Friday, February 25, 2011

Dyson’s Delve – Session 14 – Travel and Shopping

This session happened Tuesday, February 15, 2011.  This campaign used the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game as a starting point, but has now moved on to new material from the DM-in-training.

Adventuring Group:
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)
Wednesday (female elf rogue)
Sahar (female human fighter)
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Luna (female elf sorcerer)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)

After the defeat of Tim Questgiver, the adventurers retrieved the two Gate Amulets they had hidden to meet with the Earth Priest and learn how to control the gate.  The next morning they hiked to the Delve.  At the Delve, Tre-ba handed out some elixirs in case there was a fight.  Making their way to the Gate Room, the adventurers found the Earth Priest and Scar, his harpy cohort.

After a short explanation of how the gate works, the Earth Priest set it for a destination in the ocean south approximately 100 miles to the south and activated it.  He invited the adventurers to go with him, but the invitation was declined.  Just as he was stepping through, Harkaitz asked his name and learned it was Thrasimedes.  After Thrasimedes and Scar had transversed the gate, Harkaitz removed the Gate Amulets, closing the gate.  The group then returned to Aldelle for some serious rest and relaxation.

Somewhat at ends, now that the threat of Tim was over, the adventurers consulted a map and discussed where they might travel next.  Ultimately, they decided they wanted to go to Terranor, the capital of the Kingdom of Abaloft, where they hoped to sell the gold sarcophagus lid they had for a good price.  In order to do that, they needed a way to transport the lid without attracting inordinate attention, as solid gold sarcophagi lids are want to do.  As the lid was too large to fit in Harkaitz’s handy haversack, a trip to the nearby town of Bosco was arranged to look for a bag of holding.

The adventurers hired a carriage for the half-day trip to Bosco.  Bosco turned out to be a small town surrounded by a wooden stockade.  It is a port town and the landing for the ferry between the island the adventurers were on and the mainland.  Rooms were secured at The Broken Mug, an inn with an attached tavern whose mugs have a decorative chip out of the lip.  Harkaitz then handed out 100 gold marks to each adventurer as mad money to have a good time however they wanted.  The consumption of ale and the hiring of individuals of negotiable virtue by some of the party members happened and everyone had a good time celebrating the end of their recent adventure.

The next morning, Harkaitz, Luna, and Tre-ba (who was slightly suffering from the excesses of the previous night) tracked down a shop dealing in unusual items and reagents.  Some of the items in the shop were magical and the trio looked around for anything useful.  Several things were purchased, including not one but three bags of holding.  The trio spent virtually all of the group's coins and many of the gems and jewelry secured as loot from the Delve to secure a total of seven items, including the speculative purchase of a tome that none could identify, including the shopkeeper.  [It turned out to be a tome of leadership and influence, which went to Luna.]  The group returned to Aldelle to secure the sarcophagus lid in the largest bag of holding [Type 2] and then return to Bosco.

In Bosco, the group purchased supplied for a week's trip and hired a cook (Short John Copper, a red-headed halfling with a sailing background) and a mule for him to ride, as none of the adventurers had strong culinary skills.  Tickets were purchased for the day-long ferry trip to the mainland and the trip made.  In Kudos (the other landing for the ferry), Harkaitz bought a map of the kingdom’s roads and the group set off to Terranor.  A day and a half later, the group arrived in sight of the walls of the city.

*End of Session*

[Not a lot happened in this session as most of it was a shopping trip and discussions as to where to go next.  Plus a party to celebrate.  The session wrapped up rapidly at the end as it was getting late, hence the abrupt ending to the adventure log.  Short John Copper was hired by my character  (Harkaitz) to insert the idea of hirelings into the consciousness of the players, most of whom are participating in their first D&D campaign (technically Pathfinder, but you know what I mean).  If we end up adventuring out of town, I will also suggest hiring some guards for the camp to keep our cook safe while we enter any dungeon or ruins that might be found.]

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Family in Town

I've had family in town, so my posting schedule is a bit off this week - you may have noticed.  Today I'm doing some prep work for the two games I'm running this week (Southern Reaches on Friday and Naze Valley Rangers on Saturday), so I might not get a chance to write a proper post this week.

In the meantime, work continues on creating a PDF of the two Traveller Hero books.  The copies I'm borrowing were in pristine condition and we are being extra careful to avoid creasing the spine.  We should have Book 1 copied and scanned through some OCR software this week and Book 2 by early next week.

Finally, last Saturday was Go-Go-Godzilla Day! at my place.  We watched seven Godzilla movies back to back and had a blast.  I'll be writing a post about it later, including a listing of which movies we watched.  It was such fun that I've decided to run another movie day in July: The Day of Sevens.  I don't have all the movies picked yet, but I know the first four: The Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, Battle Beyond the Stars, and A Bug's Life.  The astute among you may notice what these movies have in common.  If I can find three more to match the theme, I'll have a perfect Day of Sevens.  If not, I'll add Yojimbo, Fist Full of Dollars, and Last Man Standing.  Again, you may see a theme...

Friday, February 18, 2011

SR36: Searching for a Mine of Their Own

This session happened Friday, February 11, 2011, and was the only session I ran this past weekend.  There was no game on February 4th.

Adventuring Group:
Su Bel (human cleric)
– Dame Yasha of Bereste (Su Bel’s human cavalier cohort)
Sal Ty (elf wizard)
– Maenwen (Sal’s human wizard cohort)
Mog the Doomed (half-orc barbarian)
Tycho von Helmont (elf alchemist)
Agnes Sunbeard (dwarf rogue)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorcerer)
 – Kainen (Thorngrim’s human fighter cohort)

Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.

