A solo playthrough of „The Halls of Testing“ from White Dwarf Issue 4 (1977), using the barbarian class detailed there.
Can be found here: Explore: Beneath & Beyond: Original Scenarios Resurrected II: The Complete Barbarian (1977-79, Brian K. Asbury)
Character:
Thorn, 1st level barbarian, with middling stats except for STR. Equipped with leather armor, sword and two spears.
Thorn is called upon to prove himself as a hero by Vesir, the High Druid of his clan. For that he has to best the Halls of Testing. With no further explanation as to the actual goal, a door opens to a space that should not logically fit into the druid’s small hut. One last warning: Keep going forward, for cowards will be rewarded only with death! (Going backwards through more than two previously explored rooms kills you, very nasty.)
The entrance room is empty save for a silver hoop, about a person tall. It doesn’t do anything and there is no danger to be sensed. Thorn exits the room through the door (N) behind the hoop, which leads to a Y-junction, where he goes north-west, finding another door.
Listening at the door yields no answers, so he opens it. He is rudely greeted by a crotchety old man, who warns the barbarian to leave him alone. Finding nothing of note in the room, Thorn leaves through a door to the south which opens to a room and curving hallway covered in green fur. The fur proves to be harmless as Thorn traverses the room and hallway.
The hallway leads to a door, behind which Thorn senses danger. Spying into the room behind the door reveals it to be inhabited by two large grey apes with beaks and beating wings. Making out a door at the other end of the room, Thorn waits for an opportune moment and runs through the room, ramming the door open and throwing himself into the small room behind it, before the apes can react. (Successful surprise.) The door slams shut, relief quickly shifting to concern, as the room starts shaking and moving downward. A door appears on the north side.
Thorn opens the door and finds himself in an empty room. He goes through a door to the south and finds … another empty room. Opening a door to the north, he is suddenly face to face with a large snake, which rears its head. (Neutral reaction.) Thorn spots the glint of something in the coil of the snake’s body, but decides not to challenge the beast and instead moves back to the room before the elevator. (Still safe as he only moved one room back.)
The door to the elevator does not open, so Thorn searches the room and finds a secret door to the north. It opens into a room with four doors, a trail of some sort running between two of them. A dead bugbear lies on the trail, clutching a rusty sword. Thorn takes it, then follows the trail through the north-western door, which leads to an empty room.
Following the trail through another door west, Thorn enters a large chamber. A plant in the shape of a human, with long tentacle-like vines, grows in the center of it. A chest stands at the northern wall. Thorn carefully stays out of the creature’s range and circles to a door to the south. (Very slow movement.) He takes glowing stones from a basket lighting the room and throws them the way he came from. The plant moves its vines in the direction of the stones and Thorn uses the distraction to make his way to the chest. Unfortunately it is empty, so Thorn runs back to the southern door, dodging a swiping vine. The door opens to a small chamber with a long set of stairs leading up.
The stairs end in a small chamber and Thorn senses danger behind a northern door, but hears nothing. Listening at the eastern door, he hears rowdy cheers and the clanking of cups. Opening the door, he finds three warrior woman drinking from a barrel. They are armed with clubs and one of them carries a shield emblazoned with skull and crossbones. They challenge him to a drinking match. (Friendly reaction. Drinking game: Each participant drinks, then rolls a save to not fall unconscious.) Thorn manages to barely win the contest. The women gift him a healing potion and leave the room.
Thorn makes his way through the door to the south, which he realizes leads back to the Y-junction he started at. He returns to the room with the cantankerous old man, who has since disappeared, remembering a door to the west. (Safe, since he only move through one explored room.) He feels danger behind the door and opening it slightly, he sees four gnolls, armed with spears, pacing through a large circular room. The room has a pit in the center, as well as doors to the north and south.
Thorn rushes to the north door before the gnolls can react. (Surprise.) A quick glance shows it to be empty and a dead end, however. The gnolls ready their spears and Thorn jumps onto a rope ladder attached to the side of the pit, dodging the missile attacks. The sudden weight causes the ladder to break and Thorn plummets down the pit, turning just in time to avoid breaking his neck.
He drinks the healing potion to regain some strength. The spears the gnolls threw at him also landed down here with him and he picks up the two usable ones. Walking down the hallway connecting to the circular pit room, he finds a trail similar to the one he followed before. It leads him to another chamber, disappearing under a door to the east.
The only thing in the room is a table with a green lantern. He carefully investigates the lantern, poking it with one of his spears. The spearhead heats up and bursts from the shaft as it touches the lantern. Thorn stays well away from the dangerous apparatus and opens the door to the east. It opens into the room with the plant creature he avoided earlier, the trail leading east.
