[This session happened last week and led to a permanent death. It could have been taken as an omen…]
[Also? SPOILERS! This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]
PCs (The Motley Crew)
Samsokn [the “k” is silent] – male Dwarven Craftpriest, 3rd level
Radagast the Wanderer – male human Mage, 3rd level
Frank the Cleric – male human Cleric of Silvanus, 2nd level
Harkyn (the Hare) – gender fluid Elven Nightblade, 3rd level
Brock – male Dwarven Vaultguard, 3rd level
Shal the Runt – male Cleric of Silvanus, heard Silvanus was making a stand against St. Ygg and there was loot to be had in the Barrowmoor
Recovering from Injury
Quillian the Green – male human mage, exploring Barrowmaze for the loot to establish a chantry [but mostly for the loot]
Kord – male human Bard, seeks tales of heroism to tell…and exploring Barrowmaze for the loot
NPCs
Norman – male human guide, hired to lead the adventurers to Barrowmaze but not fight
Chick-Magnet – female war dog (0-level), actually a male man-at-arms cursed into a different form
Peldar and Nollan – professional torchbearers
Magusday, May 15th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
With some members of The Motley Crew still injured and much of the group in Ironguard Motte, a day of rest was taken. Samsokn casts a very weak cure light wounds spell on Harkyn [rolled a “1” for effect], so they went to the Temple of St. Ygg to get the rest of the way healed, making two donations of 10 gp to cover it.
Radagast inquired at the arcane bookshop in town, looking for new spells for his greater understanding of magic [read: he needs 2nd level spells now that he can cast them]. The shop had two scrolls of appropriate power: detect evil and detect invisible. As neither was what Radagast wanted [he was looking for invisibility or knock], the shopkeeper, Antinko the Seeker, offered to seek out the spells and get back to Radagast when they were located. For a small deposit, of course. Radagast agreed to this plan.
Starting to get encumbered by the coinage he was carrying, Brock purchased a chest and a good lock to put on it. His plan was to store the chest at Quillian’s place [once it was built] as a safe storage location. When Harkyn observed Brock’s chest, they decided to do the same and purchased their own chest and lock.
Cromsday, May 16th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
The group of adventurers spent most of the day hiking back to Helix along with a few other travelers. In Helix, Brock and Harkyn asked Quillian where they could set their chests to be safe. Quillian rebuffed them, stating his manor was for himself and other practitioners of the arcane arts, not free-loaders. As a result, Harkyn and Brock rented shelf space in the storage room at Turgen’s Trade Goods, paying 1sp per day, paying for nine days in advance.
Arrangements were made with Osen at the Mercenary Guild to re-hire Norman, Chick-Magnet, and the torchbearers, Peldar and Nollan. All are told to meet at the Mercenary Guild building shortly after sun-up to get started.
Freysday, May 17th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Early in the morning the group assembled and headed south, into the Barrowmoor. Part way to the field of barrows, a single, large pteranodon was noticed circling the group. The adventurers made ready as the pteranodon dove at them. The pteranodon took large bites out of several adventurers, but was eventually driven off by combined bow fire and Radagast’s magic missile spells. [This would be important later.]
Once at the field of barrows, the adventurers decide to investigate barrow #28. Brock spent 20 minutes hammering the sealing stone to rubble. With the barrow open, the group descended into the single chamber underneath. In the center of the chamber was a stone lectern with a yellow book covered in arcane markings. The walls were covered in frescoes depicting what Radagast identified as the mage Azcuursh the Arcane. By reputation Azcuursh was known to be an evil wizard with a mastery of the Dark Arts. The book was clearly magical, so Radagast was careful about opening the book.
He immediately disappeared when he did so and the book snapped shut.
This pushed the rest of the adventurers back on their heels. Brock touched the book and attempted to open it, but nothing happened and the book would not open. Harkyn tried next and also disappeared. The rest of the adventurers attempted to open the book in rapid succession, but nothing happened to them.
Then they had to wait [while I took Radagast’s and Harkyn’s players to another room].
Radagast appeared in an extradimensional space where he was confronted by a grey-skinned and eye-less simulacrum of Azcuursh, who attacked him. It quickly became apparent that the simulacrum only had the spells Radagast would have…if he wasn’t out of magic for the day. The simulacrum cast magic missile twice, which Radagast could only answer with his dagger. The simulacrum quickly finished off Radagast with a throwing dart.
Just as Radagast fell in combat, Harkyn appeared. While Harkyn was an arcane spellcaster of sorts, the only spell they knew was shield, which they immediately cast upon themselves. This meant the only spell the simulacrum also had was shield and it cast that spell. Over the next 20-30 minutes [I lost track of how long the fight actually took], Harkyn and the simulacrum waved their weapons at each other, mostly ineffectively. They gradually wore each other down, with Harkyn striking the deathblow first, destroying the simulacrum. Harkyn reappeared back in the barrow where the other adventurers were waiting. Radagast’s body never returned. [Nor did all the magic items on his person.]
Harkyn was now able to access the spellbook. It contained the formulae for every second level spell, including invisibility and knock, the spells Radagast had been searching for. Disheartened, the adventurers packed up and returned to Helix. On the way back, they spotted a troop of giant ants, but decided to avoid them. They returned to Helix before the sun set and held a wake at the Brazen Strumpet for Radagast.
Yggsday, May 18th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
The majority of the adventurers spent the day traveling to Ironguard Motte, where they sold Azcuursh’s spellbook for a very tidy profit.
End of Session
[This was a relatively short session, due to me wanting to get to sleep at a reasonable time. The project I was on had me getting up at 5:30 AM, so staying up late on a Monday night was kicking me hard. With the book of spells, the group felt they had enough loot that most of them would level and they did NOT want to push it.]
[They’d forget that lesson in the next session…]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 7
Session 8
Session 9
Session 11
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Session Report – Barrowmaze – Session 9
[With two characters out for recovery, The Motley Crew skews heavily cleric this week.]
[Also? SPOILERS! This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]
PCs (The Motley Crew)
Brock – male Dwarven Vaultguard, 3rd level
Radagast the Wanderer – male human Mage, 2nd level
Harkyn (the Hare) – gender fluid Elven Nightblade, 3rd level
Frank the Cleric – male human Cleric of Silvanus, 2nd level
Samsokn [the “k” is silent] – male Dwarven Craftpriest, 2nd level
Shal the Runt – male Cleric of Silvanus, heard Silvanus was making a stand against St. Ygg and there was loot to be had in the Barrowmoor
Recovering from Injury
Quillian the Green – male human mage, exploring Barrowmaze for the loot to establish a chantry [but mostly for the loot]
Kord – male human Bard, seeks tales of heroism to tell…and exploring Barrowmaze for the loot
NPCs
Norman – male human guide, hired to lead the adventurers to Barrowmaze but not fight
Chick-Magnet – female war dog (0-level), actually a male man-at-arms cursed into a different form
Peldar and Nollan – professional torchbearers
Sunday, May 12th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
A quiet day for most of The Motley Crew. Brock traveled back to Helix from Ironguard Motte, easily making the acquaintance of a craftpriest [Solomokn] and a cleric of Silvanus [Shal the Runt] heading to Helix to make their fortunes.
In Helix itself, Radagast finished healing up from his wounds and let the rest of the Crew know he was available to travel. Harkyn requested two potions of cure light wounds from the Shrine of St. Ygg, but was told to come back in the morning for them. As this coincided when the group was heading back to the Barrows, they agreed to do so.
Arrangements were made with the Osen at the Mercenary Guild for hiring Norman, Chick-Magnet, and the two torchbearers, Peldar and Nollan. All were told to assemble at the Guild just after dawn.
Moonday, May 13th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Harkyn stopped at the temple of St. Ygg to pick up their 2 healing potions and they placed an order for a third, to be picked up later.
The trip through the Barrowmoor was uneventful [not really, but they didn’t learn that until later]. The Crew decided to take another look at Barrow #7. They found the brass door with the symbol of Nergal on it. Taking the time to carefully examine it, Brock noticed one of the pentagrams is actually a keyhole. Harkyn put wax in it in an attempt to learn something about the key and ended up plugging the keyhole with wax.
Still blocked at Barrow #7, the Crew went over to Barrow #15 to break in. Twenty minutes of hard work with a sledge hammer later, Brock shattered the sealing stone and opened the barrow. Frank lit a torch and handed it over to Brock to throw in. Brock tossed it in and it landed short, on the stairs. This turned out to be a good thing, as the chambers under the barrow were flooded knee high with black water. The group cautiously went down the stairs, keeping a wary eye on the ceiling. Norman stayed on the surface, acting as a lookout.
The main chamber was circular, approximately 50 feet across, with a rusty portcullis on the left and right walls. Not detecting any traps or hostile entities, the group entered the flooded chamber, Chick-Magnet staying at the stairs as the water was very deep for him. As Brock approached the portcullis on the right, he detected movement and heard low moaning. Suddenly a group of zombies appeared at the rusty portcullis, straining to get through to the adventurers.
The zombies broke through the decrepit portcullis, but were immediately turned by Frank. The zombies fled back into the chamber they came from. The group moved out into the center of the main chamber and peppered the zombies with bow fire and a little melee combat from Brock, Frank, and Harkyn.
With the immediate threat dealt with, the group split up to search the zombie room and the main chamber. Harkyn located a secret door in the main chamber, directly across from the stairs to the surface. The zombie room was a dead end with nothing of interest. Looking through the remaining portcullis, the adventurers could see two sarcophagi whose tops just cleared the surface of the water. After a quick consultation, the adventurers decided to check out the two sarcophagi first, then whatever was behind the secret door.
Brock used the sledge hammer to knock down the extremely rusted portcullis and entered the chamber. Hoping the contents of the sarcophagi were protected from the water, the adventurers were careful to avoid making waves in the water while lifting the lids. Unfortunately, the interiors were both flooded and the books and scrolls inside were water-logged lumps of pulp. One scroll tube was floating in the water, which suggested it was still sealed, so it went into the loot bag for later review.
The group then sloshed over to the secret door. Harkyn opened it and found a small chamber with single shelf on the back wall. On the shelf was a urn with ash remains and a locked metal box. The urn was not particularly valuable, but the box was promising. The group returned to the surface to rest and for better light to examine the box under. Radagast opened the scroll tube during the rest and found a scroll of Protection against Elementals (Fire), a valuable find. [This spell does not exist in the ACKS system so I had to look it up and adjudicated it to be a 3rd level spell loot-wise.]
