The Cultists

I've been a bit quiet on the blog, but here's the first of some encounters from last week's AFF2e game.

4.  The Cultists

This is the rough dormitory of the spider cultists. At any time there are 1d6+3 ACOLYTES here; cooking, eating, sleeping, engaging in ritual scarification, including inserting glass beads into cuts on their foreheads, in order to mimic the multiple eyes of a spider. But hey! They’re not Orcs, so they won’t be found round a table idly rolling dice until the Adventurers show up.

The Acolytes are a mix of peoples. A few are red-haired Vynheimers. But there are also acolytes who appear to have come from the Isles of Dawn and some that resemble Old Worlders in their appearance. Any with curious mind will realise that this is not a local cult, springing up solely from native corruption.

ACOLYTES

SKILL 6 STAMINA⑤④③②①             

Weapon	1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
Dagger	1	1	2	2	2	2	3

Poisoned Daggers. After successfully causing damage, victims of the Cultists must Test for Luck of lose 1 SKILL for the remainder of the combat, as the weak poison on the daggers saps their strength.

The Acolytes carry vials of antidote to spider venom. However, as this is a potion concocted in the service of Arhallogen, those using the antidote will find that they ‘owe’ Arhallogen a death, and he will seek to collect this debt. This is not a problem for cultists. Arhallogen will visit any using the antidote in their dreams to remind them of what they owe, and how their debt can be paid.

Tunnels lead [south] to the daylight of the entrance, and off to the [east], sloping down into darkness, from which can be heard the chanting in a dark, alien tongue.

Thanks to the assistance of Midweek One-Eye, the Adventurers knew that this room contained a number of cultists. They planned to lure the cultists into an ambush, but spent so long loudly arguing over their plan that they disturbed a GIANT SPIDER (the 'scuttling corpse') and alerted the cultists to their presence. So, instead, it was they who were ambushed!

Despite the substantial difference in effective SKILL - the 6 for the cultists was outmatched by any Adventurer, with martially inclined beginning Adventurers starting out with an effective SKILL of 9 in their chosen weapon - the poisoned daggers made for a moderately threatening encounter. With LUCK a diminishing characteristic, and with falling SKILL resulting in an increased frequency of Tests for Luck, this was not the cakewalk it might have been. Nevertheless, the Adventurers eventually made a bloody mess of the local congregation of Arhallogen, but did need a good rest, during which Provisions and Potions were consumed.