Having settled on a plan for expanding Drop-off Tower into Drop-off Keep, Agnes and Thorngrim each put down 2,500 gold marks to start actual construction of the walls.  A respectable dwarven firm (Torut Torarr and Family) was selected to oversee the work and a crew of workers hired from the Iron Keep started clearing and leveling where the walls will go while orders for stone were placed with the quarries in the Iron Hills. 

In addition to the start of construction, Sal picked up a co-artificer by the name of Maenwyn.  Sal had sent posters to several centers of learning back across the ocean looking for someone willing to join him in the south and assist him.  In addition to being skilled in the creation of magic items, Maenwyn had expertise in running a business, something Sal planned on putting to use in the future when he establishes a learning academy.  [This is something I, as the DM, am very excited by.]

Having codified the various maps in their possession (the Table map from Spider’s Bar, a treasure map on an ivory tusk, a treasure map on a dragon scale, and the floor-covering map from one of the tombs at the Terrace of Fallen Horses) into a single map, the adventurers decided to investigate what appeared to be the location of a mine.  Packing supplies and using the mount spell (except Dame Yasha who brought her mount Lakshmi), the adventurers rode south on Three Peaks Road.

Turning off the road prior to entering the mountains themselves, the adventurers attempted to circle the mountains to the east.  They found a long line of cliffs to the east and south of the mountains, in the hills.  They followed the cliff edge around, discovering an immense river gorge south of Three Peaks, beyond which they could barely detect the high mountains their map showed.  [Note: there was an odd symbol on their map, which the could not figure out and I did not explain.  When they arrived here, they realized it was marking an immense canyon flanked by miles-wide plateau steps.  Think the Grand Canyon, but not as quite deep or as long.]

Not wanting to deal with the river gorge, the adventurers followed the cliff face west until it ended and then skirted the western edges of the river canyon.  Camping on the edges of the Sea of Grass to the southwest of the Three Peaks area, their evening rest was disturbed by a stampede of horses.  Tycho and Thorngrim were on watch at the time and the rest of the group was up a rope trick, so Thorngrim used ghost sounds to imitate the roars of many dire lions, deflecting the stampede of horses.

The next day the adventurers crossed the wide river and started working their way up into the foothills of the mountains.  Most of the day passed uneventfully, but as they were making camp, the adventurers were attacked by a flight of four griffins.  This fight did not last long and dinner for the night was griffin steaks.  In hindsight, that might not have been the best idea as later an adult red dragon showed up and demanded to know what they were doing in its mountains.  After a quick consultation, the adventurers decided they did not want to fight the dragon.  When the dragon demanded 100 gold pieces per person as tribute, the adventurers quickly paid.  Somewhat satisfied by this, the dragon stated that the adventurers had "one week" and then flew off.  It didn’t say one week to what and the adventurers were not willing to call the dragon back for clarification.

In the morning, the adventurers continued working their way into the mountains.  Early in the afternoon they discovered a large plateau backed by tall mountains.  On the southern edge, up next to a steep mountain face, were the ruins of a small keep.  At the back of the keep they found the entrance to a mine, with rusted tracks leading into the darkness.  The adventurers entered the mine and spent the rest of the afternoon searching the nearest tunnels. 

Down one series of tunnels they discovered the mine still contained a workable vein of copper.  They also found a deep shaft that led to deeper levels of the mine, but the lifts were long ago destroyed, so they postponed searching the deeper levels until later.  Down a different set of tunnels they found the skeletal remains of a dead human with a fractured skull.  The adventurers were coming to the conclusion that the mine had not been abandoned peaceably and returned to the first chamber to camp.

During the night, on second watch, Thorngrim and Maenwyn heard an eerie howl from deeper in the mine.  Neither could identify the sound, but when Thorngrim replayed it for Sal (using ghost sounds), Sal and Su Bel identified it as the cry of a banshee!  This led to a discussion as to which foe will be harder to face, the banshee or the dragon?  It was decided that the banshee would be especially dangerous as most of the spellcasters were out of spells still and the camp was moved out into the ruins of the keep.

*End of session*

[Normally, I would not end a session with the adventurers in a locale, requiring them to return to a safe location or chance a roll on the table of Doom.  However, it was getting late and the same set of players will be there on the 18th, so I let it go.  Plus, I was tired and ready to end the session.]

Thursday, February 17, 2011

SR35: Ghost Tower Conclusion

This session happened Friday, January 28, 2011, and was the only session I ran this past weekend.

Adventuring Group:
Su Bel (human cleric)
– Dame Yasha of Bereste (Su Bel’s human cavalier cohort)
Mog the Doomed (half-orc barbarian)
Tycho von Helmont (elf alchemist)
Agnes Sunbeard (dwarf rogue)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorcerer)
 – Kainen (Thorngrim’s human fighter cohort)
Sal Ty (elf wizard)

Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.

Back at Drop-off Tower, Agnes received a cryptic sending from Su Bel, who appeared to need help.  She roused Tycho and Sal, both of whom were working on small projects of their own, and the trio prepared to go to the rescue of Su Bel and the others.  By the time that packing and preparations were finished, Su Bel, Mog, Thorngrim, Dame Yasha, and Kainen were returning to Drop-off Tower.

