Actual Play

What follows is Actual Play from a 1:1 freeform game of Treasure. There’s lots more – just a case of getting time to copy it up. The section shown below includes the rolls made during play to illustrate where the game’s mechanics are stepping in and out of the gameplay:

Lead-In

Coco has already knocked-out a couple of goblins; then wounded, healed and befriended a timber wolf; before duelled with a goblin shaman. During interrogation one of the goblins has told her it’s safe to drink from a fountain, but Coco refused the invitation and evaporated some of the water from the poisoned fountain to form a blade venom.

#1

After tipping her arrows with poison Coco checks out three frayed tapestries with large white skull logos painted over them. She tears one down, revealing a doorway, and decides to wash the cloth in the poisoned water. The paint fades and a fleur-de-lis crest emerges. The second tapestry hides another doorway and a tapestry with twin fleur-de-lis crests.

Two goblins enter through the first doorway. They try to rush Coco as she lifts her bow. 2D6, 12, multipliers kick in, the arrow tears through the first goblin’s armour and stops him dead. The second raises his mace but the (goblin-hating) wolf behind him has first roll. 2D6, 7, the wolf’s fangs catch the goblin on his trailing leg. The goblin strikes at the wolf. 2D6, 7 but he’s off balance. He catches the wolf a glancing blow. The wolf pins the goblin to the ground.

Coco binds and gags the surviving goblin and searches both goblins. She keeps a gem, a mace and a spare dagger. The new dagger gets a layer of poison on the blade. There’s a stop to heal the wolf’s bruises and teach it basic commands. It learns to follow simple gestures for sit, wait, go forward/ back/ left/ right and attack before there’s a shout from the hall beyond the first doorway.

The shout isn’t in a language Coco understands. As she advances down the hall and a large heavily-armoured ogre steps out of a doorway. He turns, sees her and runs towards her. Coco moves away, turns and fires her bow. 2D6, 4, the arrow only hits the familiar flaming skull design on the ogre’s shield. The wolf, now known as Stick, 2D6, 6, chews on the ogre’s chainmail without causing any damage.

The ogre strikes at Coco. 2D6, 11, bruises her ribs and knocks the wind out of her. Sore one! Coco lets the wolf go first and, 2D6, 8, it catches the ogre, which twists round. Coco goes for a backstab, 2D6, 9, the damage multiplier helps out and the ogre is badly wounded. Then the poison on the dagger kicks in.

Despite the cost Coco has to heal herself properly, as another similar injury would kill her. Poor rolls see four of the five gems carried by the ogre used up right away.

The doorway the ogre emerged from leads to a cell block with signs of just one recent prisoner. A further door leads to a large, dimly lit chamber. A fire in a grand hearth provides most of the light, but there’s a musty, mouldering smell in the air. Stick is reluctant to go in. The furnishings include a very long oak table cluttered with cartons, boxes, bunches of dried herbs and flowers, potion bottles, crucibles, and pestles and mortars.

When Coco moves forward the only occupants come into view at the far end of the chamber. Two figures ‘stand’ before a granite throne. One is hooded, cloaked, crowned and using one arm to lift the other from the ground by the throat. The second is a young, raven-haired man gasping for breath as the skeletal hand jutting from the cloak chokes him.

The hooded figure hears Coco enter and turns to investigate, without releasing the youth. Light falls across the figure’s star-spangled cloak and its skeletal, hollowed-out husk of a face. Coco recognises her enemy and looses her only enchanted arrow. 2D6, 10, the arrow catches the Lich at the wrist, sending up a shower of fragmented bone. Poison has no effect but the creature casts the youth aside.

2D6, 8, and a bolt of lightening screams through the air, catching Coco at the shoulder. The shock burns deep into her flesh and she cries out in pain. A single spell has brought her near to death.

Coco runs out of the chamber and back towards the long stairway that led to this level. She can’t see the Lich when she pauses for breath. Stick tries to stop its progress. A wave of a hand and the wolf lies whimpering in a corner. Coco keeps running and gets to the stairs. The Lich can move faster than her and is gaining ground. By the time she gets close to the top of the stairs it’s near to catching her.

Out of breath, Coco turns to face her attacker. He advances to within a few yards, leaving Coco with only enough time for a single action. The girl draws two daggers but doesn’t strike out. Instead she throws herself straight at the Lich.

2D6, 9, she hits the Lich, knocking it and herself over and down the stone steps. Coco tries to catch both daggers between the lattice of bones and bandages forming the Lich’s chest. 2D6, 11 and 3. One catches and Coco is able to use the Lich as a sledge while they both glide down the steps. The bone-jangling ride rattles the Lich’s spine over half the distance of the steps.