After resting, Brock examined the box and declared it safe to open. He opened it and was pricked by a poison needle concealed in the opening mechanism. The virulent poison made quick work of Brock and almost immediately dropped to the ground, twitching and foaming at the mouth. Within seconds, he was dead. [Brock rolled very low on both his Detect Trap and Poison save rolls.] On the plus side, the box was open and the pristine gauntlets inside were certainly magic, but the cost was Brock’s life.
Now with Chick-Magnet as their only warrior, the group decided that returning to town was the best option. They bundled up Brock’s body and gear for travel and headed back north, towards Helix.
Shortly after leaving the field of barrows, they were surrounded by Renata’s Raiders, whose leader called out, “Stand and deliver!” There were 20 bandits plus their leader, Renata, and one of her lieutenants, and they completely surrounded the adventurers. The adventurers didn’t like it and didn’t want to, but it looked like they were going to have to hand over their loot. One of the bandits approached to receive the loot while the rest of the bandits waited with their weapons at the ready. Frank handed over the box first. The bandit scratched himself with the poisoned needle and almost immediately fell to the ground, spasming and foaming at the mouth. All eyes were now on Frank…
…except Harkyn’s, whose elven boots allowed them to silently step away and outside the circle of bandits suddenly focused on Frank. Harkyn then silently made their way around the outside of the bandit circle, using the swamp plants for cover. At the same time, Chick-Magnet played up being a friendly dog and trotted over to some of the bandit archers, tongue lolling to one side and tail wagging.
In the center of the bandit’s attention, Frank tried to calm things down, but his loud voice and sudden movements only spooked the bandits and five of the crossbowmen fired. Two hit Frank for little damage, one missed clearly, one planted a bolt between the feet of a fellow bandit on the opposite side of the circle, and one accidentally killed a fellow bandit! This was not, apparently, a unique occurrence and the bandit whose feet were nearly hit charged at the crossbowman, swinging his broadsword and yelling, “That’s the last time!” Renata moved over to try and stop the fight, but failed to and the swordsman killed the crossbowman.
Then Harkyn struck at Renata with a backstab attack.
The adventurers, waiting for a sign to attack, took this at the sign and started attacking the bandits. Chaos ensued.
Chick-Magnet switched from “friendly dog” to “bloody-muzzled terror" in a flash as he leapt on one of the bandits and tore the bandits throat out. Chick-Magnet then looked at the next bandit and clearly said, “You’re next,” which spooked the bandits badly. Radagast cast magic missile, which drew attention but no successful crossbow fire. Harkyn got a second attack on Renata before Renata could react, but despite solid hits, Renata was too tough to fall. Renata tried to return the favor to Harkyn, but failed.
After less than a minute of furious combat, half the bandits were down and Renata was down to half her own hit points. Realizing that there was a good chance the adventurers might win or kill so many bandits her victory would be pyrrhic, she fled. Her lieutenant took the hint and did the same. The remaining bandits, willing a moment ago to fight to the death, saw their leadership flee and did the same.
By accident and luck, the adventurers had driven off the bandits.
The adventurers stripped the bodies of their weapons and shields [the remaining armor was damaged or otherwise unsellable]. The fight provided the adventurers a bump in loot, but also earned them a measure of enmity from Renata.
Hernesday, May 14th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
The group traveled to Ironguard Motte to get restore life and limb cast on Brock. Brock returned hungry and can no longer quite satisfy his hungers [“Bottomless hungers” on the Tampering with Mortality table].
End of Session
[So on the way to the Barrowmaze, I rolled “Rival Adventurers” on the encounter table. Looking at the list of rivals, I decided that the Boon Companions were still recovering in Bogtown. Next on the list was Renata’s Robbers, a group of bandits. They normally operate in the Blackened Forest, but the players were very successful at bringing back loot from the barrows and word had spread, so I decided that the Robbers were following the adventurers and would not ambush them until after they extracted loot from the barrows. On the way back to Helix, I rolled again to see if there would be a complicating incident and again rolled “Rival Adventurers”, so clearly this fight was going to happen. I was fairly certain the adventurers were going to get robbed and later track down the Robbers for revenge. Then Harkyn’s player asked if she could step away using her elven boots and Frank’s player had Frank hand over the box with the poison needle. A couple fortuitous rolls later and the adventurers were starting to get the upper hand. Renata is smart, so she bolted when victory started looking way too expensive. Next time, however…]
[At the beginning of the session, the players debated waiting two weeks for Kord and Quillian to recover. They eventually decided not to, so another round of backup characters stepped forward, Solomokn for Kord, and Shal the Runt for Quillian. I decided to require Solomokn have a “k” in his name somewhere, being a dwarf, and his player put it before the “n”, like in “know”. Having to type his name several times now, I’m starting to regret this decision…]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 7
Session 8
Session 10
[Also? SPOILERS! This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]
PCs (The Motley Crew)
Brock – male Dwarven Vaultguard, 3rd level
Radagast the Wanderer – male human Mage, 2nd level
Harkyn (the Hare) – gender fluid Elven Nightblade, 3rd level
Frank the Cleric – male human Cleric of Silvanus, 2nd level
Samsokn [the “k” is silent] – male Dwarven Craftpriest, 2nd level
Shal the Runt – male Cleric of Silvanus, heard Silvanus was making a stand against St. Ygg and there was loot to be had in the Barrowmoor
Recovering from Injury
Quillian the Green – male human mage, exploring Barrowmaze for the loot to establish a chantry [but mostly for the loot]
Kord – male human Bard, seeks tales of heroism to tell…and exploring Barrowmaze for the loot
NPCs
Norman – male human guide, hired to lead the adventurers to Barrowmaze but not fight
Chick-Magnet – female war dog (0-level), actually a male man-at-arms cursed into a different form
Peldar and Nollan – professional torchbearers
Sunday, May 12th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
A quiet day for most of The Motley Crew. Brock traveled back to Helix from Ironguard Motte, easily making the acquaintance of a craftpriest [Solomokn] and a cleric of Silvanus [Shal the Runt] heading to Helix to make their fortunes.
In Helix itself, Radagast finished healing up from his wounds and let the rest of the Crew know he was available to travel. Harkyn requested two potions of cure light wounds from the Shrine of St. Ygg, but was told to come back in the morning for them. As this coincided when the group was heading back to the Barrows, they agreed to do so.
Arrangements were made with the Osen at the Mercenary Guild for hiring Norman, Chick-Magnet, and the two torchbearers, Peldar and Nollan. All were told to assemble at the Guild just after dawn.
Moonday, May 13th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Harkyn stopped at the temple of St. Ygg to pick up their 2 healing potions and they placed an order for a third, to be picked up later.
The trip through the Barrowmoor was uneventful [not really, but they didn’t learn that until later]. The Crew decided to take another look at Barrow #7. They found the brass door with the symbol of Nergal on it. Taking the time to carefully examine it, Brock noticed one of the pentagrams is actually a keyhole. Harkyn put wax in it in an attempt to learn something about the key and ended up plugging the keyhole with wax.
Still blocked at Barrow #7, the Crew went over to Barrow #15 to break in. Twenty minutes of hard work with a sledge hammer later, Brock shattered the sealing stone and opened the barrow. Frank lit a torch and handed it over to Brock to throw in. Brock tossed it in and it landed short, on the stairs. This turned out to be a good thing, as the chambers under the barrow were flooded knee high with black water. The group cautiously went down the stairs, keeping a wary eye on the ceiling. Norman stayed on the surface, acting as a lookout.
The main chamber was circular, approximately 50 feet across, with a rusty portcullis on the left and right walls. Not detecting any traps or hostile entities, the group entered the flooded chamber, Chick-Magnet staying at the stairs as the water was very deep for him. As Brock approached the portcullis on the right, he detected movement and heard low moaning. Suddenly a group of zombies appeared at the rusty portcullis, straining to get through to the adventurers.
The zombies broke through the decrepit portcullis, but were immediately turned by Frank. The zombies fled back into the chamber they came from. The group moved out into the center of the main chamber and peppered the zombies with bow fire and a little melee combat from Brock, Frank, and Harkyn.
With the immediate threat dealt with, the group split up to search the zombie room and the main chamber. Harkyn located a secret door in the main chamber, directly across from the stairs to the surface. The zombie room was a dead end with nothing of interest. Looking through the remaining portcullis, the adventurers could see two sarcophagi whose tops just cleared the surface of the water. After a quick consultation, the adventurers decided to check out the two sarcophagi first, then whatever was behind the secret door.
Brock used the sledge hammer to knock down the extremely rusted portcullis and entered the chamber. Hoping the contents of the sarcophagi were protected from the water, the adventurers were careful to avoid making waves in the water while lifting the lids. Unfortunately, the interiors were both flooded and the books and scrolls inside were water-logged lumps of pulp. One scroll tube was floating in the water, which suggested it was still sealed, so it went into the loot bag for later review.
The group then sloshed over to the secret door. Harkyn opened it and found a small chamber with single shelf on the back wall. On the shelf was a urn with ash remains and a locked metal box. The urn was not particularly valuable, but the box was promising. The group returned to the surface to rest and for better light to examine the box under. Radagast opened the scroll tube during the rest and found a scroll of Protection against Elementals (Fire), a valuable find. [This spell does not exist in the ACKS system so I had to look it up and adjudicated it to be a 3rd level spell loot-wise.]
After resting, Brock examined the box and declared it safe to open. He opened it and was pricked by a poison needle concealed in the opening mechanism. The virulent poison made quick work of Brock and almost immediately dropped to the ground, twitching and foaming at the mouth. Within seconds, he was dead. [Brock rolled very low on both his Detect Trap and Poison save rolls.] On the plus side, the box was open and the pristine gauntlets inside were certainly magic, but the cost was Brock’s life.
Now with Chick-Magnet as their only warrior, the group decided that returning to town was the best option. They bundled up Brock’s body and gear for travel and headed back north, towards Helix.
