Cleric Down Below: A Guest Post by Coffeelove

Well Coffeelove has dome my work for me again, writing up an example of what he thinks a cleric would look like Down Below. This is based on his post, so head over there and have a look around.

It was a beautiful day. Traffic in and out of the building was normal, with little children begging the soldiers at the front gate for candy and money. They never needed the money that they asked for, but they could con just about anybody out of five bucks if they really wanted to. Around two in the afternoon the children and the visitors left, just like they do everyday for the mid-afternoon meals and naps. Unlike any other day though, they did not return as dusk.

This alone should have warned all of us that something was wrong, since the children normally terrorize the front gate until just before nine at night, which was the curfew we had imposed on the town. Instead of thinking something was wrong though, we were grateful that the children had been kept home. We had lost one guy for the day due to illness, so just after nightfall my shift on the M60 machine-gun nest came up. After a long, uneventful, and much too quiet a shift, my replacement showed up on time. It was nearing midnight and I was tired, so off came my body armor and helmet so that I could lay down and get some sleep on the third floor.

A thunderous crack, a flash of orange and blue light awaken me from too little sleep. The effects of such a concussion so close make everything foggy and incoherent, more so than normal from waking up. Screams, where are those coming from? Two more explosions, one after another bring me to my senses. At once everything snaps into focus, the screams are my fellow soldiers crying out for my help! I roll to the side of the door I was sleeping near to look outwards to see where they are. One of the team leaders has been it with a fragmentation from the second set of blasts. Rushing, I high-crawl to him. He’s been hit in the face with a chunk of concrete, no other wounds. Fighting with him all the way, I drag him to the interior of the third floor and rip open my Aid-Bag. Practically sitting on him with my back to the enemy, I bandage his face with a field dressing. I turn away for a second to grab some tape, and he’s gone back to the rooftop to destroy whoever did this to him.

More screams echo up to me from the lower floors, I can barely hear them over the M60 barking it’s threats of death to whatever is stupid enough to come within range. Moving as swiftly as possible, I put on my armor and take to the stairs with my bag in hand and pistol on my hip. I know that there are forty steps between the third and first floor, but my feet find only two between landings during my decent.

Another team leader, shrapnel wounds peppering his body like a ground chuck steak. Bandages loosely wrapped on the worst ones, scissors become a second set of fingers as I cut these blood-soaked wrappings loose to apply compression dressings. Through the dust clouds from the most recent explosion I see a… female?!? She’s pointing to under the stairs I just flew down, another wounded soldier, small but bloody shrapnel wounds cover his legs. Again, more dressings that need to be replaced, and again more explosions outside the building bring new screams of ‘MEDIC’ to my ears.

As I regroup my equipment for the mad dash outside, I also prepare myself for the worst I could imagine. They don’t teach you how to conjure up bravery in Combat Medic School, but stupidity is something that they harp on to no end throughout the course. My next actions would be considered stupid by most, if not all the instructors I had. But what was I supposed to do?

On the near side of the barriers close the road, there is a soldier on his back on the ground. Continually dodging left and right on my rush to him, I can see that the other soldiers near him have treated his many wounds with  their personal first-aid kits. While arguing with a casualty is the last thing any medic is willing to do, this guy just won’t listen to common sense and let me move him inside the building where it’s safer. I drop a chem-light near enough to him that whenever the evacuation team arrives, they won’t miss him; and hopefully the hail of bullets and RPG’s will keep him from retrieving the chem-light and throwing it somewhere else.

Everything drops to absolute silence. Am I dead? No, the enemy has started to run away; and the evacuation team is en route to our location with plenty of backup to wipe out whatever is left. The joy of seeing our M113 ambulance is uncontrollable. I rush to the third floor to get the first casualty and escort him to the transport. when we return to the first floor, my squad leader has the unharmed soldiers moving the wounded to the vehicle and is giving one of the wounded some morphine. We load up the last of the casualties and my squad leader leaves with them, ensuring they will survive to the Battalion Aid Station.

Those of us that are left, gather together on the first floor to reassure each other through hearty handshakes and boisterous jokes about the enemy we faced together.

Except on those few days when those that were wounded came back to fight along side us, and in a few cases gave their lives for us, we never spoke to each other about that night.


Who are you? Part I: Classes Down Below




So how do the different classes fit into this setting?




I see a cleric












A History of Below

Alright, I said I had a background for my modern Gygaxian Dungeon Crawling setting. It is roughly based on Voices from Below and The Long Stairs, and is probably compatible with it.