Thorn throws the broken spear shaft at the northern wall to distract the plant, then rushes through the room to the door, ending up back in the room with the dead bugbear. (Surprise thanks to distraction. Barely safe, since he moved through two previously explored rooms.) He moves through a series of mostly empty rooms, finding an axe in a wall that vanishes when he tries to take it.
He finds enters a room where another bugbear stands guard. The humanoid seems mostly neutral toward him, and the two communicate via hand gestures as they don’t speak a common language. The bugbear opens the door leading out of the room and back into the room with the dead bugbear, pointing at it and the trail. Thorn interprets this to mean that the bugbear wants him to follow the trail.
He moves back into the room with the trail. There are two more unopened doors. Listening at the first, he hears hissing and surmises that the room with the snake must be behind it. Instead of opening it, he opens the door under which the trail runs, finding himself in a winding corridor, with stairs leading down to another corridor.
The trail leads to a door and ends there. Thorn opens it carefully and spies inside. A dangerous looking beast guards several sacks in the large room. Thorn quickly shuts the door and instead moves the other way up the hallway to the north. It ends in a door, behind which he senses danger. He throws the door open and sees four unarmed lizard men guarding a door, who screech at his entrance. (Hostile reaction.)
Thorn runs up and kicks one of them through the door, which leads to water-filled hall with a jetty, where two small boats are moored. He cuts down another, avoiding the claw strikes of the rest, then jumps into one of the boats and kicks off the jetty, leading him to drift down a canal leading out of the hall. He throws a spear at the lizard men, discouraging them from following him. (Morale check failed.)
After drifting down the cavernous canal for a while, Thorn arrives at another jetty, leading into larger area. Entering what seems like a storage area, Thorn finds stacked barrels and a stairway leading up to a door. He inspects the barrels, from which a golden mass of viscous liquid drips. The liquid forms into a globular creature and starts slowly creeping towards him. Thorn retreats up the stairs and out the door.
He arrives in a large hall, shaped out of three overlapping circles. In each alcove is a woman tethered to a stake. The three women all look identical and approaching them, they all insist that they are Princess Vonia and the other two are monsters in disguise. The two exits to the room are suddenly blocked by a portcullis and a disembodied voice tells Thorn that he must free the real princess and escort her out of the Halls to prove his worth.
Thorn tries to ask a few things to discern which of the women is the real princess, but they all answer truthfully as far as Thorn can judge. Then he asks each of them to speak in the language of law – reasoning that monsters would not be able to do so. His hunch turns out to be correct as only one of them is able to do so. He frees her and the portcullis opens again.
Looking through the second door in the room, Thorn realizes that it leads back to the room with the lantern, which he can’t afford to go through. He remembers that there was a room complex on his way through the water canal and leads Princess Vonia back to the storage area. They carefully avoid the golden mass and each take a boat.
Drifting back through the canal, Thorn’s boat starts taking in water. He spots several large leeches under the water surface, so he jumps out into the room along the canal he spotted earlier. He tells the princess to continue on the boat, then quickly makes his way through the room filled with empty bottles and jars, exiting on another jetty. He waits for the princess’s boat, then jumps on board.
They moor at the jetty where Thorn fought the lizard men, who seem to have left. (Barely safe, since he took the detour through the unexplored room.) Having no other choice, Thorn and the princess make their way to the door where the trail ends. Thorn spies through the door and spots another door further in, away from the large beast. He bursts into the room to attract the creature’s attention, while the princess runs to the door. The beast roars as Princess Vonia opens the door and charges at Thorn, raking him with a heavy claw strike.
Thorn retreats through the door, finding the room behind it filled with bluebottles. The princess is already at the other end of it, so he figures they must be harmless. He throws the door shut and jams a spear under it to hopefully delay the creature.
Thorn and the princess enter into a triangular room. In one corner, behind a silver hoop, stands a monstrous demon. Thorn recognizes the hoop to be similar to the one in the first room, except with a faint shimmer in the frame. A teleporter, he thinks. He grabs the princess and rushes through it before the demon can do any foul magicks, hoping that his hunch is right.
It indeed turns out to be correct, as Thorn and Princess Vonia find themselves in the entrance hall, under the silver hoop. Vesir the High Druid greets them. He informs Thorn that he has passed the test, proving himself as a hero and earning the right to venture forth into the world.
Thorn makes use of his new status as adventurer and escorts Princess Vonia to her home castle, where he is rewarded with a big bag of coins – 3000 gold pieces.
Fun adventure, very old school (because it is :V). It’s pretty deadly since you only have one 1st level character, so you have to pretty much run from all encounters. But since it’s solo you can be a bit more lenient at finding ways to get through rooms.
As for the barbarian class, I mostly used the Sense Danger and First Strike Ferocity features and ignored the rest, as the class is pretty bloated. I also found First Strike Ferocity to be pretty fiddly, having to roll an additional time for each attack. Still, not a bad base for the class, I’ll rework it to make it fit my setting.