Shortly after leaving the field of barrows, they were surrounded by Renata’s Raiders, whose leader called out, “Stand and deliver!” There were 20 bandits plus their leader, Renata, and one of her lieutenants, and they completely surrounded the adventurers. The adventurers didn’t like it and didn’t want to, but it looked like they were going to have to hand over their loot. One of the bandits approached to receive the loot while the rest of the bandits waited with their weapons at the ready. Frank handed over the box first. The bandit scratched himself with the poisoned needle and almost immediately fell to the ground, spasming and foaming at the mouth. All eyes were now on Frank…
…except Harkyn’s, whose elven boots allowed them to silently step away and outside the circle of bandits suddenly focused on Frank. Harkyn then silently made their way around the outside of the bandit circle, using the swamp plants for cover. At the same time, Chick-Magnet played up being a friendly dog and trotted over to some of the bandit archers, tongue lolling to one side and tail wagging.
In the center of the bandit’s attention, Frank tried to calm things down, but his loud voice and sudden movements only spooked the bandits and five of the crossbowmen fired. Two hit Frank for little damage, one missed clearly, one planted a bolt between the feet of a fellow bandit on the opposite side of the circle, and one accidentally killed a fellow bandit! This was not, apparently, a unique occurrence and the bandit whose feet were nearly hit charged at the crossbowman, swinging his broadsword and yelling, “That’s the last time!” Renata moved over to try and stop the fight, but failed to and the swordsman killed the crossbowman.
Then Harkyn struck at Renata with a backstab attack.
The adventurers, waiting for a sign to attack, took this at the sign and started attacking the bandits. Chaos ensued.
Chick-Magnet switched from “friendly dog” to “bloody-muzzled terror" in a flash as he leapt on one of the bandits and tore the bandits throat out. Chick-Magnet then looked at the next bandit and clearly said, “You’re next,” which spooked the bandits badly. Radagast cast magic missile, which drew attention but no successful crossbow fire. Harkyn got a second attack on Renata before Renata could react, but despite solid hits, Renata was too tough to fall. Renata tried to return the favor to Harkyn, but failed.
After less than a minute of furious combat, half the bandits were down and Renata was down to half her own hit points. Realizing that there was a good chance the adventurers might win or kill so many bandits her victory would be pyrrhic, she fled. Her lieutenant took the hint and did the same. The remaining bandits, willing a moment ago to fight to the death, saw their leadership flee and did the same.
By accident and luck, the adventurers had driven off the bandits.
The adventurers stripped the bodies of their weapons and shields [the remaining armor was damaged or otherwise unsellable]. The fight provided the adventurers a bump in loot, but also earned them a measure of enmity from Renata.
Hernesday, May 14th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
The group traveled to Ironguard Motte to get restore life and limb cast on Brock. Brock returned hungry and can no longer quite satisfy his hungers [“Bottomless hungers” on the Tampering with Mortality table].
End of Session
[So on the way to the Barrowmaze, I rolled “Rival Adventurers” on the encounter table. Looking at the list of rivals, I decided that the Boon Companions were still recovering in Bogtown. Next on the list was Renata’s Robbers, a group of bandits. They normally operate in the Blackened Forest, but the players were very successful at bringing back loot from the barrows and word had spread, so I decided that the Robbers were following the adventurers and would not ambush them until after they extracted loot from the barrows. On the way back to Helix, I rolled again to see if there would be a complicating incident and again rolled “Rival Adventurers”, so clearly this fight was going to happen. I was fairly certain the adventurers were going to get robbed and later track down the Robbers for revenge. Then Harkyn’s player asked if she could step away using her elven boots and Frank’s player had Frank hand over the box with the poison needle. A couple fortuitous rolls later and the adventurers were starting to get the upper hand. Renata is smart, so she bolted when victory started looking way too expensive. Next time, however…]
[At the beginning of the session, the players debated waiting two weeks for Kord and Quillian to recover. They eventually decided not to, so another round of backup characters stepped forward, Solomokn for Kord, and Shal the Runt for Quillian. I decided to require Solomokn have a “k” in his name somewhere, being a dwarf, and his player put it before the “n”, like in “know”. Having to type his name several times now, I’m starting to regret this decision…]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 7
Session 8
Session 10
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Session Report – Barrowmaze – Session 8
[Welcome back! After taking a week off for the wedding of two of my players, we resumed adventuring, picking up exactly where we started. We also worked out a timeline for the manor house Quillian is having built. According to the rules in ACKS, the entire property – including a mansion, a shrine, and a library wing would take all of 7 days, which seems ridiculously short. At the moment I’m ruling it takes longer (3 weeks once the materials arrive), but I suddenly need to dig into that portion of the rules to get better answers. More on this later.]
[Also? SPOILERS! This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]
PCs
Radagast the Wanderer – male human Mage, 2nd level
Brock – male Dwarven Vaultguard, 3rd level
Harkyn (the Hare) – gender fluid Elven Nightblade, 3rd level
Frank the Cleric – male human cleric of Silvanus, down to loot
Quillian the Green – male human mage, exploring Barrowmaze for the loot to establish a chantry [but mostly for the loot]
Kord – male human Bard, seeks tales of heroism to tell…and exploring Barrowmaze for the loot
NPCs
Norman – male human guide, hired to lead the adventurers to Barrowmaze but not fight
Chick-Magnet – female war dog (0-level), actually a male man-at-arms cursed into a different form
Peldar and Nollan – professional torchbearers
An army of laborers and guards to guard them.
Cromsday, May 9th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
In the evening and at the Brazen Strumpet, Quillian was approached by the head engineer on his manor construction project. The engineer, Artur Blackrod, informed Quillian that construction was delayed two whole days at this point because “some fool hired all the workers in this town and the next one.” As the person who had hired all of those people, Quillian warned him that the setback would be three days as that “fool” was hiring all of them again tomorrow. With that understanding achieved, but went back to their drinking.
Freysday, May 10th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
In the early morning, with the horde of workers collected in front of the Mercenary Guild, The Motley Crew [the player characters] cut loose the diggers as they did not plan on uncovering another barrow this day, but instead investigate the barrow unearthed two days ago. Quillian did point out that there was a construction project over behind the graveyard that was very much in need of workers and they could find work there until the next barrow needed to be uncovered. The diggers talked amongst themselves and decided that not having to tromp through the swamp was a good thing and went off looking for the lead engineer on this construction site they’d just heard about.
Tromping through the Barrowmoor Radagast and Harkyn both spotted a small part of the swamp walking towards the group. There was some initial confusion as to what it was, but Radagast eventually identified it as a “shambling mound” from a book he had once read and suggested it was very dangerous. The group ran.
Unfortunately, the shambling mound was able to keep the large group in sight and caught up [it didn’t have to avoid any of the terrains in the moors]. It attempted to attack Kord and surprisingly missed entirely [I rolled a 4 and a 1 on the attack rolls]. The shambling mound accidentally attacked a tree, which sprung back and hit it, so the mound “went to town” on the tree [it was not the sharpest thorn in the bush], allowing the adventurers and their laborers to flee.
Once the adventurers and their hirelings arrived at the field of barrows, the adventurers checked Barrow 30 to verify it still unoccupied. Quickly determining it was safe, they waved in the laborers to finish packing up the library. Meanwhile, the adventurers, Norman, Chick-Magnet, and the torch bearers Peldar and Nollan headed over to Barrow 29 to investigate the recently excavated entrance. Brock spent 20 minutes with a sledgehammer smashing the sealing stone, eventually shattering it and providing access to the barrow.
Justifiably cautious, the adventurers tossed a lit torch down the stairs. It landed on a landing with the stairs continued down to the right. The group organized themselves and cautiously went down the stairs, regularly checking the ceiling [that gray ooze in Barrow 5 really left a psychological mark]. At the landing, Brock picked up the still burning torch and tossed it down the next flight of stairs. This illuminated a hallway running to the left and descending to the right.
The adventurers descended again and Brock saw both passages only went ten feet and then ended in a doorway. The group went left down the short hall. Brock pushed open the door and discovered the hall went another 10 feet and then opened into the corner of a room. The group advanced slowly and just as Brock was peaking around the corner to inspect the room, he was jumped by a wight! The wight landed a blow and Brock felt his vital essences being drained from his body. Without need to consult each other, the entire group immediately fled back to the surface. The only exception was Quillian who delayed leaving only long enough to pull the door shut in front of the wight, giving Kord time to turn and flee.
Back on the surface, the group rested while keeping an eye on the barrow entrance [they were fairly certain the wight would not venture into the daylight, but not 100% certain]. While catching their breaths and letting their hearts calm, they discussed where to go next. They decided to return to Barrow 20 and use the hidden entrance to the Barrowmaze there. They knew where a secret door was and wanted to explore that, hoping to find some treasure.
The group opened the hidden entrance and descended down the narrow stairs, deep into the ground to the Barrowmaze. They quietly walked in the silence across the hall to the secret door, Harkyn insisting that the debris be prodded for centipedes. There were none.
Brock then opened the secret door. Beyond was a 30x50 foot chamber, its walls covered with burial alcoves and with a low mausoleum occupying the center of the chamber. Debris on the floor indicated that the ceiling was unstable and portions could fall at any time. With no loot for their troubles so far, the group spread out and started searching the alcoves. Ten minutes in, they heard a crack of stone breaking and part of the ceiling came down on them!
All the adventurers were injured, but Quillian and Kord went down under the stones and rock and stayed down. Frank used his healing touch on Quillian before the rocks stopped falling [bringing him to 0 hit points] and poured a healing potion into Kord’s mouth. Both regained consciousness, but were weak and Quillian’s remaining good hand was crushed beyond use by one of the stones that fell on him, leaving the mage with no hands. [They knew it was going to be bad when he rolled a 3 on the d6 on the Mortality Table - nothing good happens on a 3.]
There was a debate about continuing to search the alcoves [the job only being half done] or just leaving at this point. With still no loot in the loot sack, greed won out. Quillian, Kord, and the torchbearers stepped out of the room while Brock, Harkyn, Radagast, and Chick-Magnet resumed the search. Twenty minutes later, more of the ceiling came down on them. Injured some more, but not fatally, they finished their search and found a mere 121 sp. This reward in no way matched the risk.
Greed still gnawing at their hearts, they decided to open the mausoleum and search that. At least they would be protected by any further collapse of the ceiling. Inside, they faced a coffer corpse! Radagast immediately identified it [he apparently read all the books on monsters while at wizard school] and warned the other adventurers about it. Forewarned, the adventurers quickly downed the coffer corpse and kept hitting the pile of bones until they were certain it was down for good. They then looted a gold crown and two jeweled bracers – a valuable haul!