Su Bel attempted to explain what they had found in the ruins to the east, but with Mog interjecting tangents and the weirdness of what she was attempting to convey, Agnes, Tycho, and Sal were unclear on the situation.  What was clear was that certain preparation were needed before returning, notably methods for enduring elements without Su Bel using up all of her spells.  Sal got on that and started creating items to achieve the necessary effect.  This took a week, but in the end, the adventurers were ready to tackle the Ghost Tower.  Thorngrim was able to locate and purchase a folding boat back at the Iron Keep during this time.

After riding to the Ghost Tower and stabling their horses in the prepared room, the group made their way to the stairs up and ascended to the Lake of Fire.  Here they took the brass spiral stairs on the right up to see if they went anywhere different.  As it turned out, they dead-ended at the ceiling.  This would have been dangerous in the extreme heat of the chamber, but Sal’s amulets of endure element protected the adventurers from the heat.  Retracing their steps, they went up the brass spiral stairs on the left and entered the Jungle.

The group followed Thorngrim’s arcane marks through the maze of paths to the Shrine of the Ape God.  Agnes gave it a look-over and discovered a secret compartment in the side of the shrine.  Inside were 2 golden yellow topazes, 5 amber gems, and 5 low quality diamonds.  The diamonds were something both Sal and Su Bel were very interested in as spell reagents for some critical spells.  After verifying there was no other loot to be had (and getting a very fractured story of what the previous expedition had encountered), the group of adventurers ascended the vine-covered stone spiral staircase to the Mist Level.

At this point both Su Bel and Thorngrim attempted to explain the nature of the anti-gravity field in the center of this chamber, but Agnes remained very doubtful.  Thorngrim used the amulet from the manticore to peer around the chamber, through the mist.  He discovered that there were some flying saurons (pteranodons) in the chamber.  Su Bel summoned some celestial dire bats to combat them.  Thorngrim followed the complex aerial dog-fighting and saw that the pteranodons were slowly winning – until he threw a couple of fireballs into the mix, roasting the pteranodons and securing victory for the celestial dire bats.

Once the pteranodons were dealt with, the group approached the center of the room.  Checking the rope to the next level, the adventurers discovered that it was no longer tied off above and appeared to have been cut!  Using a combination of fly and feather fall spells, the group cautiously ascended to the next chamber.  [NOTE: It was discovered at this point that Su Bel is very afraid of water that is deeper than she is tall.  Special care was taken to keep her from plunging into the warm salt water that covered the ceiling of the next level to a depth of 30 ft.]

Agnes finally understood what Su Bel and Thorngrim had been trying to explain: gravity was reversed on this level, so the tropical “sea” (complete with coral reef and sandy island with two palm trees) was on the ceiling.  To ascend any further, the group had to find a way “down”.  On the sandy island, the adventurers discovered some tracks emerging from the water to where the rope was once tied off.  The tracks were identified as belonging to sahuagin.  Su Bel summoned some celestial dolphins and sent them to search under the waters for the exits, but they failed to discover anything.  The group stayed alert while Su Bel then attempted to divine the location of the exit.  She received indications that the exit was on the back side of the island and under the water, so she cast water breathing on herself and Mog and the two dove under the water.  [Not without some teasing.]

Under the water, Su Bel and Mog found two things: the exit (in the form of a water-proof hatch) and a swarm of sahuagin on the attack!  Unfortunately for the sahuagin, Mog alone was pretty much a match for them and while Su Bel was threatened at one point, she was never in any real danger.  After the fight, Su Bel opened the hatch and peered in.  The water continued “down” a shaft with handholds cut in the side to a mirrored surface that undulated.  Su Bel dropped a copper coin “down” the shaft and watched it sink.  At a certain point it reversed its fall and came to rest apparently floating in the water.

Su Bel had Mog get the rest of the adventurers and the group swam “down” the shaft.  Where the coin appeared to float, gravity reverted to its normal orientation and the adventurers were able to swim up to the mirrored surface, which turned out to be the surface of the water on the next level.  Climbing the handholds carved into the side of the shaft, the adventures found themselves in a domed chamber showing the starry sky.  Sal and Thorngrim used prestidigitation to dry off all the adventurers.  There was a large apparatus in the center of the chamber and the bottom three feet of the walls all the way around the chamber were bookshelves full of books and scrolls.

While Agnes and Sal checked out the books (Agnes for traps, Sal for contents), Tycho investigated the structure in the center of the chamber.  It consisted of two great arcs of metal, each three-quarters of a circle and attached at a right angle to each other, the main arc perpendicular to the floor.  Where the two arcs met was a reclining seat with wide arm rests.  The arm rest on the left contained buttons that were controls of some sort.  Tycho sat in the seat and started fiddling with the controls.  He discovered that the entire apparatus could rotate left-right and up-down.  Some of the controls allowed magnified viewing of the open space delimited by the tips of the arcs while another set blocked or unblocked the position of the sun in the sky.  This room was clearly an observatory as well as a library.  Tired (and with Sal wanting to look at ALL the books), the group camped here for the night.

During the night, Sal found a journal of the Tower’s previous occupant and learned that some devices found on a table in the Observatory were used to safely descend through the reverse gravity field.  The adventurers secured a couple of these for later use.  After Sal had packed away a choice selection of books in his handy haversack, the adventurers returned to the Water Level to see if there were anymore sahuagin (or some sahuagin treasure).  Using Thorngrim’s folding boat, the adventurers floated on the surface of the waters.  Su Bel cast water breathing and shield other on Mog, who then jumped overboard and started searching the coral area for the sahuagin lair.  He found several traps, including a form of pit trap that used loops of kelp to pull its victim onto sharpened spikes.  When Su Bel suddenly started taking damage from her link to Mog, the other adventurers realized he was in trouble and started entering the water.