In 1952 the NRX reactor in Chalk River, Ontario melted down. US Navy personal who had been training nearby helped clean up the spill before the radiation could spread and the reactor kept operating until 1992.

Now why would US personal be brought in when CFB Petawawa is just down the road? More interesting is the fact that one of those personal was one Jimmy Carter. Yes, the future US president cleaned up a Canadian nuclear spill. It’s an incident that has stuck in my mind and after seeing the long stairs idea of nuclear incidents opening portals….

When the NRX melted down a portal was opened. It was just a little one however, much to small for someone to pass through. No one really knows how it was created, or what the US Navy had to do with it’s creation but it remained buried inside the reactor until decommissioning was underway following it’s shutdown in 1992. At that time it was discovered that the little portal was no longer so little:  It was then a full meter wide and 2m tall. Decommissioning was stalled while the government decided what to do. All the while scientists studies the portal. Robotic probes where sent through and pulled back ok, but would retrieve no data while inside. Animals pushed through in cages, then pulled out returned unharmed. Finally it was decided to send some human test subject through. There are various official names for it, but most people just call it ‘below’ due to the fact that walking through the portal gives one the feeling they are falling from great hight, and the fact that the portal emerges into what seems to be the first level of a giant complex. The horrified tales they related caused security at the site to be expanded.

Finally they have found people to go down and discover exactly what is going on through this gate. Several scientists to figure out want on earth is going on down below. Soldiers to guard them, medics to patch them up. You are one of those people, sent down Below, to uncover the truth or die trying.

Well? What do you think? Like it? Hate it? Let me know. Please. Comments….leave comments… Anyway, Until next time, Stay Geeky


Gygaxian Dungeon Crawling in the Modern Day

I’ve always wanted to run or play in an exploration based game. You know one where the players keep maps on graph paper and the only reason they go into the next room is to see what is there, to kill what is there and take any stuff that is there. Now I suspect I’d get bored with this as I’ve played hack & slash games before & get bored of combat very quickly, but the obsessive part of me likes the idea of keeping really detailed maps & tracking loot and whatnot. This would be the same part of me that made me collect CCG cards just so I could sit around and organize them. (For those that don’t know I have Asperger’s syndrome and I suspect this kind of behaviour is a part of it. I haven’t done anything like this in a long time though, I do kind of miss it).

This recently returned to me while reading ‘Voices from Below and the Long Stairs’ on In it the US opens a big hole into another dimension with a nuke, and the military has been exploring it since the 60s. Now it has evolved into a full setting, some of which I like, other parts I don’t, but really the part that is sticking with me is modern day people going into a D&D dungeon.

So a giant fantasy dungeon, filled with monsters, treasure and deathtraps. I have some ideas on how I will give access to this, but let us think about this for a moment. In The Long Stairs the dungeon moves around to prevent the military from being able to occupy it, or do room to room clearing. Well that goes against the idea of the party mapping out the dungeon, so it goes. I like the old Greyhawk idea of gunpowder not working. It explains why we simply don’t flood the dungeon with soldiers nicely as well.  How many people can you get -subtly- that are trained with archaic weapons?

This allows it to be run with any fantasy RPG straight off. On the other hand the idea of soldiers using a mix of assault weapons and swords would be cool. If you are using a generic of SF system then it is pretty easy. Another idea is that gunpowder works, just not very well: The reduced explosive power of the ammunition means it only works as well as a bow, and you just use bow stats. This would work very well in 4e I think with Rangers and such. It also keeps gun nuts from annoying you with range, stopping power and whatnot.

I very much like the tales of D&D monsters fighting with player characters. I think the descriptions of that, when done true to D&D where quite interesting.

Lets have a look at the type of scene I want: A squad of JTF2 soldiers walking through a large cavern, protecting some nervous looking academics. Suddenly  Xorn rising up from the floor, biting a soldiers leg off at the knee, its arms yanking ammunition belts and other metallic objects off his body. The soldiers spread out opening fire as the scientists fall back. One of the scientists adjusts some equipment and fires a sickly green beam at the creature, causing it to screech in pain. It grabs the fallen mans rifle and sinks underground. The party medic rushes over, and speaks to the fallen man of brotherhood and unity, and slowly the blood stops flowing and his screams subside. The medic helps the man to his foot, and group hobbles back the way they came.

So: What do you think? Would you like to play a game like that? What parts do you like? What parts do you hate? How could I do it better?

I’ve just noticed I post about modern games a lot. Odd considering that right now I’m running a D&D game in my setting, a Call of Cthuhlu game and playing in an online Serenity game. None of which are modern games, though I have considered moving the CoC game to the modern era.

Anyway, until next time, Stay Geeky.