Redbadge's Campaign (there will be spoilers)

Isklexi said:

We're doing the adventure using 4E. I think the encounters could stand to be tweaked a tad harder.

Click to expand...

This is what I would have said too - and for the same reason: the players have learned that the adventures aren't combat heavy and that they, as RHC officers, have access to plenty of healing and support in an essentially friendly city.

I would like some of the bad guys to be really frightening.

My preferred solution would be to raise their damage levels, and not tinker too much with hit points, although some villains (such as Macbannin) really need more of those too, if they are going up against a whole party.

I should stress, however, that I love the encounter design: each one is challenging and unique. But I'd prefer them to last a bit longer - long enough to register how cool they are at least...

What I did to make McBannin last a little longer was make his protective aura apply to himself as well as his minions. The double roll mechanic used against the players helped draw the fight out a little; he still didn't last long enough to use all of his curses though.

We're back! (but not from outer space sadly)
The winter holiday played merry hob with scheduling our next sessions, but we've managed to squeeze in two more sessions this February. This post will cover both sessions which consisted of the climax encounter of "Digging for Lies" and the initial skill challenge of "Always on Time"; this will probably be a long post (and i'm too lazy to do a TLDR section).

Once they had Xambria securely locked in one of the anti-mage cells in the RHC basement, she spilled her guts on everything that has happened since the ziggurat disaster. The constables were pretty angry when they found out that Saxby was complicit in the Macbannin incident which was part of a conspiracy by a shadowy organization called the Obscurati. Xambria also gave them the name of their alien opponent, Sijhen, and its plans to escape back to its home of Gidim and return with "friends".

Things suddenly spiraled out of control when Sijhen sprang its trap. With the RHC under attack, the constables split up to try and contain the threats while racing after Xambria/Sijhen. Shrouded Ob assassins had broken into the RHC through the back door in the morgue and alien monsters were assaulting the disoriented RHC staff.



Doran and Irony went up the eastern staircase to cut off the Ob assassins, and Rai, Kirk, and Bellicose went up the western staircase to try and reach Saxby's office. Bellicose ended up taking a detour; he freed Krantos and helped him break into the evidence locker to retrieve his trident before they both joined Doran and Irony in fending off the Ob assassins. Rai and Kirk raced upstairs and ended up tangling with the alien maw. Kirk tried to break off and get to Saxby's office, but Sijhen used its telekinesis to barricade the door long enough to grab the ancient astrolabe and flee. Kirk dashed back to help Rai with the maw, and Saxby took the opportunity to rally a group of RHC agents and started down the eastern stairwell to escape. Saxby's plan worked poorly as the eastern staircase emptied into the middle of the Ob assassin battle. Most of the second RHC team stayed to help fight off the assassins while Saxby tried to escape. Irony managed to convince the other RHC constables of Saxby's guilt and turned them against her. After vanquishing the alien maw, Kirk raced down the western staircase in time to cut off Saxby's flight to the front door. Saxby lashed out at the constables in an attempt to break through but was defeated. The two constable teams mopped up the Ob assassins and locked Saxby in a cell. The other RHC squad stayed to fend off more monsters while the party chased after Sijhen through the cellar walls.



When the constables arrived in the subway tunnel they found Xambria/Sijhen working on a gate ritual. It tried to play for time claiming it just wanted to go home, but the constables weren't having any of it. The party quickly went on the offensive while Irony and Rai began seizing control of the ritual. The infuriated alien released a horrific abomination from behind the golden seal. Irony urged the party to take down Sijhen so she could retrieve the ritual's magic focus, the astrolabe. Rai distracted the creature while the rest of the party took down Xambria/Sijhen. Irony quickly went back to hijacking the ritual, but she was assaulted by Sijhen once again after he had abandoned Xambria's body. Kirk quickly came to Irony's defense, dispatching the weakened Gidim wayfarer. The party then fought desperately to fend off the monster while Irony seized control of the gate. Doran and Kirk had to work together to move the golden plate back into position from where the monster had flung it. After sealing the gate, Sijhen's spirit merged with the beast, and he made one last futile attempt to destroy the hated fleshlings. The constables managed to finish off Sijhen for good as he ranted at them:
"Your victory means nothing; all the worthless fleshlings on this miserable spec will die SCREAMING!"



