ZEITGEIST [Zeitgeist] Chronicles of Unit 42

Bad news.

One of my players came down with the flu, and another has to make an emergency trip out of town tonight. So, we are not going to be able to finish Digging for Lies until after I get back from Ireland, likely about two weeks from Sunday.

It's sad, because I was really looking forward to finishing and then starting Always on Time as soon as I got back, but, as the Danorans might say, c'est la vie.

All right.

I didn't get to finish Digging for Lies yet, but I still have work to do to prepare for Always on Time.

Here's what I've done so far. I calculated, and it's 19'3" worth of battle map!

It's been a nice distraction from a super slow weekend of work.

That is brilliant! You win the internets sir! Definitely want to do that for my campaign

OK. I'm home from vacation, and now I can truly start to work on Always on Time (if my group ever gets together to finish Digging for Lies, of course...).

Here's something unexpectedly fun for you guys, though.

I mentioned above that I'm going to have my group make their own lower level party to act as the B-Team through Cauldron Born. Well, during Axis Island, when I let them each recruit a soldier to help them get to the keep, my brother named his soldier "Papa Carl", and decided he was an older man, who normally worked as a pizza maker in Flint, but wanted to volunteer, and joined the RHC. He has become extremely attached to this character, and has decided he is going to make Papa Carl his B-Team character.

Which, will be pretty devastating for him (and awesome for me) when Lorcan Kell gets a hold of the B-Team. I'm thinking Papa Carl is probably going to be the one "spared" by Kell and his men, though, so he's not gone, and it's really going to motivate the group to put an end to the criminal and his group.

So excited for this fortunate turn of events. As a DM, I so rarely do things to just completely infuriate my players, and this is going to be a pretty big surprise for them.

We started the RHC fight yesterday, but since we got a late start, we had to quit just before they headed down to the Subrail station. So, we will probably have to wait another few weeks before we properly finish Digging for Lies... *sigh*

So, after the portal to Apet opened, and Xambria made her escape from the interrogation (controlled by Sijhen), I pulled out the maps, and placed the minis where they went, and explained the situation to the team. Here is Delft's and Saxby's offices, it looks like one of those huge maw things is up on that floor, also it looks like Xambria is up there, headed toward Saxby. Here's all the bystanders. Here's a weird squad of black-clad intruders. What do you want to tackle first?

They suffered from a bit of analysis paralysis at first. There were so many things going on, they weren't real sure what to do first, but luckily the player for Viktor Bays (my human wizard, also my brother...) had decided he was ready to move on to a different character, and we had already agreed to find an elegant way to end Bays' story, so he kind of thrust his character straight into danger and headed for the kill squad.

Naturally, the rest of the group followed, and the result was the shadow stalker (or, as my players referred to her, the daggerman) stabbed Gareth Carter (the swordmage) and teleported him into the middle of their group, where he was crit twice and knocked unconscious during the very first turn! This prompted a bit of a panic, and the group stated using encounters (they had already used most of their dailies during the museum encounter). The fight was prolonged - nearly 8 rounds! - and deadly in such small quarters, but they finally finished off the daggerman, five of Kell's men, and the nethermancer made his escape through the portal in the stairwell, which confused and irritated my group to no end. He'll be back at some point, I'm sure.

Next, they headed up to Delft's office, where the maw was just about to make its way in - but they ended up separating at this point, for some reason. Bays and Casimiro del Garra (the longtooth shifter monk/shaman) went to the second floor to help some of the bystanders with the flying things and the flashing orb while Carter and Reginald Battersea (the human artificer) headed to take on the maw. Bays was knocked unconscious once, but del Garra revived him. Delft proved quite capable in combat once he was helped, and they took down the monsters, and then took a quick rest in his office before heading to confront Saxby and the other group of constables.

They all met in the hallway between Delft and Saxby's offices, and Saxby called on her men to take down the "traitors". The fight was pretty quick, but at one point Carlao knocked Bays down to 1 hit point, and on the very next turn, Dima crit him (all legit rolls, even though we kind of planned for Bays to die - I was planning on it happening against the Thing from Beyond) and killed him. This shook the other group of constables, and after Saxby was knocked down on the next turn, they surrendered themselves.

Delft brought them back to his office to plan what to do next.

===

A few notes.

1) My players decided early on in the campaign their default setting was stun not kill. When the Kell guilders identified themselves, they immediately all said they wanted to switch to deadly force for this encounter. It was a bit of a turning point for a group that has been pretty stand-up for the campaign. They haaaaate Kell.

2) One result of this was that Serena and Saxby were killed during their fight with the other constables, and if she hadn't surrendered, they definitely would have killed Dima as well, for killing Viktor. Delft and the Lord Viscount have some difficult discussions ahead of them, methinks.

3) Since Bays is dead, I'm going to probably have his player use Delft during the fight against the Thing from Beyond. I don't want to send them down there with just three PCs. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. I may also tone down the encounter a bit, I'm not sure. Can someone who has run this encounter please advise?

d2OKC said:

3) Since Bays is dead, I'm going to probably have his player use Delft during the fight against the Thing from Beyond. I don't want to send them down there with just three PCs. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. I may also tone down the encounter a bit, I'm not sure. Can someone who has run this encounter please advise?

Click to expand...

Your instincts are spot on. I frequently advocated souping up some of the combats in Zeitgeist, as they tend to be one-offs, allowing the group to throw everything at them. But the sequence of encounters from the Gala of the Ancients to the end of the adventure can be deadly. I had six players and they struggled. The fight against the Thing from Beyond was almost a TPK, and one character was killed (our first and only death that was not prearranged or due to the departure of a player).

Its Prismatic Scream power is INSANE and the only way to stop it from using it round after round is to reduce it in hit points - which a prone, blinded and dazed (or swallowed!) character cannot do.

Handle with care!

Yeah. I'll probably have Delft, Dima, and Carlao tag along, just to make sure they have people to help with the fight. Give the other two a chance to redeem themselves for Bays' death, and something for my brother to control.

Another question I had for you guys: What purpose does the ship to ship combat at the beginning of Always on Time serve, aside from introducing the submarine? I was thinking about ditching that to get straight to the train stuff, and maybe foreshadowing the sub during the side adventure with the B-Team? Maybe as they try to track down the nethermancer that escaped this attack, who happens to have some plans or info on the sub?

Is there any real reason to do not skip it? My group doesn't really seem all that interested in the naval combat, and I'm quite eager myself to get them on the train.

I considered ditching that fight too. I think it's there as a pacing element, as there would be no combat at all for almost a third of the adventure if it wasn't there.

In the end I put it back in because it served my purposes to give the group a substantial hint that, despite acing their secrecy checks the Ob were still on to them (because one of them is feeding info to Roland Stanfield).

If I were you I'd let their performance in the opening skill challenges dictate whether it happens. The actual adventure only calls for a combat if the group slips up (if memory serves).

I left in myself... for what there was of it.

My players faked a surrender, lured the pirates in closer, then fired full broadsides at point blank.

Honestly, we wanted ship combat, and we felt it made sense to have the Ob be suspicious, even if the party manages to be secretive. In hindsight, I worry that our naval sequences are kinda like those in Assassin's Creed 3 - put in because we think they'd be fun, but not as connected to the main plot as we'd like.

I like when groups hate Kell.