ZEITGEIST Tukka's Zeitgeist Campaign, Take Two

I ran a play-by-post Zeitgeist campaign, but I burned out on during the Hold the Lighthouse encounter pretty and had to stop that one (the game was progressing slowly, but was still a huge time sink for me). Shortly thereafter, I started a new home game and put it to my group whether they wanted to play a Neverwinter Campaign, Zeitgeist, or another option, and they choose Zeitgeist. We've been playing for a few months now. Currently, we are a couple sessions into Adventure 3.

If any of my players stumble on this, KEEP OUT, SPOILERS AHEAD!

The party:

Sora, Dragonborn Blackguard (Vice of Fury), Yerasol Veteran
Cyrus Paxton, Human Swordmage (Shielding), Martial Scientist
Clairette, Pixie Mage (Enchanter/Illusionist, multiclass Fey Warlock), Spirit Medium
Alain, Human Sentinel (Druid of Spring), Skyseer
Asaad, Elf Avenger (Unity), Vekeshi Mystic (joined during Adventure 3)

I skipped Act 1 of Adventure 1 since I'd already played through it once as a player (as had Clairette's player) and DM'd it once for the PBP group. I gave the party credit for successfully saving the Coaltongue and the King in the prologue.

The campaign's Obsidian Portal page can be found here.

Inconsistent verb tenses to follow.

Adventure 1, Act 2

* Alain proposed the three-dimensional solution to Lya's puzzle right away.
* The party got a kick out of Letmas sneaking out for tea. RIP Team A. Sora brought Burton back to the ship, then the party pushed on through the cave, wary of traps.
* Foreman Dupiers attacks. The party didn't immediately catch on that he was Danoran in spite of my bad French accent and all the ranting about "dirt-worshippers." Clairette immediately flew up to grab the gold shiny, revealing the air elemental. She then used her pixie dust to fly Alain to the upper platform, where with two consecutive successful grab attacks, he managed to snatch away Dupiers' medallions. He surrendered.
* Dupiers bargained to keep one of the medallions. Sora took the two medallions from Alain, placed them behind her back, and had Dupiers to blindly choose which he got to keep. He picked the Urim icon, leaving the party with the Nem icon (unfortunately for them, the shadow elemental had been quickly dispatched by Cyrus and Sora during the fight). The constables promised to return the icons to Danor at the conclusion of their mission.
* The party chooses the mountain path. Clairette is disturbed and vaguely saddened by whispering she hears from the witchoil leaked by the golem. They lost some heal surges to an untimely planar fluctuation, and the mysterious blast of fire had them a bit discomfited as well.
* They used the Pass Wall ritual without issue to gain entry to the fort. They decided to make straight for the lighthouse, which they managed rather stealthily. They managed to bluff their way to door, but not inside. The party defeats the rebels guarding the lighthouse.
* The Hold the Lighthouse encounter went swiftly and well. The party took a fair amount of damage but the rebels didn't come close to shutting the gates.

Adventure 1, Act 3

* Asrabey Varal arrives on the scene and the party recognize him as a mighty Vekeshi warrior.
* The party was reluctant to wait around for long while the battle raged on around them, fearing that the Duchess might use the chaos of the situation as an opportunity to make her escape, so after a short rest, they went forward and fought another group of rebels, with the help of their allied soldiers.
* Towards the end of that fight, Lt. Marseine killed a rebel with a heaved pitchfork from within one of the stables, drawing the attention of the party. The party readily handed over the weapons requested by the Danoran warrior, and learned of two ways into the inner fort tower... and then Asrabey Varal made his second appearance and opened the third path.
* Clairette played up her fey kinship with the distracted Ghillie Dhu and convinced him to let them through unhindered.
* The party busts in on the Duchess, Asrabey and Nathan during their exchange. At first Asrabey ignores them, and the Duchess focused on attempting to deter and convince Asrabey from his course. The party gleans Asrabey's intention to execute the Duchess and take young Nathan prisoner, so they confront him, and make a deal: they agree to let him carry out his original mission to slay the Duchess (they figure she's already guilty of a capital offense, so why not?) but grants Nathan asylum. They agree to let Asrabey question Nathan about Kasvarina and whatever else on the boat ride back to Risur. Asrabey honors the agreement.
* The Duchess meets her fate with frosty dignity. Asrabey beheaded the Duchess and Clairette questioned her corpse, thereby learning of her vision.
* The constables hand control of the island back over to Lya. She asks after her cousin, and the party is a little cagey, but assure her he's safe. Lya drops her bombshell wedding invitation and the group is suitably surprised.
* Delft chastised them for letting Asrabey execute a Risuri noble, even one that's a traitor, but grudgingly accepts their rationale about not wanting to risk a fight which might result in Asrabey's death (which might upset the Unseen Court), or their own defeat (which would be a total loss for Risur).

Some comments on my players.

Clairette's player is my girlfriend, and she's a casual/social player. Her attention wanders a bit during play, but she enjoys kicking butt in combat so long as the fights don't go on too long, and sometimes throws herself into role-playing her flighty fairy character, or voices a strong opinion as to the course of action the party should take (though she has a little difficulty following the plot sometimes).

I'd describe Cyrus's player as roughly equal parts tactician, power-gamer and explorer and role-player. He's the one in the group with the most system mastery and is the party's de facto leader. He's the one who takes notes and keeps the plot straight. I didn't know Cyrus's, Sora's or Alain's player before starting this campaign (we met through a Facebook gaming group.)

Sora's player is Cyrus's player's girlfriend. She's also a somewhat more casual player, but stays more focused on the game than Clairette's player. Sora's primary shtick so far has been intimidating wrongdoers and suspected wrongdoers and her player gets into role-playing those occasions.