Meanwhile, Mog discovered that the bottom of the pit he was in also flanked by tunnels with waiting sahuagin with spears.  Slipping free from the trap, Mog started to fight the sahuagin into their lair.  A sahuagin shaman was able to dispel the water breathing on Mog, but died shortly afterward when Agnes joined Mog and cut off the shaman’s retreat.  The last of the sahuagin fell to the assault of Mog and Agnes.

While Mog returned to the surface, Agnes (also under the effects of a water breathing spell) searched the sahuagin liar.  She discovered several coral necklaces and a small golden idol to a sahuagin deity.  She packed away the necklaces and the idol and returned to the surface, reporting what she had found.  Content that there were no more sahuagin, the group used the observatory devices (and a fly spell or two) to descend back down to the Mist Level.  They quickly made their way back down to the ruined tunnels under the tower stump and secured their horses for a quick ride back to the increasingly crowded Drop-off Tower.

*End of session*


[Players of the old convention module C2: Ghost Tower of Iverness should recognize the general levels of this tower.  I jettisoned the castle ruins, switched around the order of the Tower levels, and swapped out the monsters for most of the levels to things that fit the Southern Reaches.  I’ll discuss this more in a later post.]

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

A Grab Bag

This posting will be a mix of what's going on and such with the various games I'm involved with or planning.

I have managed to gain access to two ultra-rare books that translate Traveller material into the Hero System, which will keep me from having to stat out, say, two books worth of material on my own.  I and a friend are working on getting them into PDF format for easier access, but that should be done in the next week or two.  This secures the Hero System (5th Revised Edition) as the rules I will be using.  Right now I'm looking through the sector creation rules for Traveller (Mongoose edition) and Stars Without Number to see which I'm going to use to create the local star sectors.  I'll post more on this once I've tried the two systems out.

For my Southern Reaches campaign, I've settled on the 1E AD&D construction rules for use in the campaign as I find them easy to understand and generally straight-forward.  Plus, the construction times work better for me.  2E assumed that all castle construction happened in a year, which is patently wrong.  The 1E system assigns time and manpower for each component and then adds it all up for a total construction time.  That time can be lessened by adding more workers, but it requires long times of construction for large structures, which is what I expect and history bears out.  The players have constructed a lyre of construction, which will speed things up, but it will do so in a way that is easy to integrate into the regular work.

As a note, 3E, and by extension Pathfinder, does not have construction rules in the main book.  We were working on a compromise using the crafting rules, but I was unsatisfied by what seemed to be an abnormally quick construction time for buildings.  I still need to crank some numbers in a spreadsheet to see how they compare to the 1E rules, but I suspect the 3E craft rules are geared towards things that would go in a castle and not things like castles.

Tangentially, at the end of the last Southern Reaches session (last Friday), the players were left with a choice of opponents to tackle: an banshee or an adult red dragon.  Which is more dangerous?  Tough call.  The banshee has a sonic death attack and massive negative energy drain touch attacks.  The adult red dragon is, well, an adult red dragon with multiple attacks, a breath weapon, and spells.  Either way, this will be a significant milestone for the adventurers and will do much to boost their fame and reputations.  Plus, they will be able to make a claim on a copper mine out of the deal.  Look forward to the adventure log explaining all this on Thursday.

Finally, my weekday game has finished exploration of Dyson's Delve, or at least the first seven levels, which is all the DM is using.  From this point on, we are going into newbie DM territory, using material our DM has created as his first campaign.  It will be interesting to see how things go - whether it will be a sandbox, where we get to explore and find things, or a more traditional plot driven campaign.  I'm enjoying the game so far and the climatic battle against Tim Questgiver was tense and rewarding.  I'm looking forward to what new stuff we run into.

That's it for now.  Thursday's post should appear at 7:00 AM Central (a.k.a. "the regular time").

Later!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Dyson’s Delve – Session 12 and 13 – Tim, A Wizard

This entry covers two sessions.  The first happened Tuesday, February 1, 2010, and the second Tuesday, February 8, 2010.  This campaign uses the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game.  We are using the Pathfinder RPG, so some adjustments were made (or so I’ve been told).

In the first session, we were down two player characters (Sahar and Frankie Hu) due to illness (one natural and the other beer induced) and so did a side adventure that was mostly an XP farm.  The February 8th session found us still down a player character (Sahar), but the story was stalled if we did not run the conclusion, so we chanced it.

Adventuring Group:
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)
Wednesday (female elf rogue)
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Luna (female elf sorcerer)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)

SPOILER ALERT: If You Might Play Through Dyson's Delve, Stop Reading

After clearing out a small underground cave network exposed by a sinkhole, the adventurers received a sending from the Earth Priest that the meeting with Tim had been arranged and told the adventurers when to be there.  Hoping for the best and planning for the worst, the adventurers divided into two groups and separately hid two of the three gate amulets.  Wednesday, Tre-ba, and Luna (the elves) buried one amulet and set a trapped decoy location with an insanity gas trap.  Harkaitz and Frankie embedded one in a boulder with stone shape and trapped a decoy location with a fireball glyph of warding.  The group also questioned Peter (the wizard they had captured) about what kind of magic Tim uses, learning that Peter had seen Tim cast lightning bolt a couple of times, but not in the same combat.

