ZEITGEIST Tukka's ZEITGEIST Campaign Log

ZEITGEIST SPOILERS, MY PLAYERS KEEP OUT

Several months ago, someone in my RL group downloaded The Island at the Axis of the World and decided to DM it for us. The first session was probably the best D&D session I'd ever experienced -- we serendipitously and ridiculously foiled the duchess's sabotage plan within a minute of meeting her -- but the game fizzled due to conflicting schedules after the second session. But what I'd seen (and read in the Player's Guide) gave me an itch to run or play this campaign.

So I started reading up on it and a few weeks ago posted on another online forum community I belong to, which is not gaming oriented. There was some interest, so I started up the campaign as a play by post game. Only one of my players has experience with 4e (Saradoc), and one has never played D&D (Mikal).

As far as tools go, I'm using Dropbox to host maps and other documents and inlining and linking them on the forum. I use MapTool with Rumble's Framework and Paint.NET to generate the combat maps, and Hamete Virtual Dice Server to perform and verify rolls.

Here's a snapshot from round 6 of the Sabotage encounter.

Most of the players have not yet developed deep backstories, as this is a fairly casual game, with some RP newbies and I wanted to get them into the action ASAP, but here is what we've got so far:

Ialia Verankht: Tiefling Ranger, Gunsmith
Mikal: Human Rogue, Docker
Nit (aka John Tinton): Changeling Artificer, Technologist
Saradoc Montajay II: Gnome Binder (fey pact), Spirit Medium
Kintaro Spince: Human Knight, Yerasol Veteran

Ialia is a former criminal who dresses like a swashbuckling pirate and will likely try and play fast and loose with the rules. Mikal is a former entertainer and sailor. Nit's player wanted his character to be in hiding following an ambush in which everyone with him was killed as the result of a betrayal. Cillian Creed (disguised) lead the ambush on Nit's party, which was delivering a mysterious mechanical device that Nit's employer had just produced on a secret order. Saradoc wears a top hat and a monocle, and has been with the RHC most of his life (still working out the details of his fey pact). Kintaro so far seems to be the conscience and diplomat of the group.

• I decided that the Slate constables (Tanya's team) had been responsible for the preliminary launch party security and that the PC's team wasn't initially supposed to be involved with the event at all. However, the Slate team got called away on a false lead concerning Gale (probably planted by the duchess), and Delft's counterpart ordered them to follow up on it. This gave Delft a chance to do some complaining about the gloryhounding administrator from the capital city office trying to look good by solving Flint's problems for them.

• Delft's briefing took place at the RHC office, and I let the PCs make their threat profile checks on the carriage ride over to the square.

• The first round went smoothly. They had canvassed the crowd by the end of it. Ialia bungled her Perception check to identify persons carrying concealed weapons; a docker misinterpreted and thought she was checking her out in a difference sense and started flirting with her. Her next turn she played along with a Bluff check, which lead to the party's discovery of Coulton.

• Saradoc (who took presidigitation through a feat) succeeded on an arcana check to put on an impromptu light show, which made it easier to observe the crowd. The +2 bonus to Perception/Insight checks allowed Kintaro to spot Dafton (the very last person to act at the 3rd round).

• Kintaro rolled well on some Diplomacy checks to bond with the fellow war vet and talk him into leaving the scene without a fight, right about the same time Thames showed up, and Kintaro waved him through the checkpoint. I thought about merging the character of Thames into Dafton given the way Kintaro handled it, but decided against it. I think Dafton will join Thames' guild in a senior position as a more militant voice. The other dockers were ultimately released as well, though Saradoc ordered a rather skeevy FPD officer to find out where Coulton lives, which could mean bad things for that particular docker. Thames plead his case to the constables as they crossed the bridge, and Kintaro agreed to bring his concerns up with the Governor if he got the chance.

• The launch ceremony went off without a hitch. During the pre-party in Fleet Square, Saradoc briefly conversed with Rutger Smith and the dwarven diplomat (Resident Minister Doror Dobtchev). John decided to check out the duchess, so she approached him with her nap room request; the reserved technologist agreed to her request and ended up placing her in the observation lounge. Ialia hung out with her fellow tiefling, Geoff.

• The party didn't seem to have much interest in exploring the ship in detail or carrying out specific social interactions. (I think they might have been a little burned out on all of the social/investigative stuff, since they avoided a fight with the dockers.) Saradoc did investigate the Capacitor and learned its basic function. Mikal made a stealth check to have a few words with the Principal Minster without Delft noticing, but didn't really have much to say -- he just tried to make a good impression, but didn't do a great job of it (poor Diplomacy check).

• While escorting her to the observation lounge, John solicited Duchess Ethelyn's opinion of the ship. She made her distate for it known but I also let her slip in some caveats about how "ships like this might be a necessary evil to defend against Danor" while stressing the importance of staying true to the Old Faith, heeding the wisdom of the skyseers, etc. John kept his own opinion to himself to avoid giving offense. He exchanged a few words with Sokana at the door before leaving, inquiring about her origins. He also saw through her disguise as a eladrin (I decided before the check was made that he'd get a +2 bonus to it since as a changeling I figured he'd have special insight into what it might look like when one race tries to pass as another, and that bonus made the difference). Ialia's players response to this revelation was, "she's loot!"

