk the Pretty.

I do believe the next time I give this a go, I'll fight with two weapons. I may even find a solo meant for starting characters and give it a go first.