Convinced they had been here long enough [now that there was valuable loot in the loot bag], the adventurers returned to the surface and headed over to Barrow 30 to assist in loading the last of the library. During this effort, two final holy writs were located in the library and added to the loot bag.
On the way back to Helix, the group came across piles of bloody, pulped meat with large beaks identifying them as axe-beaks. It appeared they were attacked and killed by animated statues! A little more leery, the expedition finished its hike to Helix. Several members of the adventuring party went to the Shrine of St. Ygg for healing.
Yggsday, May 11th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Most of the group spent the day hiking over to Ironguard Motte. Quillian needed restore life and limb cast upon him to return his hands. Being a follower of Silvanus, the ritual of St. Ygg left him disturbed and muttering to himself. He, like Kord, will need two weeks of bedrest to fully recover.
While in a larger town, Brock put out word he was looking to acquire some magical plate mail. There was none immediately for sale, but he was willing to wait a bit and see what showed up or he discovered while prowling the town.
Meanwhile, back in Helix, Kord was determined to spend his two weeks of bedrest as enjoyably as possible and started squandering his money on wine, women, and song. [His player knows that Kord will not last long with only 3 hit points at third level, so he’s establishing a reserve fund of xp for his next character.]
End of Session
[So the players now hate energy drain. I prefaced the fight by stating they were about to face one of the most feared attacks in all D&D. I’m not certain they were convinced until Brock was hit and lost that level. THAT was when they decided to run. Brock was within 1000 xp of level 4 and would have made it this session, but instead had to recover level 3. I was generous and put him just below the xp for 3rd level, so he didn’t effectively lose two levels in that one attack. That was the “warning shot”, next time it is rules as written.]
[Also? Frank the Cleric made it to 2nd level, so the party finally has healing magic that doesn’t come from a bottle…]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 7
Session 9
[Also? SPOILERS! This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]
PCs
Radagast the Wanderer – male human Mage, 2nd level
Brock – male Dwarven Vaultguard, 3rd level
Harkyn (the Hare) – gender fluid Elven Nightblade, 3rd level
Frank the Cleric – male human cleric of Silvanus, down to loot
Quillian the Green – male human mage, exploring Barrowmaze for the loot to establish a chantry [but mostly for the loot]
Kord – male human Bard, seeks tales of heroism to tell…and exploring Barrowmaze for the loot
NPCs
Norman – male human guide, hired to lead the adventurers to Barrowmaze but not fight
Chick-Magnet – female war dog (0-level), actually a male man-at-arms cursed into a different form
Peldar and Nollan – professional torchbearers
An army of laborers and guards to guard them.
Cromsday, May 9th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
In the evening and at the Brazen Strumpet, Quillian was approached by the head engineer on his manor construction project. The engineer, Artur Blackrod, informed Quillian that construction was delayed two whole days at this point because “some fool hired all the workers in this town and the next one.” As the person who had hired all of those people, Quillian warned him that the setback would be three days as that “fool” was hiring all of them again tomorrow. With that understanding achieved, but went back to their drinking.
Freysday, May 10th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
In the early morning, with the horde of workers collected in front of the Mercenary Guild, The Motley Crew [the player characters] cut loose the diggers as they did not plan on uncovering another barrow this day, but instead investigate the barrow unearthed two days ago. Quillian did point out that there was a construction project over behind the graveyard that was very much in need of workers and they could find work there until the next barrow needed to be uncovered. The diggers talked amongst themselves and decided that not having to tromp through the swamp was a good thing and went off looking for the lead engineer on this construction site they’d just heard about.
Tromping through the Barrowmoor Radagast and Harkyn both spotted a small part of the swamp walking towards the group. There was some initial confusion as to what it was, but Radagast eventually identified it as a “shambling mound” from a book he had once read and suggested it was very dangerous. The group ran.
Unfortunately, the shambling mound was able to keep the large group in sight and caught up [it didn’t have to avoid any of the terrains in the moors]. It attempted to attack Kord and surprisingly missed entirely [I rolled a 4 and a 1 on the attack rolls]. The shambling mound accidentally attacked a tree, which sprung back and hit it, so the mound “went to town” on the tree [it was not the sharpest thorn in the bush], allowing the adventurers and their laborers to flee.
Once the adventurers and their hirelings arrived at the field of barrows, the adventurers checked Barrow 30 to verify it still unoccupied. Quickly determining it was safe, they waved in the laborers to finish packing up the library. Meanwhile, the adventurers, Norman, Chick-Magnet, and the torch bearers Peldar and Nollan headed over to Barrow 29 to investigate the recently excavated entrance. Brock spent 20 minutes with a sledgehammer smashing the sealing stone, eventually shattering it and providing access to the barrow.
Justifiably cautious, the adventurers tossed a lit torch down the stairs. It landed on a landing with the stairs continued down to the right. The group organized themselves and cautiously went down the stairs, regularly checking the ceiling [that gray ooze in Barrow 5 really left a psychological mark]. At the landing, Brock picked up the still burning torch and tossed it down the next flight of stairs. This illuminated a hallway running to the left and descending to the right.
The adventurers descended again and Brock saw both passages only went ten feet and then ended in a doorway. The group went left down the short hall. Brock pushed open the door and discovered the hall went another 10 feet and then opened into the corner of a room. The group advanced slowly and just as Brock was peaking around the corner to inspect the room, he was jumped by a wight! The wight landed a blow and Brock felt his vital essences being drained from his body. Without need to consult each other, the entire group immediately fled back to the surface. The only exception was Quillian who delayed leaving only long enough to pull the door shut in front of the wight, giving Kord time to turn and flee.
Back on the surface, the group rested while keeping an eye on the barrow entrance [they were fairly certain the wight would not venture into the daylight, but not 100% certain]. While catching their breaths and letting their hearts calm, they discussed where to go next. They decided to return to Barrow 20 and use the hidden entrance to the Barrowmaze there. They knew where a secret door was and wanted to explore that, hoping to find some treasure.
The group opened the hidden entrance and descended down the narrow stairs, deep into the ground to the Barrowmaze. They quietly walked in the silence across the hall to the secret door, Harkyn insisting that the debris be prodded for centipedes. There were none.
Brock then opened the secret door. Beyond was a 30x50 foot chamber, its walls covered with burial alcoves and with a low mausoleum occupying the center of the chamber. Debris on the floor indicated that the ceiling was unstable and portions could fall at any time. With no loot for their troubles so far, the group spread out and started searching the alcoves. Ten minutes in, they heard a crack of stone breaking and part of the ceiling came down on them!
All the adventurers were injured, but Quillian and Kord went down under the stones and rock and stayed down. Frank used his healing touch on Quillian before the rocks stopped falling [bringing him to 0 hit points] and poured a healing potion into Kord’s mouth. Both regained consciousness, but were weak and Quillian’s remaining good hand was crushed beyond use by one of the stones that fell on him, leaving the mage with no hands. [They knew it was going to be bad when he rolled a 3 on the d6 on the Mortality Table - nothing good happens on a 3.]
There was a debate about continuing to search the alcoves [the job only being half done] or just leaving at this point. With still no loot in the loot sack, greed won out. Quillian, Kord, and the torchbearers stepped out of the room while Brock, Harkyn, Radagast, and Chick-Magnet resumed the search. Twenty minutes later, more of the ceiling came down on them. Injured some more, but not fatally, they finished their search and found a mere 121 sp. This reward in no way matched the risk.
Greed still gnawing at their hearts, they decided to open the mausoleum and search that. At least they would be protected by any further collapse of the ceiling. Inside, they faced a coffer corpse! Radagast immediately identified it [he apparently read all the books on monsters while at wizard school] and warned the other adventurers about it. Forewarned, the adventurers quickly downed the coffer corpse and kept hitting the pile of bones until they were certain it was down for good. They then looted a gold crown and two jeweled bracers – a valuable haul!
Convinced they had been here long enough [now that there was valuable loot in the loot bag], the adventurers returned to the surface and headed over to Barrow 30 to assist in loading the last of the library. During this effort, two final holy writs were located in the library and added to the loot bag.
On the way back to Helix, the group came across piles of bloody, pulped meat with large beaks identifying them as axe-beaks. It appeared they were attacked and killed by animated statues! A little more leery, the expedition finished its hike to Helix. Several members of the adventuring party went to the Shrine of St. Ygg for healing.
Yggsday, May 11th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Most of the group spent the day hiking over to Ironguard Motte. Quillian needed restore life and limb cast upon him to return his hands. Being a follower of Silvanus, the ritual of St. Ygg left him disturbed and muttering to himself. He, like Kord, will need two weeks of bedrest to fully recover.
While in a larger town, Brock put out word he was looking to acquire some magical plate mail. There was none immediately for sale, but he was willing to wait a bit and see what showed up or he discovered while prowling the town.
Meanwhile, back in Helix, Kord was determined to spend his two weeks of bedrest as enjoyably as possible and started squandering his money on wine, women, and song. [His player knows that Kord will not last long with only 3 hit points at third level, so he’s establishing a reserve fund of xp for his next character.]
End of Session
[So the players now hate energy drain. I prefaced the fight by stating they were about to face one of the most feared attacks in all D&D. I’m not certain they were convinced until Brock was hit and lost that level. THAT was when they decided to run. Brock was within 1000 xp of level 4 and would have made it this session, but instead had to recover level 3. I was generous and put him just below the xp for 3rd level, so he didn’t effectively lose two levels in that one attack. That was the “warning shot”, next time it is rules as written.]
[Also? Frank the Cleric made it to 2nd level, so the party finally has healing magic that doesn’t come from a bottle…]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 7
Session 9
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Session Report – Code Name: Parrot T-Rex – Session 10
[This session happened September 18th, 2017, and was run by New GM. See the end notes from last session for an details as to why the gap between sessions was so large. A major portion of the delay was Hurricane Harvey, which New GM decided to incorporate as a story element. Read on…]
PCs
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Wren – male human that registers as an elf, no explanation as to why
Baelthor – male human mage with a loud mouth
NPC’d
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Dai – male human fixer who operates in Cara’Sir, recommended by The Fin
July 6, 2076
3:00 AM
It is raining across the city.
Void woke up the team, recently gone to sleep after securing the 15 biosamples required for the run, informing them that Typhoon 42 would unexpectedly make landfall sometime around 8:00 AM. The group discussed what to do and decided to make use of the opportunity.