• I think John was planning on using his changeling ability to try to something else, but it he didn't let me know until it was too late to put into action; I decided after the party had been on the ship for 3 days without anybody really doing anything or asking any questions to move the action forward to the Sabotage encounter.

• Everyone went down to fetch Ethelyn except Ialia, who stayed to watch the crowd. She was concerned about a possible "Airplane" style food poisoning when the king complained about indigestion. Dobtchev also looked a bit green, but that was just from seasickness. Delft told her to go down a "light a fire" after about a minute. I didn't want Ialia missing the combat that seemed imminent.

• Kintaro got bored waiting on the duchess and decided to investigate the lower decks. He noticed the absence of Private Athel in the ship's magazine and briefly checked out each of the three rooms, noticing the fire wards (and that one was missing -- I decided Ilton grabbed it on his way out after hiding Athel's body). I'm not sure why, but at this point, Kintaro took one of the remaining fire wards (he made a History check to identify its basic function, I'd decided he'd heard about such wards during the war). I think maybe he figured that the ward in the one remaining room would protect all three magazine chambers. Kintaro also reported "everything is fine" to the party with a shout (his Passive Perception of 11 wasn't good enough to spot Athel's body, and I guess he didn't find the missing fire ward overly suspicious)...

• When the constables made it clear they'd be willing to wait for the Duchess to get ready but weren't leaving the hallway, Sokana went out the window and worked her way around to one of the fore gun ports. About a minute later she came through, just as the party's patience with the duchess expired and Mikal had lockpicked the door. They saw the duchess jump out the window, and Saradoc caught a short glimpse of Beshela.

• I wasn't clear on what parts of the floor were grated until later on in the encounter. For some reason, I thought the amidships grating might be an open/railed pit, and that the firegem bin on the engine deck was covered, but later realized the graphics didn't line up properly for this. I figured the grating was just the gray flooring by the doors to the observation lounge, etc. I also wasn't sure which 6 squares were supposed to be filled with firegems from opening the bin, and with my interpretation of the map it made more sense to fill all 15 squares between the bin and the furnace with them. I also had the firegem filled areas basically function like Sokana's searing barrier zone, except that it was difficult terrain as well. In retrospect this was probably not the greatest idea.

• The saboteurs managed to do everything they needed to do to shorten the countdown. Saradoc used Ghost Sound to alert the main deck that saboteurs were on board, and a few rounds later I had Geoff and a couple seamen come down to help. Geoff was too drunk and panicked to be a lot of help as far as helping in the fight or creative solutions to the engine problem though. He acted pretty much oblivious to the PCs dying around him while his engine was melting down.

• Kintaro was separated from the rest of the group through most of the fight, because he was on the other side of the ship, was delayed by some fire sprites, and stopped to remove the last fire ward from the magazine (the saboteurs destroyed the third fire ward in the observation lounge, which the party noticed while fighting Ilton).

• Mikal called Sokana a hussy during the fight while throwing daggers at her, so naturally Sokana rewarded him with a beguiling smile that lured him over the edge of berth deck into a bed of firegems, where a nearby mechanic knocked him out. John had just killed a fire sprite that was carrying a firedusk cask and was standing adjacent to the cask, so Sokana spent her action point to set off the cask with searing barrier, putting John in the wall, of course. Then the other mechanic went over to hit him. The mechanic's attack was the one roll I fudged during the fight. With Kintaro separated from the rest of the group and Mikal burning to death in the firegems, I didn't see things going well for them if the healer got knocked out too, especially since nobody had any healing potions. This was their first fight, and my misinterpretation of the firegem release spread might be what put Mikal in so much danger in the first place, so I figured it was OK to give them a break here.

• Kintaro was the one to land the knockout blow to Sokana, who decided that she might be able to divert the constables longer by fleeing and hoping they'd give chase (which Saradoc and Kintaro did -- she almost made it though, and would have been able to save the KO'd Ilton). Another moment of glory for Kintaro was using Display of Heroism to good effect though to turn the tide.

• As far as dealing with the engine goes, John had a vague notion that they could use the fire wards, and open the valves he saw the engineers mucking with. Ialia shot up one of the valves with her carbine while Geoff pounded it with a shovel, releasing the steam and killing the KO'd friendly mechanics (and prompting the minion seamen to run like hell). Saradoc just came up with the Star Trek solution of channeling heat into the Capacitor, but again, Geoff is too drunk and panicked to perform the calibrations properly, and Saradoc made a successful arcana check to spot one of his mistakes. John will likely save the day when he logs on to post.

I am pretty pleased with the way things have gone so far. I think the players are enjoying themselves. Saradoc's player PM'd me with a bit of nervousness and excitement when he figured out that Kintaro was (unknowingly?) disabling the ship's safety mechanisms while reporting an "all clear" before the fight broke out -- I look forward to hearing Kintaro explain his thinking on this one in his report. Mikal's player commented on how he could really feel the "smog and mud" of the setting.

I've had to hand-hold the 4e newbies through a lot of the mechanics and helped them some with tactics through the first encounter. It's a bit complex for newbies and I should have maybe had them fight the dockers (or run a pre-adventure for them) to get them accustomed to the mechanics. I think they're getting the hang of things, though.

I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle the somewhat more traditional adventuring day on Axis Island.

I'm always excited to hear people's tales of their ZEITGEIST campaigns. Good on you for trying this play-by-post; I hope the players keep posting actively.