With Sijhen defeated, Xambria's consciousness fled to Irony, the only female constable; Irony accepted the wayward spirit but passed out from the strain (she recovered pretty fast though). The constables decided to obliterate the ritual circle not wanting anyone to try and copy Sijhen's portal. On their way back up the subway tunnel they ran into Calaphax (in his disguise as Lord Caliphrey) and Eberardo. Cal had sensed the disturbance created by Sijhen's portal but hadn't been able to pinpoint it before the constables had shut it down. Cal had to sweep the central district until he found the RHC being attacked by Gidim warbeasts. Cal and Eberardo had gone searching for the constables while Volando stayed behind to help mop up the aliens. Cal offered to take the astrolabe off their hands "for safekeeping"; they turned down the offer.

The aftermath of the attack on the RHC was a whirlwind of activity. Saxby was stripped of office, and Stover Delft was chosen as her successor in a public ceremony where Delft assured the public that the threat to the city had been stopped; there was absolutely no mention of malevolent conspiracies or the near alien invasion. A few days (and lots of paperwork) later, Delft met the constables on their boat to brief them in secret on their next assignment; they have a train, and bad guys, to catch.

A new adventure and the wheels of progress grind ever onward. The news in Flint is abound with scintillating tidbits. Benedict Pemberton, owner of the Pemberton Industries manufacturing company, is whipping up hawkish sentiments and criticisms in his book "Behold! Science!". Climate researchers at Pardwight University are warning about the possible effects of increased air pollution on local and global climates; the local eschatology groups have commended the researchers on their diligent support of the end of the world. Scholars at the university are also excited about a recent loan to the Miller Memorial Library; Lord Caliphray Nachtwald, the newest addition to Flint's nobility, has loaned several Elfaivaren manuscripts for copying (many of the books and scrolls are hundreds or even a thousand years old). Lord Nachtwald has also appeared in the news in relation to the resent influx of cheap Beran labor in the city's factorys; Lord Nachtwald has publicly decried the poor treatment of factory workers and the poisons being dumped into Parity Lake, and he has called on district mayor Rosa Gohins to serve all the people of Parity Lake not just the factory owners ("Your actual job"). Lord Nachtwald's public statements have won him few friends among other factory owners but many traditionalists, conservatives and dockers have flocked to the fey lord's cause.

The constables have quite a task ahead of them; they must crash a secret meeting of conspirators when they don't even know who any of the attendees will be. Their sole lead is the travel plans of the deceased conspirator Caius Bergeron. The constables have plenty of time to prepare for their covert mission (50 days) before they must leave by boat for Danor. First things first though, the constables want to help clean up the mess they made of the Nettles.

The constables spent the entire first week preparing to lure out and assassinate Lorcan Kell. Irony had already submitted a request earlier in the month to have a Raise Dead ritual performed on Kaja Stewart (the party was planning this for some time). Kaja was none too pleased with the Ob for killing her (who would be?) and readily agreed to contact Kell and lure him out into the open. Irony also called in aid from her Vekeshi contacts, securing the aid of two Eladrin arcane archers. Bellicose requisitioned materials to make a tricked out sniper rifle and a Vendetta Bullet. The rest of the team prepped the ambush location and planned out the attack.

On the planned day, Kaja met Kell in a square near Parity Lake. The thuggish crime lord was suspicious (He'd been told Kaja was dead) and had brought several of his minions with him. The crime lord barely had time to confirm that it really was Kaja before Bellicose's bullet caught him in the chest and knocked him to the ground. Kirk and Irony emerged from nearby alleyways while Rai and Doran jumped down from nearby rooftops. Irony quickly used the power of her newly acquired Icon of Apet to wisk Kaja safely to the rooftops where she joined Bellicose and the two Eladrin snipers. The square quickly turned into a kill-box with arrows and bullets raining from the rooftops. Lorcan could tell things were going badly and injected himself with a syringe he pulled from his coat; whatever was in the syringe acted quickly causing Lorcan to grow prodigiously in size and strength. The constables were still able to keep the crime lord off balance and wiped out his entourage. Kell knew he would need more power if he was going to live through this ambush and produced a second black syringe; this time the changes were more dramatic as he sprouted claws, fangs, horns and his skin started to split open and ooze fiery blood. Even with Kell's infernally enhanced powers, the constables never let up from their early advantage and quickly finished him off.