The extraction plan, which was predicated on taking the targets out as part of a fire rescue, was quickly modified to be a typhoon evacuation. Dai was called and told the group needed a vehicle able to seat 5 people and 8 dogs and they needed it in one hour. Dai, currently at a bar with a number of attractive women, was less than thrilled to suddenly be on the job. When Dai asked if he’d be done after delivering the vehicle, he was told “no,” he would be needed to front a con to get onto the New Dawn Technologies campus and then a plane ride to Europe. THEN he’d be done.
The team spent the next hour packing up and sanitizing the corporate apartment removing all traces of their presence. Everything not needed for this extraction was loaded up into Sin’s GMC Bulldog to be taken to the hyperjet at the airport. [The pilot and flight crew were also woken up and told to file a flight plan leaving no later than 6:30 AM. This took some doing.]
4:00 AM
Dai arrived with a black Ford Econovan, reasonably sober, and complaining. The complaining tapered off once the job was explained and the fee he was going to be paid enumerated [mostly it was the fee that quieted him down]. The apartment was done being cleaned and smelled of bleach. Sin, Bookie, and Killroy got into Sin’s GMC Bulldog and headed to the airport to start moving things over into the jet.
4:50 AM
Dr. Valdi was called and told to expect two contradictory emails. The extraction was about to start.
5:00 AM
Winds are starting to pick up, but are not dangerous yet. The outer bands of the typhoon are moving across the area.
Using the remote access point connected directly to the New Dawn Technologies servers as a back door, Bookie sent out several VERY official looking email to Doctors Valdi and O’Seahnasaigh and to the gate guards on duty. The first email appeared to be addressed to all New Dawn Technologies employees, instructing them to shelter in place while the typhoon moved through the area. The second email was sent only to Doctors Valdi and O’Seahnasaigh and stated that certain critical personnel were being evacuated and recipients of this email were on that list. It instructed recipients to not share this information with anyone else upon penalty of termination. The third email was sent to the gate guards to expect some unusual traffic escorting VIPs to other locations. It provided a [false] list of license plates and IDs for the drivers and their teams.
Bookie, riding herd on New Dawn Technologies’ email system, intercepted two emails from Dr. O’Seahnasaigh. The first email was Dr. O’Seahnasaigh attempting to verify the orders. Bookie provided a response designed to allay Dr. O’Seahnasaigh suspicions [message content provided by Dai in the form of the other players] and continue with the charade that she should quietly prepare to be part of an executive evacuation, a team will be there for her just before 6:00 AM. The second email was to Dr. Valdi, asking him to come over and help crate up the dogs.
5:30 AM
Prometheus signals he is in a sniper position on top of a building just outside the New Dawn Technologies campus. The rain was causing some issues with visibility, but he was ready to provide overwatch for the extraction team. He had clear lines of fire on the nearest gatehouse and the parking area of the campus residences.
5:45 AM
The “evacuation” team arrives at the nearest gate. The guards, not happy about being stuck on gate duty while the typhoon comes in are cranky but efficient. They verified the license plate on the Ford Econovan is on their list as are the IDs of the driver and the two assistants with him before letting them through and going back inside where it is dry. Dai drove the van over to the residences and parked near Dr. O’Seahnasaigh’s apartment. Void and Baelthor, dressed as non-descript corporate security, piled out and knocked on the Dr. O’Seahnasaigh’s door.
Void played the part, verifying Dr. O’Seahnasaigh’s identity before directing Baelthor to assist Dr. O’Seahnasaigh with the three carriers loaded with fire-breathing dachshunds. Void then went to go gather Dr. Valdi, pretending to be surprised he was already present. Void and Baelthor got the two doctors loaded into the Econovan.
6:00 AM
Dai pulled away, heading back to the gate. He honked at the guards who waved him through and turned left to get to the Cara’Sir airport. Just after leaving the campus gate, Dai received a report from Prometheus that three motorcycles with two riders each were rapidly approaching and the passengers appeared to have weapons at the ready.
“Bollocks,” Dai replied.
End of Session
[Quick thinking and a rapid response to the changing circumstances allowed our team to grab the targets virtually unopposed by the competing teams, but one of them caught on quick enough to send a pursuit team.]
[So I missed the next two sessions due to a need to put together a book proposal and get it submitted on time. As a result, I have no notes for what exactly happened. Based on my memory from what I was told, the fight with the motorcyclists took both sessions as New GM was not very familiar with the car chase and combat rules. I’ve asked some of the other players if they have notes and they are checking. If they do, I’ll write the session notes from their notes and prodding their memories.]
[So that plus long hours at work and a birthday celebration this weekend (I’m turning a significant age and my wife is throwing a big celebration at the house with most of my local friends) mean I will not have time to write a Shadowrun blog post for June 7th, so I’m not going to kill myself trying. I have the 8th off, so I’m going to write material that weekend to post the following week, so expect to see a combined report for Sessions 11 and 12 to appear on the 14th. If I cannot get any notes, I’ll do a summation and tack it in front of the write-up for Session 13, which I have full notes for.]
[NOTE: Hurricanes start raining much earlier than depicted here and the winds are probably more dangerous by this point. I think landfall was supposed to be around 10:00 AM, so the plane taking off should have been more iffy. Getting permission from the airport should have been very iffy, especially as they were likely not open for the day. That said, it kick-started the run and provided some good drama.]
Session 1
Sessions 2 and 3
Session 4
Sessions 5 and 6
Session 7
Session 8
Session 9
Hurricane Harvey!
Session 11 (not yet written)
Session 12 (not yet written)
Session 13 (not yet written)
Session 14 (not yet written)
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Session Report – Barrowmaze – Session 7
[Bit of maintenance this session as the players make preparations for the future, but a surprising amount happens.]
[Also? SPOILERS! This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]
PCs
Brock – male Dwarven Vaultguard, 3rd level
Radagast the Wanderer – male human Mage, 2nd level
Harkyn (the Hare) – gender fluid Elven Nightblade, 3rd level
Frank the Cleric – male human cleric of Silvanus, down to loot
Kord – male human Bard, 2nd level
Quillian the Green – male human mage, 2nd level
NPCs
Norman – male human guide, hired to lead the adventurers to Barrowmaze but not fight
Chick-Magnet – female war dog (0-level), actually a male man-at-arms cursed into a different form
Peldar and Nollan – professional torchbearers
Cormak, Gilgar, Barloc, Aris, Radar, Wermak, Ardar, Pelwin, Darmox, Sturgard – The Diggers
An army of 20 laborers and 10 guards to guard them.
Yggsday, May 4th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Brock, Boris, and Radagast each discovered the rope they have was unnaturally aged and brittle. With some thought, and consultation of the Shrine to St. Ygg, they worked out that all their rope was subject to mummy rot and they were very lucky to not have contracted it themselves. [I had them roll saves with a target of 15+ and they all made it, Boris just barely.] They decided to destroy all the rope and buy new rope at Turgen’s Trade Goods.
Quillian finally caught up with Tripp to see how things progressed on trying to purchase land for a manor. Tripp explained he spent an evening gambling and wenching with Krothos Ironguard, Lord Ironguard’s wastrel son and officially the head of the village. Tripp made a…positive…impression on Krothos, who sent his advisor, Ollis Blackfell to actually negotiate a deal. [Tripp did awful while gambling, nearly as bad as Krothos, who decided in his inebriation that this made them buddies.] Ollis offered a choice between two locations: the land adjacent to the cranky wizard or the land behind the town cemetery. Quillian opted for the land behind the cemetery and told Tripp to secure the property.
Sunday, May 5th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Tripp and Quillian met with Ollis and secured title for Quillian to the property behind the town’s cemetery. With title in hand, Quillian unleashed a squad of engineers to start construction of his manor. [He sent for the engineers earlier, but was waiting for Tripp to negotiate the land purchase for him.] Quillian also asked the engineers to add a shrine to Silvanus to the property and allocated the monies to handle the additional cost. The engineers started the land survey and placing orders with Turgen (as the representative of the Silver Standard Merchant Caravan Company) for the building supplies.
Moonday, May 6th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Quillian went to the Mercenary Guild and requested as many guards and laborers, at a 1:2 ration, as Osen could put together. Quillian wanted to remove the library of scrolls and tomes The Motley Crew had discovered in Barrow 30 and needed a large group of people to essentially pack it up and haul it back to Helix. This would be on top of the 10 diggers, two torchbearers, Chick-Magnet, and Norman.
Osen thought for a moment and then told Quillian it would take a day to get a sizeable group together. Could he wait a day, maybe until Noon tomorrow? Quillian agreed to wait a day and would check in tomorrow to interview whoever Osen could find.
[Osen immediately sent a rider to Ironguard Motte to hire anyone available who could get to Helix by Noon the next day. He also sent word to every guild member and wannabe adventurer currently in town for guards. I made use of all the NPCs the players had provided during character creation for the guards.]
Hernesday, May 7th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Quillian met with the ragtag army of laborers and guards Osen was able to put together. Quillian hired all 10 guards and 20 laborers, telling them to show up at the guild building at dawn the next day for the trek into the Barrowmoor. Once that was done, he went over to Turgen’s and bought all 5 backpacks in stock, plus three empty barrels and contrivances to carry said barrels. He judged this sufficient for the effort [it wasn’t].
Magusday, May 8th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
At dawn, The Motley Crew [with Frank instead of Boris], Norman, Chick-Magnet, the 10 diggers, the 10 guards, and the 20 laborers started the march south. On the way, they found a group of smashed skeletons. While the workers filed past, the adventurers investigated and surmised that the skeletons had come across an animated statue or two and been pummeled to splinters. They kept this opinion to themselves, but warned the guards to keep vigilant.
The army arrived at the field of barrows around Noon. [The hike took longer than normal with the large group. Quillian’s player only half joked about building a road between Helix and the barrows to speed travel times up.] The group paused at Barrow 29 and dropped off the diggers, Norman, and Chick-Magnet so the diggers could get started. They then led the rest over to Barrow 30 [only 100 feet away].
The adventurers went into the barrow first, to verify it was still unoccupied. This verified, they led the workers down to the library and put them to work packing up as many scrolls and tomes as they could over the next four hours, before it was time to leave. Quillian then gave the lead guard a sounding horn and orders to blow on it if anything untoward showed up. The adventurers then went back to Barrow 29 to watch over the diggers.