On the appointed day, the adventurers arrived at the Delve and cast some preparatory spells.  Harkaitz cast resist energy (electricity) on Luna, Frankie, and himself.  He then cast resist energy (fire) on Wednesday, as she was expected to get close and might get caught in a fireball or burning hands area of effect.  He also cast shield other on Luna to keep her up and fighting longer, although this was nearly his downfall.  Tre-ba passed around barkskin extracts she concocted (and a few others) and the group entered the Delve.  On the upper level, they found both sets of double doors open and can see Scar (the harpy), the Earth priest, and Tim in the other room.  Wednesday used the scroll of invisibility on herself and the group entered the room.

Tim was up on the gate platform, flanked by two hellhounds.  Scar and the Earth Priest were standing before him when the adventurers arrived, but casually stepped out of the way.  Tim seemed momentarily surprised to see the adventurers alive, but quickly recovered.  He and Harkaitz exchanged a few terse words and the fight was on.

Wednesday and Tre-ba were able to quickly deploy, moving to the sides of the room, but Harkaitz, Frankie, and Luna were still lined up when Tim threw a lightning bolt, catching all three.  Due to the resist energy spells, most of the effects rolled off the adventurers and Harkaitz and Luna responded to the lighting bolt with a pair of fireballs, catching Tim and his two hellhounds in the blasts.  Two xill then appeared, flanking the spellcasters and a mad melee started.  Frankie charged, acrobatically flipping past multiple enemy combatants until he was standing next to Tim, delivering a flurry of blows.  Wednesday nimbly leaped to flank Tim and started wickedly attacking him with her +1 keen rapier.  The Earth Priest and Scar took this moment to join the fight…on the adventurers’ side!

Tim ignored his flanking attackers and cast an ice storm, blanketing half the chamber, knocking Harkaitz into unconsciousness, but also killing one of the hellhounds and a xill ally.  While this eliminated the adventurers healing capability, it was a fleeting tactical advantage as Wednesday and Frankie attacked Tim with renewed vigor, Frankie pummeling Tim to death with his lightning-charged fists.  [Frankie was using his lightning-based elemental fist ki power.]

While the others finished taking out Tim’s remaining allies (the second hell hound and xill), Luna moved to Harkaitz’s side and poured a healing potion down his throat, returning him to consciousness.  Harkaitz immediately channeled the healing power of Ra, healing himself and all of his allies.  Wednesday relieved Tim’s body of the fourth Gate Amulet (the one showing the viper).  Harkaitz asked the Earth Priest if he had honored the bargain and secured the fifth Gate Amulet.  The Earth Priest showed the fifth amulet (the toucan).  Harkaitz put his hand out and waited for the Earth Priest to hand the amulet over.  After a short pause, the Earth Priest did so.

Harkaitz stated that their original agreement was now fulfilled.  The next logical one was for the Earth Priest to show the adventurers how to control the gate in exchange for the adventurers opening the gate to whatever location the Earth priest needed it open to “retrieve something” as discussed earlier.  The Earth Priest agreed to this.  At this point, Harkaitz informed the Earth Priest that the adventurers had hidden two of the amulets prior to facing Tim and needed to go retrieve them.  He suggested that everyone meet back here at the Gate Room the next day to conclude this second agreement.  The Earth Priest was not thrilled, but could see the wisdom in hiding some of the amulets before facing Tim.  He agreed to meet the adventurers here the next day.

*End of Session*

[The actual play part of this session was short due to the planning session prior to the fight and the hiding of the amulets, plus Luna had not been leveled since gaining enough experience point the previous session.  All told, this was a good and tense session where the outcome was unknown until the end.  We were really in a pickle when initiative determined that everyone but Harkaitz and Luna went first, leaving the player artillery vulnerable, especially when the xill phased in right next to them.  There was palpable relief when Scar and the Earth Priest joined the fight by attacking Tim’s minions.]

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Traveller Further Thoughts – Part 3

In Part 1 of this series I talked a bit about the background of the campaign and what roles the player characters should fill.  In Part 2 I discussed some of the in-game rules, some of the meta-game rules, and what ship types the players will have to choose from.  In this (long delayed) part I will discuss what kinds of things I envision the player characters doing.  I expect this list to be superseded once the players actually interact with the campaign, but that’s the nature of RPGs.

Things Player Characters Can Do

1.  Search for Unobtainium
One of the things Start World needs is rare metals necessary for the construction of high tech devices, including advance jump drives and other critical ship’s systems.  Unobtanium is my shorthand for a list of rare metals, some of which actually exist in the real world.  Not a lot of them, but some.  OK, at least three.  Players should keep an eye out for sources of there rare elements.  They can track down data as to previously known sources in old datacenters (assuming the virus hasn't wiped the data or made it dangerous to access).  They can prospect for it (which would take a great deal of time).  They can talk to locals about what might be in the area (assuming they still have records and are willing to part with the information). 

I will have a list of what rare elements are needed and possible environments where they can be found for the players at the start of the game.  Most of that list will be accurate, but not all of it.  There will also be some clues from old paper records, what few there were.

2.  Search for Tech
One shortcut around the need for rare metals is to scavenge parts from abandoned facilities or wrecks.  Additionally, Start World was invested in ship construction, meaning that it did not have plans for the manufacture of most things not necessary for ship construction.  When the web of trade was smashed, imports stopped, including food stuffs, many consumer goods, and possibly even high end medicines, making all these things rare and expensive on Start World and likely on several worlds the player characters will visit.  Therefore, player characters should be on the lookout for libraries, government centers, military bases no longer accessible to any locals, and wrecked starships.  Either examples of lost tech or schematics would be worth the PCs while to get back to Start World.  A cache or rare parts could even allow the construction of new ships back home.