Kell's guild of thugs won't disappear without its former master, but it will certainly be diminished as Kell's lieutenants fight amongst each other for dominance; the constables have bought Flint's police force time to regroup and reclaim sections of the city that have been awash in violent crime for months. When questioned by the constables, Calaphax said his contract to supply Kell's guild with drugs and potions expired with the crime lord, and he assured them that the black syringes were one-of-a-kind prototypes that would not be made again since they failed their field test ("I had complete faith in your ability to handle Lorcan whenever you were ready"). Bellicose proposed Kaja join the RHC (he's taken quite a shine to the researcher's dazzling gun-play), but she turned him down since she already had a better offer (her criminal record would have looked bad on her application anyway); Cal quickly snapped up the talented arcanoscientist by offering to put her in charge of a manufacturing plant in the city as well as plenty of research funding with limited oversight and freedom to pursue whatever research interested her (research deals don't get any better than that). Bellicose warned Kaja of what Cal really was only to learn she already knew; she had suspicions of who was supplying Kell's drugs and had confronted Cal shortly after the ambush where he revealed the truth to her and made the job offer. Bellicose is worried about Kaja, but she thinks she handle the risks by relying on her wits (plus the offer Cal made was worth the risk).



The rest of the preparations weren't quite as adventurous. Irony focused on helping everyone assume a false identity, Kirk worked continuously on the forged documents they would need to "prove" who they were, and the rest of the constables worked on planting false trails and back-up plans. The party has secured aid at the docks of Vendricce, Trekhome, and Sid Minos as well as the Beaumont train enclave. The constables purchased teleportation visas and arranged for an accomplice mage at Nalaam (in case they were stranded in the mountains). The last contingency is an additional RHC agent riding in coach. The constables will be boarding the train in two groups; Kirk will be a Yearosal veteran named Sebastian Ariel who is accompanying a Tiefling weapons technology investor named Nathan Sarcozy (Bellicose). Irony will be an Eladrin noblewoman named Grace Nachtwald (Irony had trouble thinking of a convincing surname, so she borrowed from Cal which totally won't come up later in the adventure ) accompanied by an Eladrin bodyguard named Marth Royal (Rai using a hat of disguises; he's probably got the best disguise seeing as he is normally a smoldering demi-elemental) and an Elf servant named Sharm Farmer (Doran rounding out our imagination challenged names). The constables are all ready to embark on their latest mission, and only time will tell how well their preparations will play out.

*poke* Anyone heard from Isklexi lately?

I'm still floating around. Our Zeitgeist game has gotten delayed some; one of the players is having trouble getting the weekend off to play, and short of having Bellicose struck by lightning, it would be hard for me to explain a sudden disappearance (they basically just walked onto the boat for the start of "Always on Time".

What can I do for you good sir?

I was just going through my list of people who were posting about their campaigns, and got curious what had happened to some of the folks who'd made it a few adventures in, then stopped posting. I wondered if there was anything you might need or want from us, to help you with your games.

Unless you can find my player a job that gives him Saturdays off, there's not much you can do to help our game back on track lol.

However, perhaps you could help me with some background. As you know, I introduced an infernal NPC into my campaign named Caliphax. I'm planning on using him to help with PC character development, but I'd like to flesh out his personal background story. I have a good idea about where I want him to come from, but extra details about the Ancients or any pre-ancients canon you may have planned would be useful for me to know, so I can build his story around it.

The idea is that before the Ancients made the Axis Seal, the world was kind of a free-for-all between every sort of entity that exists in the multiverse. Once the locals figured out how to seal things up, folks who were previously in hierarchies that extended to other planes had to find stuff to do with themselves. Cue a demonocracy.

