Code Of The Rats
"From Spuds To Studs"

24. Lemmings Leap

By Dave Dollar
Art by Chris Myers

This cylindrical chamber is 40 feet in diameter, rises 80 feet above your heads, and appears to have no floor what, soever. Directly across from where the passageway opens into this bottomless silo, is a door. Immediately below the door is a sort of perch - a metal bar, bent into a semicircle and affixed to the wall at either end.

Apart from a very long drop, the only thing between you and the door is a gargantuan iron pendulum, sweeping out the entire diameter of the room with each ponderous suing. This is, by far, the nastiest looking pendulum you've seen yet. Its stem is a sharp, steel blade, descending from the ceiling to terminate in a huge (5' diameter) iron sphere that must weigh many tons. Protruding from this sphere is a veritable forest of jagged blades, ranging in length from several feet to only a few inches.

Just inside the passageway where you are standing, a stout iron spike has been pounded into the wall. Hanging from this spike is a 100-foot coil of climbing rope. A grappling hook has been tied securely to one end.

A plaque just above the iron spike reads', "Lemmings' Leap - just to keep you on your toes."

GameMaster

Lemmings' Leap is by far the most difficult physical challenge in the Gauntlet. The drop to the bottom of the silo is well over 500 feet. The door to the north is nothing more than a very clever painting. The real exit is an open passageway in the west wall, covered by an illusion. Two inch deep holes are all that hold the metal perch in place on the north wall. Anyone putting their weight on this perch will soon discover this - as they plummet screaming to their deaths. The drop is quite long, so they will have time to take a deep breath and scream several times.

Wax seals are all that hold the (smoked glass) blades to the iron pendulum. Any heavy blow to the sphere (such as striking it with the grappling hook or a coffee mug) will set it vibrating, causing the glass blades to shower down into the dark depths. Lastly, the sharpened iron pendulum stem is not sharp at all; it is only polished on the edges to make it look sharp from a distance.

In playtesting, several groups tried to stop the pendulum by grappling the stem and tying the rope to the spike by means of a slipknot. When the pendulum reached the center of its swing, they yanked in the slack and the knot came tight. This met with disastrous results. The pendulum does weigh several tons and its weight snapped the rope off at the spike. The characters ended up looking disparagingly down at the dangling rope - their only means of egress.

This was, however, more effective than the group who tried to simply pull the pendulum to a stop; they were summarily yanked off into space - dangling below the pendulum, they were beaten repeatedly against the walls of the silo until they lost their grip.

It is no problem for a character standing on the pendulum to touch either wall as the pendulum draws near. In this manner, the character will be able to test the walls for illusion. From the pendulum, it is an easy, if somewhat unnerving, matter to leap through the illusion and land in the hallway to area 25.

Remember that it is physically taxing and totally terrifying to climb across a moving rope and scramble up onto a metal sphere, especially when the only thing below you is a whole lot of air. The GameMaster should make the characters roll gratuitous dice against their physical strength and willpower scores as they attempt this. Characters hanging below the pendulum from a severed rope will be vigorously pounded against the walls until they either lose their grip or find another way to remedy the situation. In playtesting this has been proven to be a high-mortality area. But all the screaming was kinda funny.

Score Chart

+4 For character striking glass blades off the pendulum.

+4 For first character reaching the pendulum.

+8 For character discovering the real exit.

-10 For any character who breaks or loses the rope or hook (Roshia will just have to find a way to bring them a new one).

-10 For dirt-diving into oblivion.

+50 For surviving the fall (ha, ha, ha! The sky must be very pretty where you live!).

+5 For best role player.

More Code of the Rats Introductory Fantasy Adventure

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