Four hours later, the diggers successfully finished clearing the soil and sod from the entrance to Barrow 29. The Motley Crew packed everything up and went over to collect the laborers and the guards from Barrow 30. Quillian learned that they were just finishing filling all the backpacks and all three barrels and still had 70%-80% of the library to pack. The laborers had also set aside two “fancy” documents for Quillian to examine, which turned out to be two holy writs [each worth 800 gp]. This was going to take multiple trips to completely empty, but was already profitable.
On the way back to Helix, the small army was accosted by five giant toads. The adventurers had the guards continue to escort the workers while the adventurers formed a battle line to face off against the brightly colored toads. One of the toads died to arrow fire and two were put to sleep by Kord [using a bard power]. The last two toads made it to the adventurers and started attacking. One toad used its sticky tongue to pull in Chick-Magnet for a bite. At first Chick-Magnet seemed OK from the bite, then he started spasming and foaming at the mouth before dropping to the ground – these toads had a poison bite! [Yes, I know, it should be a venomous bite, but that’s not how the monster description reads.]
With a new sense of danger, the adventurers concentrated their attacks on the two awake toads while Kord kept playing his lute to keep the other two asleep. They killed one of the toads just as one bit Harkyn and one bit Frank. Frank made his save, but was down to zero hit points - Harkyn failed their poison save, dropping to the ground spasming and frothing. Frank used his Laying on Hands proficiency to heal himself and then performed neutralize poison on Harkyn [he has two levels of the Healing proficiency] as the last conscious toad was killed. Frank then attended to Chick-Magnet while the sleeping toads were slaughtered by the other adventurers. Harkyn’s hips/lower back are damaged and as a result, they cannot force march. They also need a day of rest to recover and some magical healing. Chick-Magnet fully recovered with only some minor scaring and the need for a day of bedrest [along with some magical healing].
The entire group made it back to Helix safely. Harkyn and Chick-Magnet went to the Shrine of St. Ygg to see if any curative magic was available. With nearly the entire town going into the Moor as laborers, the shrine had held their curative magics in reserve in case something went wrong. Brother Othar was very pleased that none of the laborers were injured and cast cure light wounds on both Harkyn and Chick-Magnet himself. [He still required the 10 gp donative to the shrine for each casting.]
Cromsday, May 9th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
The entire group, minus Harkyn and Chick-Magnet [who both needed bed rest] returned to the barrows to pack up more scrolls and tomes. The trip was surprisingly uneventful. [It was late and I needed to get up early for work the next day. I could roll the encounters and fight them at the beginning of next session, but really most things in the swamp will avoid an army of 30+ people.]
End of Session
[So the Mortal Wounds table has turned into a surprisingly entertaining thing. It keeps mortal wounds from being 100% game ending for a character, but also imposes penalties for nearly getting killed. I like the story effects of the table and the players like that they can do things to help get better results, so it’s not entirely random. A nice balance.]
[Quillian’s player is exploring the beginning of the magical experimentation rules by getting a building with a lab set up. At least I think that’s what he’s up to. He might be prepping for use of the domain rules, possibly both. He is clearly having an effect on the local economy with all his purchases and hiring large numbers of townsfolk.]
[NOTE: There will be no posting next week (June 5) as there was no game this week due to two of the players getting married. Session 8 will happen next week and the session notes will be posted June 12. Regular postings will continue after that. Thank you for your understanding and "Congratulations!" to Geoff and Emmy!]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 8
[Also? SPOILERS! This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]
PCs
Brock – male Dwarven Vaultguard, 3rd level
Radagast the Wanderer – male human Mage, 2nd level
Harkyn (the Hare) – gender fluid Elven Nightblade, 3rd level
Frank the Cleric – male human cleric of Silvanus, down to loot
Kord – male human Bard, 2nd level
Quillian the Green – male human mage, 2nd level
NPCs
Norman – male human guide, hired to lead the adventurers to Barrowmaze but not fight
Chick-Magnet – female war dog (0-level), actually a male man-at-arms cursed into a different form
Peldar and Nollan – professional torchbearers
Cormak, Gilgar, Barloc, Aris, Radar, Wermak, Ardar, Pelwin, Darmox, Sturgard – The Diggers
An army of 20 laborers and 10 guards to guard them.
Yggsday, May 4th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Brock, Boris, and Radagast each discovered the rope they have was unnaturally aged and brittle. With some thought, and consultation of the Shrine to St. Ygg, they worked out that all their rope was subject to mummy rot and they were very lucky to not have contracted it themselves. [I had them roll saves with a target of 15+ and they all made it, Boris just barely.] They decided to destroy all the rope and buy new rope at Turgen’s Trade Goods.
Quillian finally caught up with Tripp to see how things progressed on trying to purchase land for a manor. Tripp explained he spent an evening gambling and wenching with Krothos Ironguard, Lord Ironguard’s wastrel son and officially the head of the village. Tripp made a…positive…impression on Krothos, who sent his advisor, Ollis Blackfell to actually negotiate a deal. [Tripp did awful while gambling, nearly as bad as Krothos, who decided in his inebriation that this made them buddies.] Ollis offered a choice between two locations: the land adjacent to the cranky wizard or the land behind the town cemetery. Quillian opted for the land behind the cemetery and told Tripp to secure the property.
Sunday, May 5th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Tripp and Quillian met with Ollis and secured title for Quillian to the property behind the town’s cemetery. With title in hand, Quillian unleashed a squad of engineers to start construction of his manor. [He sent for the engineers earlier, but was waiting for Tripp to negotiate the land purchase for him.] Quillian also asked the engineers to add a shrine to Silvanus to the property and allocated the monies to handle the additional cost. The engineers started the land survey and placing orders with Turgen (as the representative of the Silver Standard Merchant Caravan Company) for the building supplies.
Moonday, May 6th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Quillian went to the Mercenary Guild and requested as many guards and laborers, at a 1:2 ration, as Osen could put together. Quillian wanted to remove the library of scrolls and tomes The Motley Crew had discovered in Barrow 30 and needed a large group of people to essentially pack it up and haul it back to Helix. This would be on top of the 10 diggers, two torchbearers, Chick-Magnet, and Norman.
Osen thought for a moment and then told Quillian it would take a day to get a sizeable group together. Could he wait a day, maybe until Noon tomorrow? Quillian agreed to wait a day and would check in tomorrow to interview whoever Osen could find.
[Osen immediately sent a rider to Ironguard Motte to hire anyone available who could get to Helix by Noon the next day. He also sent word to every guild member and wannabe adventurer currently in town for guards. I made use of all the NPCs the players had provided during character creation for the guards.]
Hernesday, May 7th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Quillian met with the ragtag army of laborers and guards Osen was able to put together. Quillian hired all 10 guards and 20 laborers, telling them to show up at the guild building at dawn the next day for the trek into the Barrowmoor. Once that was done, he went over to Turgen’s and bought all 5 backpacks in stock, plus three empty barrels and contrivances to carry said barrels. He judged this sufficient for the effort [it wasn’t].
Magusday, May 8th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
At dawn, The Motley Crew [with Frank instead of Boris], Norman, Chick-Magnet, the 10 diggers, the 10 guards, and the 20 laborers started the march south. On the way, they found a group of smashed skeletons. While the workers filed past, the adventurers investigated and surmised that the skeletons had come across an animated statue or two and been pummeled to splinters. They kept this opinion to themselves, but warned the guards to keep vigilant.
The army arrived at the field of barrows around Noon. [The hike took longer than normal with the large group. Quillian’s player only half joked about building a road between Helix and the barrows to speed travel times up.] The group paused at Barrow 29 and dropped off the diggers, Norman, and Chick-Magnet so the diggers could get started. They then led the rest over to Barrow 30 [only 100 feet away].
The adventurers went into the barrow first, to verify it was still unoccupied. This verified, they led the workers down to the library and put them to work packing up as many scrolls and tomes as they could over the next four hours, before it was time to leave. Quillian then gave the lead guard a sounding horn and orders to blow on it if anything untoward showed up. The adventurers then went back to Barrow 29 to watch over the diggers.
Four hours later, the diggers successfully finished clearing the soil and sod from the entrance to Barrow 29. The Motley Crew packed everything up and went over to collect the laborers and the guards from Barrow 30. Quillian learned that they were just finishing filling all the backpacks and all three barrels and still had 70%-80% of the library to pack. The laborers had also set aside two “fancy” documents for Quillian to examine, which turned out to be two holy writs [each worth 800 gp]. This was going to take multiple trips to completely empty, but was already profitable.
On the way back to Helix, the small army was accosted by five giant toads. The adventurers had the guards continue to escort the workers while the adventurers formed a battle line to face off against the brightly colored toads. One of the toads died to arrow fire and two were put to sleep by Kord [using a bard power]. The last two toads made it to the adventurers and started attacking. One toad used its sticky tongue to pull in Chick-Magnet for a bite. At first Chick-Magnet seemed OK from the bite, then he started spasming and foaming at the mouth before dropping to the ground – these toads had a poison bite! [Yes, I know, it should be a venomous bite, but that’s not how the monster description reads.]
With a new sense of danger, the adventurers concentrated their attacks on the two awake toads while Kord kept playing his lute to keep the other two asleep. They killed one of the toads just as one bit Harkyn and one bit Frank. Frank made his save, but was down to zero hit points - Harkyn failed their poison save, dropping to the ground spasming and frothing. Frank used his Laying on Hands proficiency to heal himself and then performed neutralize poison on Harkyn [he has two levels of the Healing proficiency] as the last conscious toad was killed. Frank then attended to Chick-Magnet while the sleeping toads were slaughtered by the other adventurers. Harkyn’s hips/lower back are damaged and as a result, they cannot force march. They also need a day of rest to recover and some magical healing. Chick-Magnet fully recovered with only some minor scaring and the need for a day of bedrest [along with some magical healing].
The entire group made it back to Helix safely. Harkyn and Chick-Magnet went to the Shrine of St. Ygg to see if any curative magic was available. With nearly the entire town going into the Moor as laborers, the shrine had held their curative magics in reserve in case something went wrong. Brother Othar was very pleased that none of the laborers were injured and cast cure light wounds on both Harkyn and Chick-Magnet himself. [He still required the 10 gp donative to the shrine for each casting.]