I don't know if you want Cal to have been part of that, or some other infernal entity.

In epic tier, the party gets to visit the arc of time that rings around Apet, which will let them step back to the time of the Ancients and learn the full extent of how the magic works. It's sorta like time travel, though attempts to screw things up with paradox can kinda be hand-waved because thousands of years will have passed, and records aren't that precise.

So yeah, if you have any idea what you'd like to do with Cal in that situation, let me know. I can work him into the official plot line, or at least have an easy "insert devil here" character.

Here was my plan for Cal's past; spoiler protected for Redbadge.

[sblock=backstory]earlier you mentioned that you had no plans for the Dawn Wars, so I was gonna take that and run with it. Cal was originally one of many archangels assigned to Lanjyr as "guardian angels". There job was to generally guide and look after the fledgling mortals while the gods kicked back after creating life (each world got its own set of guardians).

Things went pretty well until the primordials noticed the gods had fiddled with the planetoids they'd made, cue the dawn wars. The war was messy and quickly spilled over into the mortal worlds; some worlds fared better than others. Lanjyr ended up on the loosing end of that scale, and the majority of mortal life (along with most of the guardians) were wiped out.

The Dawn Wars ended in a draw. The gods and primordials reached an agreement of a mutual "hands off" approach to mortal worlds. The guardians (what was left of them) were grandfathered in to the new system. Life was reseeded on many of the worlds ravaged during the war, Lanjyr included. The agreement doesn't make any provisions for mortals attacking other worlds, nor does it restrict "lesser immortals". It's a bit like the cold war; no one is technically at war (cause they're still nursing their recent bruises), but lots of smaller scale skirmishes continue.

The remaining guardians of Lanjyr did their best to protect the world; their numbers slowly dwindled further as they got killed off. Cal was the last guardian standing. When some lesser angels stumbled upon Toteth's plan to create the Axis Seal they decried it as blasphemy (cutting the world off from the gods), demanding his death. Cal decided the seal was the only way to save Lanjyr and turned on the lesser angels under his command, butchering them to protect the seal's secrecy. The gods banished Cal to Hell believing he had gone mad (and he kind of has lost it).

Cal is obsessed with Lanjyr; he still keeps a twisted adherence to his oath to guide and protect the mortals there. His original goal of simply making the mortals of Lanjyr stronger has evolved since Triegenes' apotheosis. Cal blames the gods for what happened to Lanjyr during the Dawn War and for the fall of the Ancients. Triegenes' ascendance proved for the first time that mortals could surpass their own mortality. Since then, Cal has periodically scoured Lanjyr for mortals with powerful potential; he encourages their growth in the hopes of elevating an other god. He ultimately wants to take vengeance against the gods by replacing them.

I'm planning for him to actually know William Miller. Miller would have been one of the candidates he tried to encourage (especially as sedition against the Clergy); though Miller probably didn't know Cal was a devil (he would have been possessing a host at the time). Cal does not know that Miller is still "alive" or about the Ob. I'm planning for him to be as shocked as the players when Miller is revealed.

As a general guideline of Cal's personality: He hates the gods and by extension the Clergy. He's incredibly ancient and knows more about Lanjyr than just about anyone else (Lanjyr specifically is his area of expertise). He has a strong honorable bent and keeps his word (like keeping secrets). He genuinely wants the mortals (and the PCs by extension) to succeed. He is a tragic figure, but he's still evil. He'll do whatever he thinks is best for the long term future of Lanjyr's mortals (emphasis on what he thinks). He believes in eugenics; he has used his influence to subtly encourage meritocratic societies on Lanjyr to encourage the most powerful to out-breed the weak, but he's not above snuffing out groups of people that have too many "undesirable" traits.

Since he's been involved with Lanjyr for so long, I'm planning on giving him some mortal support that he's accumulated over the last ten thousand years; I'm planning on it being an order of neutral/evil druids to match his interest in encouraging the evolution of life.[/sblock]

Well that's a lot of info dump, and it's really late where I am in the states. I'll try to check back again later this weekend. Thanks for the attention.