Military bases, government centers, and wrecks will likely still be infected with the AI virus.  This will require the player characters to make their way to the central computer, connect the McGuffin (the virus cure), and then activate the McGuffin.  Why do this and lose any potential data?  Because the two virus variants are both AI-derived and will resist being wiped out by putting any computer-controlled equipment to use against the PCs.  This can include internal defensive weapons, medical or construction waldos, and airlocks (as barriers or venting atmosphere to space), even manufacturing equipment.  This should require strategic thought on the players part on how to get the McGuffin in place without loss of life or limb.

3.  Make Diplomatic/Trade Contacts
The player characters will be (re-)establishing communication and possibly trade and diplomatic relations with other worlds.  To avoid the tedium of having the player characters moving EVERYTHING, they should be able to arrange trade deals and then have Start World government or sub-contractor ships handle the regular trade.  Additionally, the Start World Representative would have to approve any deals made on behalf of Start World.  The PCs can buy cargo for their own trading purposes, but Start World has to actually need whatever a world is offering and it has to be at a viable cost before the government will honor the deal.  That’s what the primary reason the Representative is there.

This should allow the shipment of things like unobtanium ore back to Start World while the PCs continue to explore and set up new trade deals.  The PC’s chartered company will get a percentage of the deal as a finder’s fee, providing incentive to do what they are doing beyond “because they can”.  This part still needs some work as I want the players to develop something akin to a regular income as they get better at this, but I still want them hungry to explore.


That’s it for the moment, but there will be more.  These three basic activities have a lot of variations and should provide a good starting point for the campaign.  I expect my players to develop additional ideas on what they want to do as the game progresses.  The next installment will discuss some technology ideas I’m mulling over to provide a variety of trade and search options to the players.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Feedback from My SAGE Gift

Back in July, Zak at Playing D&D with Porn Stars ran his Secret Arneson Gift Exchange.  I received a request for an adventure.  Jasper Gein ran the adventure and finally posted the second half of the adventure log.

Thank you Jasper, that was awesome to read.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

SR34: Return to the Lake of Fire

This session happened Saturday, January 22, 2011, and was the only session I ran this past weekend.  Normally this would have been run on Friday the 21st, but four of the six regular players could not make the game.  Saturday was to have been my monthly game, but two critical players could not make that either, so I ran Southern Reaches instead.  (My three game groups currently have a lot of overlap.)

Adventuring Group:
Su Bel (human cleric)
– Dame Yasha of Bereste (Su Bel’s human cavalier cohort)
Mog the Doomed (half-orc barbarian)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorcerer)
 – Kainen (Thorngrim’s human fighter cohort)

Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.

With Sal, Tycho, and (most importantly) Agnes unavailable for an expedition, the remaining adventurers decided that the Terrace of Fallen Horse would be too dangerous to continue investigating [too many traps].  They instead decided to return to the ruins east of Drop-off Tower where they had found the Lake of Fire inside a ghostly tower that could not be seen from the outside (or did not exist).  After a short ride on horseback, they entered the base of the tower ruins and stabled their horses in the first room.  Thorngrim set up several illusory walls to protect the horses from any monsters that might wander by and then the group climbed the stairs once hidden by the adamantine door.

The stairs opened onto landing in the center of the Lake of Fire.  The adventurers followed the trails to the far landing on the left and started climbing the brass spiral stairs up.  The extended stay in the extreme heat started causing the heat exhaustion before they reached the top.  To combat this, Su Bel cast endure elements on each member of the group, which helped considerably.

The top of the stairs went through the ceiling and into a different environment – one not as hot but significantly more humid.  The stairs ended inside a small structure shaped like a step pyramid.  All around was heavy jungle with a trail leading off into the foliage.  Following the trail, the adventurers were attacked by small humanoids up in the trees throwing banana-smelling tanglefoot bags.  When the tanglefoot bags were not immediately followed by an attack, Thorngrim set to using prestidigitation to remove the sticky material from the adventurers.  Shortly afterward, while the group was at an intersection deciding on which path to follow, a swarm of monkeys attacked the group, biting and scratching at the adventurers.  After some quick effort, the monkeys were driven away, but the adventurers were slightly disturbed by the event.

Further through the maze of trails, Mog discovered a pit trap prior to stepping in it.  While he was contemplating how to disable it, six girallons [four-armed, white-furred gorillas – no, really] charged the group.  With a simple “I think I’ve solved our pit problem,” Mog readied to receive the girallon charge.  During a furious fight, the adventurers were able to kill five of the girallons and drive away the sixth.  Several adventurers were wounded but Thorngrim’s dog Snips was killed by one of the girallons.  Mog attempted to console Thorngrim by saying, “It’s how he wanted to go – killed by a monkey.”  Afterward, Mog threw the girallon bodies into the pit trap, filling it most of the way up.  Rather than press on however, the adventurers retreated to the basement ruins where they had stabled their horses and camped.

The next morning, still under the effect of Su Bel’s endure element spells, the group returned to the jungle level.  Following the winding trails, the group made their way to the heart of the jungle level, where they were attacked by a tribe of 16 monkey-goblins herding 6 swarms of monkeys into the adventuring party.  At the end of the fight (during which there had been some friendly fire issues with a pair of fireballs), the monkey swarms were destroyed and 11 of the monkey-goblins killed.  The last of the monkey-goblins fled rather than face the fury of Mog’s attacks.  Nearby the adventurers found the monkey-goblin shrine to their gods, which appeared to be the girallons.