Cromsday, May 9th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
The entire group, minus Harkyn and Chick-Magnet [who both needed bed rest] returned to the barrows to pack up more scrolls and tomes. The trip was surprisingly uneventful. [It was late and I needed to get up early for work the next day. I could roll the encounters and fight them at the beginning of next session, but really most things in the swamp will avoid an army of 30+ people.]
End of Session
[So the Mortal Wounds table has turned into a surprisingly entertaining thing. It keeps mortal wounds from being 100% game ending for a character, but also imposes penalties for nearly getting killed. I like the story effects of the table and the players like that they can do things to help get better results, so it’s not entirely random. A nice balance.]
[Quillian’s player is exploring the beginning of the magical experimentation rules by getting a building with a lab set up. At least I think that’s what he’s up to. He might be prepping for use of the domain rules, possibly both. He is clearly having an effect on the local economy with all his purchases and hiring large numbers of townsfolk.]
[NOTE: There will be no posting next week (June 5) as there was no game this week due to two of the players getting married. Session 8 will happen next week and the session notes will be posted June 12. Regular postings will continue after that. Thank you for your understanding and "Congratulations!" to Geoff and Emmy!]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 8
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Session Report – Code Name: Parrot T-Rex – Session 9
[This session happened August 7th, 2017, and was run by New GM. The scheduling conflicts for different people continued, hence the two week delay between sessions. Other than that, it was a great session wherein we achieved…well, I’ll let you read it and see.]
PCs
Baelthor – male human mage with a loud mouth
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Wren – male human that registers as an elf, no explanation as to why
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
NPC’d
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Dai – male human fixer who operates in Cara’Sir, recommended by The Fin
July 5, 2076
Morning
Having spotted the magical support for the competing teams, the Pleiades Group suddenly felt time pressure to complete the job. Bookie spent some time doing research on the wage mages working for New Dawn Technologies. He was able to identify the two mages on the payroll and some background on them. They appeared to be well paid by New Dawn Technologies and lived in a corporate compound on the other side of Cara’Sir. A very secure compound. This suggested that bribing them or otherwise removing them from the picture would be unlikely to succeed and might alert security something was going on.
In the meantime, Killroy spent seven hours assembling the thermal bombs for the job. This effort resulted in four thermal bombs that would fit within the server units and have enough power to destroy the servers and still set the building on fire.
9:00 PM
With the sun starting to set, the group moved their supplies for the run from the apartment into Sin’s GMC Bulldog. Bookie ran on the New Dawn Technologies security systems and programmed the sweep camera facing the street on Building 55 to slowly shorten its sweep so that by 9:30 PM there was a gap in the video coverage allowing unobserved access to the corner of the building.
9:30 PM
The GMC Bulldog arrived and Sin parked it exactly within the newly created blind spot in the perimeter video surveillance. Prometheus stepped out of the Bulldog and fired his grappling gun, neatly dropping a grapple line on the corner of Building 55. He pulled it tight and tied it off on the Bulldog before signaling to the infiltration team to exit the vehicle.
The infiltration team (Void, Killroy, Baelthor, and Wren), currently invisible thanks to Baelthor [who took STUN from the Drain casting improved invisibility on himself, Void, and Killroy] and Wren [who handled his own improved invisibility], exited the vehicle. Void ran up the line [literally] to the roof of Building 55 while Killroy, Baelthor, and Wren used climbing grips to work their way up the line. Once all four were on the roof, they signaled Prometheus via microtransceiver and he applied a catalyst stick to the stealth rope, quickly dissolving it. Killroy picked up the actual grappling hook and put it in his satchel to return to Prometheus later.
The infiltration team then made their way across the rooves toward their target. There was a three meter gap they had to jump across to get to Building 36. Void made the leap easily, but Wren needed to be “assisted” [thrown] across the gap by Killroy. Baelthor and Killroy made the leap with little difficulty.
To get from Building C to Building B they had to rappel down two floors using more stealth rope. Once on the roof of Building B, they applied a catalyst stick to this line – their path back would be inside the buildings. They then ran the length of Building B to Building A, staying in the shadows as much as possible, where the roof access hatch they wished to use was located.
Void quickly picked the lock on the hatch, defeating the alarm system on it with ease. To bypass the mana barrier on the access hatch, Baelthor dropped the improved invisibility on Killroy [who would have no luck pressing through the barrier without losing the spell or triggering an alert]. Baelthor and Wren both safely pressed through the ward in one go without disrupting it. It took Void two tries [she tied on the first roll].
The infiltration team made their way down the stairwell, Bookie looping the cameras just ahead of them on each landing. To access the kennel area and the two server rooms, they needed to move through the central corridor for this floor, which is where a basilisk was slowly patrolling. In fact, the basilisk in this hallway was right at the door to the stairwell when they peeked in. Luckily it did not see them peeking. They waited a minute while it lumbered down the hallway away from the door. Once they felt it was far enough away, they quietly opened the stairwell door and darted over to the door to the kennel area. Void quickly bypassed the lock and all four runners piled into the kennel, closing the door behind them. The click of the stairwell doorway closing made the basilisk pause and look, but not seeing anything edible it did not turn back.
Baelthor immediately started locating the correct cages from the client-supplied list and took samples from the research creatures within them. [The client supplied training in this back in Seattle, which Void and Baelthor took as the two most likely to be on this part of the job.] Killroy suggested that Void and Wren sneak over to the server rooms now while Baelthor was taking the biosamples. Void concurred and she and Wren checked the hallway to see where the basilisk was now.
[New GM made a roll on Void’s current Edge to see how lucky she was and rolled a good number of successes.] The basilisk was down at the far end of the hallway, scrabbling at the door that separated this hallway section from the next one. The basilisk was apparently aware of the basilisk on the other side of that door and distracted by it. Void and Wren took advantage of the moment and snuck to the doorway for the first server room [it was just the other side of the stairwell door]. It took Void nine whole seconds to bypass the lock, which seemed much longer while they were in a hallway with a basilisk and no cover.
Once safely on the other side of the door, Void and Wren set to the various tasks they needed to accomplish. Wren found an obscured access port on a server unit, plugged in the remote access point Bookie had provided, and activated the device, tucking it under a wiring bundle. This would provide Bookie with a backdoor into the server to run Nuke from Orbit through at the end of the next phase of the job. Void meanwhile quickly planted two of the incendiary bombs inside two other server units and then opened the fire suppression system. She rewired some of the internal circuits of the suppression system so that the system would appear active, but was actually deactivated, and then closed it up. She and Wren then carefully snuck through the hallway to the next server room and repeated the process, this time with Wren planting the bombs while Void disabled the fire suppression system here.
This part complete, Void contacted Killroy over her microtransceiver to report they were done and to find out if the biosamples collection was complete. Killroy reported Baelthor was just finishing. Void could hear the basilisk plodding down the hallway and relayed that information to Killroy. Killroy updated her and Wren when the basilisk could be heard at the door to the kennels. He further advised that Baelthor was done getting the samples here and they were ready to leave. When Void heard the basilisk plod past the door to the server room she and Wren were in, she relayed that to Killroy, counted to 15, and then she and Wren exited the server room, moving as quietly as possible to the stairwell door. At the same time, Killroy opened the door to the kennels and he and Baelthor stepped over to the stairwell door. Baelthor quietly opened the stairwell door and all four runners piled into the stairwell, letting the door close behind them.
[At this point in the evening it was getting late, so we started speeding things up in order to wrap up for the evening. A side effect of this is that the last part of the run was more of a summary punctuated by a few dice rolls. On the other hand, our plan was working and as long as we didn’t screw up, the rest should have been the smooth ride it was.]
After their heart rates had reduced a little, the group climbed the stairs to the third floor and started making their way across to Building C. They then made their way across two large open office areas in Building B to the cross-building access to Building C. In Building C they located the stairwell closest to the aviary on the first floor and descended to the first floor. There they had to wait for yet another basilisk to go by before accessing the aviary.
Inside the aviary, Baelthor and Void split up the list and started collecting samples while Killroy and Wren kept an eye on things. One of the biosamples Void had to collect was from a bird the size of an ostrich with sharp talons.
Once the biosamples were collected, the group exited the aviary and made their way to the roof of Building C. This access hatch had a fire trap on it, which needed to be carefully bypassed without triggering it, in addition to the ward, THEN the lock had to be defeated and the alarm disabled. Void made it look easy despite some sweating on her part [she’d been literally burned by hellhounds before and so fire traps made her nervous].
Eventually the team returned to the roof of Building 55 and signaled to Prometheus. Prometheus stepped out of the GMC Bulldog again and fired his grapple gun at the corner of Building 55, neatly dropping the line on the corner. Killroy tied the line off on a convenient A/C unit and then cut the grapple free, placing it in his satchel next to the first one. Prometheus tied off his end and signaled the line was ready to be used. The infiltration team pulled out zipline hooks and rode the zipline down to the ground outside the boundary of the New Dawn campus. When all four were down and inside the Bulldog, Prometheus applied his catalyst stick to the stealth line, eliminating the evidence, and then climbed back inside the Bulldog. Sin then drove the Bulldog away, taking time to verify they were not being tailed before heading to the safe house.
Bookie programmed the sweep camera on the street side of Building 55 to slowly go back to normal, eliminating the gap in the video surveillance.
End of Session
[This session started to run a bit long, as I mentioned, so we wrapped it up a little quicker than normal. We wanted to finish this part of the run to avoid having it stretch across to game sessions. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision as two things happened that pushed the next session all the way back to September.]
[The first thing that happened was I went into the hospital the next night with atrial fibrillation. This means my two atria (the smaller chambers on top of the heart) were not in synch with the rest of my heart and were busy doing their own thing. My ventricles were, as a result, double- to triple-timing it to try and keep my blood circulating. This is a disconcerting sensation, to say the least. Long-story-short, I spent the next three days in the hospital and went home with a set of prescriptions for my heart and to bring my high blood pressure under control (it mostly is now). We skipped the next game session so I could recover some more and the one after that due to scheduling issues.]
[The week after that, Hurricane Harvey (slowly) rolled into Texas and dropped enough rain to push the Earth’s crust down 2 cm over an area roughly the size of New Jersey (33,000,000,000,000 gallons of rain for those curious). I’ve lived in the Houston area for decades and have never seen that much rain and I’ve experienced the phenomena I call “The Week That It Rained” several times. Luckily only one family I know personally had to be evacuated, but neighborhoods around mine took extensive flooding damage, including complete submersion of the ground floor of many houses. Even now there are businesses that have not fully recovered or closed permanently.]