Both Coco and the Lich roll to see if they can stop their fall. 2D6 for the Lich, 5 and Coco, 8. Coco can let go of the dagger and fall off but opts to stay on and continue the ride. The pair sledge on down the rest of the stairs, with the Lich’s bones cracking and crunching all the way. There’s a wretched, snapping sound just before they both tumble out into the room below.

Coco is still smouldering, badly wounded and stunned. She seems to slip in and out of consciousness. Until a warm, rasping tongue licks her full in the face. Stick’s alive!

. . . and the Lich? It’s broken body is twisted back on itself at the snap in its spine. Eyes that burnt like white hot coals are now cold and dim. Coco has broken Seven Times the Colour of Fire.

Sure, she knows he isn’t gone for good, but his soul has to seek out a new host and that buys her time. As for the beast’s crown, dared she even touch it?

#2

Coco picks herself up and listens for sounds of trouble. Everything is quiet, apart from the occasional muffled complaint from the captured goblin. She places the Lich’s bones in the poisoned water in the fountain. The water fizzles and froths around the bones; then churns until the bones dissolve away. A sweet, sickly odour fills the air.

The Lich’s star-sprayed robe and the jewelled crown feel unnaturally cold to the touch. Coco puts the crown in her backpack. Coco’s wolf Stick, and Coco herself, need healing but the raven-haired youth stumbles through the first doorway before she gets started. He looks washed out and still blue in the face. He sees the robe on the floor and and says, ‘Impossible!’

[No one has triggered an alarm but there's an opportunity to turn up the heat/ roleplaying]

The second doorway opens almost immediately and a tall man with the facial tattoos of a Lich’s disciple looks into the chamber. He gazes at Coco, the youth and the robes lying on the flagstones and says, “Impossible!”

Coco turns to the sorcerer and calmly states, “I came here to be your minion.”

The puzzled sorcerer replies, “my minion. Like a henchman?”

“More a henchgirl,” answers Coco.

The youth says, “you can’t do that!”

The sorcerer asks, “what do we do with him?”

“Lock him up. We can find something to do with him later,” replies Coco.

2D6, 8. The sorcerer fires a successful Web spell at the young man and shouts for two goblins to take him away. The sorcerer also asks about the crown and Coco explains that it went into the water with the bones; and how everything turned frothy until the bones and the crown dissolved. She’s shown to the ‘apprentice’s’ chambers and told she’ll be invited to visit the sorceror in the throne room later.

The room is a lantern-lit, cluttered mess of scrolls, papers, books and filthy plates. One wall is completely covered with shelves containing a strange collection of dried rodents, foul-scented plants and jars full of insects. Stick goes to rest in the cot set in an alcove at the far end of the chamber but soon thinks better of the idea.

Coco checks outside and smiles briefly at two goblins guarding the entrance, before going back in. Despite the shambles she searches the room thoroughly. 2D6, 3. She finds nothing. 2D6, 2. She finds nothing and knocks over a jar of dried frogs, which smashes on the floor. The goblins look in and Coco gestures for a brush and shovel. They don’t want to come in and go back to guarding the doorway.

Coco has another try. 2D6, 8. She finds a secret compartment hidden behind a stack of rotten books. 2D6, 9, there’s a poisoned needle trap. Coco tries to disarm the trap, 2D6, 11, then unlock it, 2D6, 4. She can’t get in.

A Shatter spell, 2D6, 8, takes the hatch off and Coco final gets her hands on two scrolls and a bag of, 2D6, ten gems. The gems fuel her spellcasting and each successive, successful casting increases her chances. 2D6, 5, 7, 10, 6. Three of the spells work and she’s about to heal the wolf when the door opens.

The two goblins flank the sorcerer, who’s wearing the Lich’s robe and holding an ornate sacred dagger. “I’ll need the crown now. I’ve checked the Lich’s papers and it can’t be dissolved!”

After casting three successful spells in a row, Coco is charged with magic (+3). She targets her only ritual at the corridor and rolls, 2D6, 7. Just enough, a Fire Storm explodes in the corridor, consuming her opponents in sheets of flame. The two goblins are toppled in the blast and the sorcerer stands, smouldering. The Lich’s robe is untouched but the rest of his clothes and his hair are largely gone. Stick leaps forward, 2D6, 12, the sorcerer takes a savage wound – but it’s his turn now.

2D6, 7, not quite enough to get Coco! Coco is now on a +4 bonus to cast a spell or ritual and sends a Snowball shooting at the Lich. 2D6, 6, enough with her bonuses. The 2D6 damage doesn’t finish him off but he’s committed to a hand-to-hand attack next turn. Stick attacks, 2D6, 4, and misses.

The furious sorcerer advances with his dagger in hand and rolls 2D6, 9. The dagger tears at Coco’s arm, though it’s less damaging than the Meteor she might have expected. Coco considers holding off for a backstab but she’s on a +5 spellcasting bonus and still has some gems left. A second Snowball, 2D6, 8 – and the sorcerer lies unconscious . . .