Tired of being in the jungle, Thorngrim cast fly on Mog and sent him above the jungle canopy to scout for a way out.  Mog discovered that ten feet above the canopy was another ceiling and there were a set of stone stairs up relatively near the group.  He returned and reported what he had seen, leading the group in the correct direction to find the stone spiral staircase leading up to the next level.

Cautiously climbing the stairs, the group made their way up to the next level of the tower.  When they passed the ceiling, the air temperature dropped, but not the humidity.  The stairs opened onto a rough-floored area filled with fog thick enough to limit visibility to 20 ft.  Still smarting from the monkey-goblin fight (and the errant fireballs), the group decided to return to the base of the tower again and camp.  In camp, Su Bel cast a divination to seek the safest route past the mist.  She received the message, “The center is uplifting.”

In the morning, the adventurers made their way back up through the tower, once again using all of Su Bel’s low-level spells to cast endure elements.  Back at the mist level, the group used a rope to avoid becoming separated and started a spiral search pattern, looking for the walls to this level.  The adventurers had discovered that each level of the tower was circular and Thorngrim reasoned that if they found the wall and put their back to it, they could slowly make their way to the center.  The wall was quickly found, but while Thorngrim was making his way slowly towards the center, he was attacked by manticore spikes.  The adventurers retreated to the wall and Su Bel cast wall of stone to create a partial shelter from the manticore’s attacks.  Turtled up, this mostly protected the adventurers from the manticore, which did little additional damage.  When it attempted a fly-by attack, it was quickly targeted and killed by the adventurers.

Searching the body, Thorngrim discovered the manticore was wearing an amulet that let it see through all of the mist.  Putting it on himself helped Thorngrim rapidly locate the center of the mostly empty immense area of this level.  Thorngrim then laid out a line of arcane marks from the stairs to near the center of the room, but when he stepped forward to place the last mark, he unexpectedly fell up through the ceiling, screaming all the way!  Mog, ever the half-orc of action, quickly stepped forward, hammered two spikes into the floor, tied a rope to the spikes, and stepped forward.  Unfortunately, he was unable to hold onto the rope and fell uncontrollably up.  This left Su Bel and the two cohorts alone.

Su Bel cast sending to get a message to Agnes explaining the situation*.  She then ordered Dame Yasha and Kainen to wait several hours until it became apparent that the adventurers would not be returning and then return to the horses to wait for Agnes and the rest.  She then tied the rope to herself and stepped into the center of the room, immediately falling up through the mists, past the ceiling…

…and into a large, warm body of water, taking a large amount of damage from the fall.  She failed to keep her head above the water and started drowning.

Both Thorngrim and Mog had fallen into the next level of the tower.  Thorngrim had been able to thrash enough to keep his head above the water, but was losing that battle when Mog arrived.  Mog, able to swim as any half-orc of action can, swam to a nearby sandy island with Thorngrim in tow.  Expecting the rest of their group to eventually follow, they waited on the island.  When Su Bel fell through ten minutes later, Thorngrim cast fly on Mog, who then flew out to rescue the drowning cleric, pulling her to the island.

The island they were on was about 40 ft by 20 ft, completely sandy with two palm trees, and in a large circular room full of warm, crystal clear, salty water.  The walls and ceiling were covered with illusions of being in the middle of a warm and sunny ocean.  Not seeing an immediate exit and with Su Bel slightly traumatized by nearly drowning, the adventurers decided they were ready to return to Drop-off Tower.  Using a second rope, the original rope was lengthened and tied off to one of the palm trees.  Thorngrim then cast fly on the three of them and they flew up out of this chamber and down to the floor of the Mist Level, where they rejoined Dame Yasha and Kainen.

Quickly making their way back down to the base of the Ghost Tower, the adventurers retrieved their horses and rode back to Drop-off Tower.  Several stiff drinks were then imbibed.

*End of session*

*Actual content of the sending:
“Agnes, Mog and Thorngrim have gone up through ceiling on left side, Third floor.  Follow path if we do not return.  Path marked.  Su Bel”

[Players of the old convention module C2: Ghost Tower of Iverness should recognize the general levels of this tower.  I jettisoned the castle ruins, switched around the order of the Tower levels, and swapped out the monsters for most of the levels to things that fit the Southern Reaches.  I’ll discuss this more in a later post.]

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Dyson’s Delve – Session 11 – New Allies

This session happened Tuesday, January 25, 2010.  This campaign uses the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game.  We are using the Pathfinder RPG, so some adjustments were made (or so I’ve been told).

Adventuring Group:
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)
Wednesday (female elf rogue)
Sahar (female human fighter)
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Luna (female elf sorcerer)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)

SPOILER ALERT: If You Might Play Through Dyson's Delve, Stop Reading

At Tre-ba’s request, the adventuring party Super Rat remained in Aldelle three days so Tre-ba could brew replacement potions for the ones she used in the Delve.  This time was used to sell off the xill short swords, pick up some tanglefoot bags at the trader’s shop, and get some rest and relaxation in.

Once Tre-ba was ready, the group returned to the Delve.  Entering through the front cave entrance, the adventurers made their way back up to the xill level.  Having checked both side passages (where the xill had been), the double doors straight ahead were now investigated.  These doors were double locked with locks that Wednesday found challenging to pick.  Further, after she picked one and started on the next, the first lock would magically relock itself.  Checking their inventory, the group found they only had one key (taken from the ghoul guarding the stairs to Level 3) and it was too fat to use.  After a few more rounds of trying to pick the locks, Harkaitz stepped up and used produce flame to burn his way through the locks, melting them open.  Satisfied with this, Harkaitz opened the double doors, only to find a second set of double doors with another set of double locks.

