Dungeon Crawl Classics: They Served Brandolyn Red

brandolyn-coverThe village of Portnelle is once again bright and festive. After years of feuding, the town’s most prominent and influential families will finally be making peace as the youngest generations are joined in marriage. However, when an evil born of dark secrets refuses to stay buried, blood will flow like wine at the reception.

This wedding is one your fellow villagers will talk about for generations!

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17 Comments

  1. Gnomish romance was mentioned in the noisy person cards game and I was like wait what. I have to say I if this is what they were referring to and I’m pretty sure it is, it disn’t disappoint. Then again the peasant grinder never does.

  2. And people say that romance in RPG’s is weird.

  3. I never would’ve thought the phrase “a focus spear of doves” would have me doubled over with laughter while doing the dishes, but I guess context is everything.

  4. This was amazing. I just don’t even have the words. Dove spear. Arrow chucking. Ice swan hurling. Vendetta generating (and resolving!). Staircase collapsing. A heap of dead PCs. Frozen urine. All this plus forbidden romance! Every single player had some glorious moments, the indestructible fop, the couple of destiny, and the legendary weaponized doves. Somewhere out there, John Woo sat bolt upright, unable to understand what happened, but knowing that he’d been invoked.

    So how many money units do we need to give the Patreon for Ross to run a campaign with the surviving PCs? Cause I’m in.

    Thanks so much for bringing the massive, idiot grin to my face tonight at work, gentlemen.

  5. ahahah Mip and Pauline’s makeout session being described as “very hard to watch” was a crowning moment of RPPR

    as irritating as I find fantasy trope “just make some magic up!” storytelling, the idea of a ghost haunting an entire vintage is p fuckin cool. and man, the sudden Cronenberg turn when they found the queen. trying to stick new grubs on her to replace her head? ughhhh remarkably effective body horror, much worse than the flesh golem

  6. Dove – ah – KEEN

  7. That is perhaps the single best beginning to a roleplaying game ever.

  8. In an awl or nothing session, we found out what gloves got to do with it, and what it sounds like when doves cry havoc.

    I’ll admit the first DCC was my favorite, because it relied on plans based on the inventory of each character, but this one was good.

  9. Dear RPPR

    I went into this game thinking “Why not? these peasant games are pretty neat.”
    When I heard the cast, I thought this sounded pretty promising
    I did NOT go into it thinking I would leave it as one of my favorite goddamn games on the entire site

    -the improvised wedding brawl (“I will use the chocolate fountain!”)
    -unleashing the samurai movie of doves (“And the last dove dies, at peace knowing it served its master. And suddenly a herd of doves is released overhead in their honor.”)
    -the honor duel turned prison-shanking (“Out of character, how do you always find a way to make it worse?”)
    -the strangely lucky fop just slapping his way through danger
    -the Bohemian earspoon branch and “any sharpened logs” (“You know! You leave them on the side of the highway in case of giant vampires!”)
    -crit-fails fucking everywhere (“He misses and he farts. Classic slapstick.”)

    and of course, the uncomfortably open halfling and elf love story/makeout sessions, and their concerningly badass archery, along with plans to get a smaller halfling to sit on his shoulder and also throw arrows. I wasn’t sure what I was rooting for more: them to end up happily together, or one to go down and the other just touches the body and quietly puts on warpaint from their lover’s blood and berserks on the offending monster

  10. DCC IS pretty much perfect; it is on the short list of games that delivers the experience it means to almost every time (well, at least for the character funnel).

    As a listener, DCC is also incredibly entertaining, because it is so goofy and rules-lite that there is little downtime and instead lots of whacky character shenanigans.

    The flavor text for that adventure was absolutely METAL. Loved it.

    Also, I’ve used the “just roll under your stat” instead of DC’s as well; it’s easier (for me) to simply add/minus a 1 or 2, or “flip” the range if the check is easier/harder (i.e. if you have a 6 and normally have to roll under, but this SHOULD be easy enough for you, then try to roll higher).

  11. Oh, man. Mip and Pauline. Bolloxley. The Dragontear brothers. That dove spear. They shall all live in infamy.

    I was waiting to see if somebody would give a shoutout to Lamentations of the Flame Princess when things turned Doom Metal at the end. Caleb came through. 🙂

    There is an OSR 1st ed. version that uses the “roll under your attribute” rule, called The Black Hack. It seems like a pretty nice, simple idea. I think Paranoia uses that technique for everything, too.

  12. Baffled & laughing too hard to know much of what is going on in this one even after repeated listening to it. Just wow & this gets my personal nomination to consider adding this to the AP list of best humorous ones in RPPR actual plays.

    Shame we didn’t hear this group go through the other vineyard buildings as I’d love to hear how they dealt with whatever odd monsters or traps are in there. Definitely adding this to the list of DCC adventures to get.

  13. 6:27 minutes in. I’m laughing uncontrollably.

  14. This really is another tour de force and best of RPPR.


  15. Hey guys! Thank you so much for running the adventure – I’m so glad everyone had fun with it. I had a super fun time writing this adventure and was a bit worried that the family-legend/rivalries wouldn’t translate well to game play, but you guys nailed it. Rock on.

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