[Perhaps not surprisingly, New GM incorporated this event into the next session. See you next report when Typhoon 42 unexpectedly rolls into Tir Tairngire and throws a wrench into everyone’s timing!]
Session 1
Sessions 2 and 3
Session 4
Sessions 5 and 6
Session 7
Session 8
Hurricane Harvey!
Session 10 (not yet written)
Session 11 (not yet written)
Session 12 (not yet written)
Session 13 (not yet written)
Session 14 (not yet written)
PCs
Baelthor – male human mage with a loud mouth
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Wren – male human that registers as an elf, no explanation as to why
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
NPC’d
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Dai – male human fixer who operates in Cara’Sir, recommended by The Fin
July 5, 2076
Morning
Having spotted the magical support for the competing teams, the Pleiades Group suddenly felt time pressure to complete the job. Bookie spent some time doing research on the wage mages working for New Dawn Technologies. He was able to identify the two mages on the payroll and some background on them. They appeared to be well paid by New Dawn Technologies and lived in a corporate compound on the other side of Cara’Sir. A very secure compound. This suggested that bribing them or otherwise removing them from the picture would be unlikely to succeed and might alert security something was going on.
In the meantime, Killroy spent seven hours assembling the thermal bombs for the job. This effort resulted in four thermal bombs that would fit within the server units and have enough power to destroy the servers and still set the building on fire.
9:00 PM
With the sun starting to set, the group moved their supplies for the run from the apartment into Sin’s GMC Bulldog. Bookie ran on the New Dawn Technologies security systems and programmed the sweep camera facing the street on Building 55 to slowly shorten its sweep so that by 9:30 PM there was a gap in the video coverage allowing unobserved access to the corner of the building.
9:30 PM
The GMC Bulldog arrived and Sin parked it exactly within the newly created blind spot in the perimeter video surveillance. Prometheus stepped out of the Bulldog and fired his grappling gun, neatly dropping a grapple line on the corner of Building 55. He pulled it tight and tied it off on the Bulldog before signaling to the infiltration team to exit the vehicle.
The infiltration team (Void, Killroy, Baelthor, and Wren), currently invisible thanks to Baelthor [who took STUN from the Drain casting improved invisibility on himself, Void, and Killroy] and Wren [who handled his own improved invisibility], exited the vehicle. Void ran up the line [literally] to the roof of Building 55 while Killroy, Baelthor, and Wren used climbing grips to work their way up the line. Once all four were on the roof, they signaled Prometheus via microtransceiver and he applied a catalyst stick to the stealth rope, quickly dissolving it. Killroy picked up the actual grappling hook and put it in his satchel to return to Prometheus later.
The infiltration team then made their way across the rooves toward their target. There was a three meter gap they had to jump across to get to Building 36. Void made the leap easily, but Wren needed to be “assisted” [thrown] across the gap by Killroy. Baelthor and Killroy made the leap with little difficulty.
To get from Building C to Building B they had to rappel down two floors using more stealth rope. Once on the roof of Building B, they applied a catalyst stick to this line – their path back would be inside the buildings. They then ran the length of Building B to Building A, staying in the shadows as much as possible, where the roof access hatch they wished to use was located.
Void quickly picked the lock on the hatch, defeating the alarm system on it with ease. To bypass the mana barrier on the access hatch, Baelthor dropped the improved invisibility on Killroy [who would have no luck pressing through the barrier without losing the spell or triggering an alert]. Baelthor and Wren both safely pressed through the ward in one go without disrupting it. It took Void two tries [she tied on the first roll].
The infiltration team made their way down the stairwell, Bookie looping the cameras just ahead of them on each landing. To access the kennel area and the two server rooms, they needed to move through the central corridor for this floor, which is where a basilisk was slowly patrolling. In fact, the basilisk in this hallway was right at the door to the stairwell when they peeked in. Luckily it did not see them peeking. They waited a minute while it lumbered down the hallway away from the door. Once they felt it was far enough away, they quietly opened the stairwell door and darted over to the door to the kennel area. Void quickly bypassed the lock and all four runners piled into the kennel, closing the door behind them. The click of the stairwell doorway closing made the basilisk pause and look, but not seeing anything edible it did not turn back.
Baelthor immediately started locating the correct cages from the client-supplied list and took samples from the research creatures within them. [The client supplied training in this back in Seattle, which Void and Baelthor took as the two most likely to be on this part of the job.] Killroy suggested that Void and Wren sneak over to the server rooms now while Baelthor was taking the biosamples. Void concurred and she and Wren checked the hallway to see where the basilisk was now.
[New GM made a roll on Void’s current Edge to see how lucky she was and rolled a good number of successes.] The basilisk was down at the far end of the hallway, scrabbling at the door that separated this hallway section from the next one. The basilisk was apparently aware of the basilisk on the other side of that door and distracted by it. Void and Wren took advantage of the moment and snuck to the doorway for the first server room [it was just the other side of the stairwell door]. It took Void nine whole seconds to bypass the lock, which seemed much longer while they were in a hallway with a basilisk and no cover.
Once safely on the other side of the door, Void and Wren set to the various tasks they needed to accomplish. Wren found an obscured access port on a server unit, plugged in the remote access point Bookie had provided, and activated the device, tucking it under a wiring bundle. This would provide Bookie with a backdoor into the server to run Nuke from Orbit through at the end of the next phase of the job. Void meanwhile quickly planted two of the incendiary bombs inside two other server units and then opened the fire suppression system. She rewired some of the internal circuits of the suppression system so that the system would appear active, but was actually deactivated, and then closed it up. She and Wren then carefully snuck through the hallway to the next server room and repeated the process, this time with Wren planting the bombs while Void disabled the fire suppression system here.
This part complete, Void contacted Killroy over her microtransceiver to report they were done and to find out if the biosamples collection was complete. Killroy reported Baelthor was just finishing. Void could hear the basilisk plodding down the hallway and relayed that information to Killroy. Killroy updated her and Wren when the basilisk could be heard at the door to the kennels. He further advised that Baelthor was done getting the samples here and they were ready to leave. When Void heard the basilisk plod past the door to the server room she and Wren were in, she relayed that to Killroy, counted to 15, and then she and Wren exited the server room, moving as quietly as possible to the stairwell door. At the same time, Killroy opened the door to the kennels and he and Baelthor stepped over to the stairwell door. Baelthor quietly opened the stairwell door and all four runners piled into the stairwell, letting the door close behind them.
[At this point in the evening it was getting late, so we started speeding things up in order to wrap up for the evening. A side effect of this is that the last part of the run was more of a summary punctuated by a few dice rolls. On the other hand, our plan was working and as long as we didn’t screw up, the rest should have been the smooth ride it was.]
After their heart rates had reduced a little, the group climbed the stairs to the third floor and started making their way across to Building C. They then made their way across two large open office areas in Building B to the cross-building access to Building C. In Building C they located the stairwell closest to the aviary on the first floor and descended to the first floor. There they had to wait for yet another basilisk to go by before accessing the aviary.
Inside the aviary, Baelthor and Void split up the list and started collecting samples while Killroy and Wren kept an eye on things. One of the biosamples Void had to collect was from a bird the size of an ostrich with sharp talons.
Once the biosamples were collected, the group exited the aviary and made their way to the roof of Building C. This access hatch had a fire trap on it, which needed to be carefully bypassed without triggering it, in addition to the ward, THEN the lock had to be defeated and the alarm disabled. Void made it look easy despite some sweating on her part [she’d been literally burned by hellhounds before and so fire traps made her nervous].
Eventually the team returned to the roof of Building 55 and signaled to Prometheus. Prometheus stepped out of the GMC Bulldog again and fired his grapple gun at the corner of Building 55, neatly dropping the line on the corner. Killroy tied the line off on a convenient A/C unit and then cut the grapple free, placing it in his satchel next to the first one. Prometheus tied off his end and signaled the line was ready to be used. The infiltration team pulled out zipline hooks and rode the zipline down to the ground outside the boundary of the New Dawn campus. When all four were down and inside the Bulldog, Prometheus applied his catalyst stick to the stealth line, eliminating the evidence, and then climbed back inside the Bulldog. Sin then drove the Bulldog away, taking time to verify they were not being tailed before heading to the safe house.
Bookie programmed the sweep camera on the street side of Building 55 to slowly go back to normal, eliminating the gap in the video surveillance.
End of Session
[This session started to run a bit long, as I mentioned, so we wrapped it up a little quicker than normal. We wanted to finish this part of the run to avoid having it stretch across to game sessions. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision as two things happened that pushed the next session all the way back to September.]
[The first thing that happened was I went into the hospital the next night with atrial fibrillation. This means my two atria (the smaller chambers on top of the heart) were not in synch with the rest of my heart and were busy doing their own thing. My ventricles were, as a result, double- to triple-timing it to try and keep my blood circulating. This is a disconcerting sensation, to say the least. Long-story-short, I spent the next three days in the hospital and went home with a set of prescriptions for my heart and to bring my high blood pressure under control (it mostly is now). We skipped the next game session so I could recover some more and the one after that due to scheduling issues.]
[The week after that, Hurricane Harvey (slowly) rolled into Texas and dropped enough rain to push the Earth’s crust down 2 cm over an area roughly the size of New Jersey (33,000,000,000,000 gallons of rain for those curious). I’ve lived in the Houston area for decades and have never seen that much rain and I’ve experienced the phenomena I call “The Week That It Rained” several times. Luckily only one family I know personally had to be evacuated, but neighborhoods around mine took extensive flooding damage, including complete submersion of the ground floor of many houses. Even now there are businesses that have not fully recovered or closed permanently.]
[Perhaps not surprisingly, New GM incorporated this event into the next session. See you next report when Typhoon 42 unexpectedly rolls into Tir Tairngire and throws a wrench into everyone’s timing!]
Session 1
Sessions 2 and 3
Session 4
Sessions 5 and 6
Session 7
Session 8
Hurricane Harvey!
Session 10 (not yet written)
Session 11 (not yet written)
Session 12 (not yet written)
Session 13 (not yet written)
Session 14 (not yet written)
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