And Harkaitz was out of produce flame for the day.

Luckily, the ghoul key fit these locks and Frankie working with Wednesday, using key and lock picks (respectively), were able to open these doors.  Beyond was an impressive temple chamber with a raised platform.  Inscribed on the platform was a five-pointed star that glowed with a strong blue light, lighting up the room.  There were metal circles at each point of the star, each showing the impression of a different animal: monkey, dog, cat, toucan, and viper.  Luna and Harkaitz consulted with each other and quickly came to the conclusion that this was the gate the captive wizard had talked about.  The amulets the adventurers had matched the first three circles and looked like they fit in snugly.  Luna and Harkaitz postulated that if all five amulets were placed in the metal sockets, the gate would open.

With no other exits, exploration of this level was at an end.  Consulting their maps, the adventurers came to the conclusion that there were only two areas in the dungeon they had not investigated thoroughly: the room of the animated statues and the back rooms of the Elemental Temple.  The adventurers decided to try the statue room first as accessing the back rooms of the Temple might bring the entire temple down on them.  Tramping back through the dungeon to the fire shrine in the Elemental Temple, the adventurers stalled when Harkaitz realized he could not melt the wax binding the door in the shrine as he used his only casting of produce flame up in the Gate Shrine.  Luckily, Luna was able to clear out the wax with prestidigitation.  Hopefully no one in the Temple would notice.

Back in the isolated part of Level 6, the adventurers planned their attack on the statues and prepped spells.  All except Tre-ba were nervous, remembering the pummeling the statues had handed out the last time.  Unspiking the door to the small cluster of rooms, the adventurers cautiously advanced.  The statues were not in the first room – apparently they had retreated to their original room.  Sahar led the group forward until she could peak into the statue room.  All four statues were there, still showing the effects of the earlier battle.  Also in the room was an armoire and a writing desk.

The adventurers fell back to the first room and arrayed themselves for battle.  The plan was for Sahar to bait the statues to the entrance to this room where they would be bottle-necked, allowing the adventurers to face them one at a time.  This plan was enacted and worked well.  Sahar lured the statues into attacking and quickly fell back.  Once the statues were attacking, Tre-ba and Luna concentrated acid attacks on the statues, which worked perfectly.  Sahar concentrated swinging as hard as she could [using power attack to great effect] and Harkaitz threw tanglefoot bags to make life difficult for the statues.  After a tense fight, the last statue finally collapsed into rubble!

Wednesday pushed forward into the statue room to search it.  The armoire was empty, but the writing desk contained a magic dagger [+1] and a strongbox full of gems, estimated to be worth 100 gold marks each.  Searching for secret compartments in the furniture, Wednesday found one in the armoire, but set the explosive trap off, destroying the contents. 

With no other paths to Tim, the group decided that they must now talk with the head of the Elemental Temple.  Returning to the main room of the Temple, Harkaitz asked to speak with “whoever was in charge”.  He was directed to one of the priests and asked to talk in private about Tim.  The priest led Harkaitz and Sahar (who came as a bodyguard) into an office in the back, past the room full of guards.  In addition to a desk and such, a harpy was also in this room.  She seemed to be the priest’s bodyguard.

Harkaitz flatly stated that the group of adventurers really weren’t with Tim and he wanted to know how the temple felt about that.  After an elliptical conversation where little was directly said, the priest seemed willing to betray Tim, but wanted a meeting elsewhere to avoid being overheard.  He gave Harkaitz a rapier as a token of recognition and then set the meeting location.  Either the priest or his representative would show and talk could be freer.  Harkaitz agreed and he and Sahar left the priest’s office. 

On the way out, the guard Harkaitz had been friendly with warned Harkaitz to avoid Tim for a while.  Apparently, someone had killed several of Tim’s friend in the upper levels of the dungeon and Tim was might angry about it.  Harkaitz, knowing exactly who the “someone” was, thanked the guard for the tip and rewarded him with one of the gems the group had recently found.  The adventurers then left the Temple (and the Delve) through the back door.

The adventurers immediately hustled to the meeting place to check it out and then returned to Aldelle when it got dark.  The next morning, Wednesday picked up some line to set tripwires with and the adventurers headed to the meeting site, arriving early.  Wednesday set out tripwires and paths of retreat were agreed upon.  Then the adventurers waited, half expecting Tim to show or some other betrayal.

What they got was the harpy.

The harpy (named Scar as was later learned) was the priest’s representative and able to speak for him.  Harkaitz showed the rapier as the token of recognition and the talking got started.  The adventurers learned that Tim had one of the other two amulets on him and the other had been entrusted to someone Tim trusted in the Temple.  The temple itself was formed by several factions Tim put together and they did not all like each other.  The adventurers agreed to take out Tim in exchange for the priest getting the last amulet from its guardian.  Further, the priest will arrange for Tim’s arrival at the Gate Shrine and let the adventurers know when this meeting was set so the ambush could happen.  Once Tim was gone and all five of the amulets were secured, there would be final negotiations on learning how to control where the gate opens and the retrieval of a particular item for the priest through it.  The adventurers agreed to this and the harpy left.  The adventurers returned to Aldelle to await word of when the meeting with Tim would happen.

*End of Session*

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Dates Are Important

I uploaded today's post last night - and then set the wrong date.  Sigh. 

Today's scheduled posting will appear tomorrow morning.  Sorry about that.