The Iron Cage

A fantasy roleplaying setting for GURPS

Copyright © 2001 by Christine Morgan 

Down in the bad part of town, down where the beggars are in every doorway and the urchins and whores watch with hungry eyes from the streetcorners, where garbage is thrown into the street and the rats outnumber the people ten-to-one, that is where you’ll find the Iron Cage.

You’ll have to go down even further to get in. The Iron Cage is located beneath a three-story flophouse, the sort of place where the rooms are furnished cheap, rented by the hour, and occasionally decorated with the blood of the previous occupants.

A wide flight of shallow steps leads to the basement, and if it’s a busy night, the stench and the noise compete for dominance even before you reach the bottom. The main room is windowless and huge, with soot-streaked stone walls and thick beams rising to support rafters. Lighting is provided by torches and greasy tallow bowl-candles. The floor is most likely stone, though it is hard to tell beneath a thick layer of sawdust and straw that was last changed during the reign of the previous monarch - they just keep bringing in more to spread over the clotted mess of spilled ale, rotten food, and other less-mentionable substances.

The main feature of the room is the iron cage itself, from which the joint gets its name. The cage is mounted on a wooden platform, elevating its base to four feet off the floor, and the two doors into it are reached by two sets of wooden steps, one on each side. A roped-off area two-foot wide surrounds the cage, the rope supported by posts sunk into the floor. The walls of the cage are fifteen feet long on each side, made of 1 ½ inch thick iron bars, and rise to eight feet in height. There is no roof, leaving it open to the rafters above, and the floor of the cage is thick wood. Along the east and west walls of the cage hang an assortment of weapons on hooks.

Three rows of raised benches, like bleachers, are against the east wall. These provide the only seating for patrons. In the southwest corner is a raised platform, enclosed by a chest-high railing and gate, where the one-thumbed bookie Ferret Forin sits to take bets. A large slate-board with chalk lists the odds on the various competitors. A short hallway in the west wall leads to one of the world’s filthiest, scariest privies.

The northwest corner is home to the bar, made of brick and topped with a functional wooden slab. The owner, cook, and barkeep is Edda the Tall, who keeps an ironwood baton behind the bar to quell the rowdy. The selection of beverages is limited - you can have beer, and if you don’t like beer, you can have ale, and if you don’t like ale, you can go thirsty. A doorway behind the bar lets onto a tiny kitchen, where the only edible (though the term is used loosely) fare is prepared. Mugs of pottage stew, slabs of hard bread, and sausages of dubious content make up the menu.

But no one comes to the Iron Cage just to eat or drink. They come to watch combatants face off in no-holds-barred fights, and to put their money on their favorites and cheer them on in spectator bloodlust.

The rules are simple. Combatants are allowed to wear nothing but a light leather breechclout or briefs (PD 1, DR 1), and their weapons are their bodies plus whatever they can grab off of the walls of the cage. A fight goes until one person is either dead, unconscious, incapacitated, or surrenders. A physician, John Sawbones, is on hand to deal with the aftermath, if he can be pried away from his ale.

Anyone can volunteer for the fights, and occasionally prizes are offered in addition to that which can be won in wagering. For instance, the current purse being offered by the champion and resident favorite, Turok the Undefeated, is up to 417 pieces of gold.

Two of each type of the following weapons are available, one on each side of the cage: brass knuckles, ironwood baton, dagger, large knife, small mace, hatchet, pick, morningstar, hammer, hand saw, bottle, rock, chain, wooden club, boat hook, and buckler. Weapons with a * after them require readying.

People

Disadvantages: Bully, Overweight

Advantages: Semi-Literacy

Quirks: loves to watch a good fight; bawdy sense of humor.

Skills: Brawling - 12; Shortsword - 12; Cooking -- 10; Bartender - 12; Carousing - 11.

Edda is the barkeep and owner of the Iron Cage. She lives up to her nickname, being six and a half feet tall and solidly built, able to throw out troublemakers singlehanded if need be. She is a woman of average looks, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. There’s nothing she likes better than watching people beat the stuffing out of each other, and will give free drinks to the ones who put on a particularly good show, in hopes of getting them to come back. She habitually wears leather cap, boots, and jerkin, as well as sturdy woolen shirt and trousers. She keeps an ironwood baton under the bar, and is not above ‘convincing’ someone to get into the cage if she thinks that person would make for a good fight.

Disadvantages: Overconfidence, Bad Temper

Advantages: High Pain Threshold, Ambidexterity, Toughness 2

Racial Package, Dwarf: ST+2, Fatigue +2, DR 1, Ext. Lifespan, Extra Enc., Hard to Kill, Longevity, Greed, Miserliness, Red. Move-1.

Quirks: beaded beard; taunts opponents based on race and/or insulting parentage.

Skills: Axe/Mace - 14; Brawling - 14; Bolas - 12; Whip - 12; Axe Throwing - 13; Shield - 12.

Turok is a dwarf who was exiled from his homeland for dishonorable fighting practices. As the result of an old injury, the bone in his nose was replaced with an iron plate. He is scarred over almost every inch of his powerfully-muscled body, and his black hair is coarse and wild. His beard is braided into numerous tiny cornrow plaits filled with beads of hematite, malachite, jasper, and other semi-precious stones. It is said that for each foe he defeats in the cage, Turok adds another bead to his beard. This is true, and he also adds another gold piece to a purse that is offered as a prize for anyone able to beat him. So far, the total is up to 417 pieces of gold. His weapons of choice are a pick in one hand and a chain in the other.

Disadvantages: Cowardice, Missing Thumb

Advantages: Literacy, Lightning Calculator, Street Contacts

Quirks: boastful; never cheats.

Skills: Knife - 14; Gambling - 15; Tournament Law - 13; Mathematics - 12; Streetwise - 12.

Long and lean as his namesake animal, the bookie Adam “Ferret” Forin also has that rather oily, shifty look about him. He walks and talks tough, with his leather jacket and visible knife, but lives in the constant hope that he’ll never have to back it up with action. The thumb of his left hand was chopped off as punishment for being caught cheating at dice several years ago, so now he is always careful not to welsh on bets. He uses his underworld connections to help Edda search out likely prospects for the cage.

Disadvantages: Alcoholism, Skinny

Advantages: Semi-Literacy, No Hangover

Quirks: sings old army songs while working; hardly ever eats.

Skills: Diagnosis - 8; First Aid - 11; Physician - 10; Carousing - 11.

Some say that the only reason John Sawbones never has a hangover is because he never stops drinking long enough to find out. This might be the truth, because his every waking moment is spent with a mug of ale near at hand. He is a grizzled, scrawny human who looks ten years older than his age (which is 45). He was a former soldier, drafted into service as a surgeon’s assistant during a war, and everyone assumes he has learned the trade better than he actually has. Because Edda gives him drinks for half price if he is on hand to patch up the cage fighters, he sticks around and has been using the money he saves to amass a collection of second-hand medical tools.