Alain's player has experience with 3.5 but was new to 4e as of the start of this campaign. I suppose I'd call him a power-gamer, though he hasn't gone out of his way to optimize/master his character, I do know that he loves accumulating pluses. He's a bit of a lurker otherwise. I think he read and retains more of the Zeitgeist Player's Guide than the other players, and he gets a kick out of call-backs to the setting elements he recognizes, but otherwise I've had a little trouble engaging him.

I've only played one session with Asaad's player so far. I know him primarily through his younger brothers, who I played D&D with a couple years ago. Asaad's player is new to D&D but has taken to it rather enthusiastically. I see some method actor/role-player and explorer tendencies in him, and I think that once he gets up to speed, he'll probably follow the plot about as keenly as Cyrus's player.

I've tried engaging them a couple times in some philosophical discussions (via Miller, Nico, Thames, Gale) but for the most part they've been primarily fixated on just getting the job done. They'll empathize with and try to relate to the more likable or helpful NPCs, but have avoided volunteering very strong opinions of their own. I am hoping that with the addition of Asaad's player and some other recent developments (which I'll detail later) I can lure them into defining their characters' ideologies/outlooks a bit more.

Thanks for sharing about your game. I think most groups let Asrabey take Nathan and they keep the Duchess to face justice. Interesting twist your group came up with.

Sounds like you and your players are enjoying it so far. If you ever have any questions or problems, though, please just ask and I'll see if I can help.

Adventure 2

* Murder at the Danoran consulate. The players were not quite as thorough as they could have been, being new to the whole "investigation" thing, so I was a little charitable through the early part of the adventure.
* However, through Clairette's post-mortum questioning of Nilasa's spirit, they were able to note some inconsistencies in Julian LeBrix's story.
* They followed up on Nilasa's criminal friends at the Reformatory, and also started tracking Wolfgang, though they didn't think to ask the consulate for information on Wolfgang until I suggested it.
* Alain tried using his wolf to track Officer Porter's burnt-grease odor, which ended up leading them to one of the under-bridge Bleak Gate crossings, where they found a rusted iron ring and some odd runes. With some Arcana and History checks, they were able to speculate as to a possible connection with the witches of Cauldron Hill and the Bleak Gate, and the mayor of the Nettles is traditionally among the most-informed regarding such lore, so they went to Macbannin's manor to schedule a consultation with the man.
* Detective work reveals that Nilasa was involved in some sort of plot, probably at Gale's behest, and Heward Sechim offers to put them in contact with his uncle, who may be able to arrange a meeting with Gale.
* The interrogation of Nilasa's former accomplices at the reformatory was handled somewhat clumsily (they didn't separate the men, or make much effort to soften them up), but with some good rolls they managed to get one of the men to give up the intel on the House Elf in exchange for visitation with his family.
* On their way up to see Nevard, the party helped foill the Kell-Guild's kidnapping attempt. Clairette used her pixie dust to fly Renard's girl out of danger. There was a collective shout of "NO!" when they saw the woman flee towards her apparent attackers, before the party realized the truth of the situation.
* The party met Nevard and agreed to help him.
* Sora was frustrated at having been blinded and dominated in the course of the fight with the Waryeyes, and killed one of Danisca's guards in her frustration, a decision which would have some implications later. With some interrogation the party learned some of the details of the smuggling plot.
* The party went to meet Macbannin. They had their brush with Nico. The impression they got of him was of a commoner who wants to make a difference, but doesn't think he can. He will remember the party as being somewhat idealistic and patronizing.
* The party asked for permission to ascend Cauldron Hill with Nevard Sechim in tow. Macbannin worked himself into a faux froth, "Let me get this straight, you want me to compromise the security of the most haunted and evil locale of all of Risur, so that you can bring this decrepit skyseer with rumored ties to fey terrorists to the Hill's summit, just so he can look at the stars and see gods know what?" -- he pauses dramatically, waits for the party to start to protest/explain themselves, then smiles brightly and says, "Fortunately, I have no problem with that! What else can I do for you?" Cyrus's player makes a note: "Macbannin = awesome."
* While camping on the hill and describing the chill and various creepy events, the players expressed dismay, fearing that perhaps they had not prepared adequately for this trial. Then they were visited by Nilasa and Creed. I staggered the appearance of the stronger Cauldron Hill monsters, and they managed to drive off Creed and throw away all of the light sources before the vestige of Death could make a fatal appearance.
* Eberando and Valando threw a scare into the party with their potent attacks but then managed to escape. The party toppled the water tower to save Sechim's factory.
* The party met with Gale not long before the smuggling plot was scheduled to go down, and for reasons I'm not clear on, they decided to tell and ask her about the smuggling plot. Gale sent a few Cloudwood brigands to the Silvo's dock to reinforce/abort the mission, but the party still managed to put down the sailors and extract some info about the rendezvous location, and they were able to capture the shipment.
* Cyrus and Clairette met with Cippiano and politely declined his overtures.
* Alain's Docker contact reported feeling some "bad mojo" in Bosum Strand on the eve of Nevard's announcement, and the next day the party went to investigate. They found the warehouse, fought the golem, and took down the technicians before they could destroy much evidence, and used the "obey" trick to turn the ambush on Nevard into a relative cakewalk. The party did not put two-and-two together with regard to the incriminating note in Macbannin's hand (I decided none of them had ever seen Macbannin's handwriting), but a day or two later they would present the evidence to Delft, who made the connection and set the wheels in motion for a warrant, but wanted a little more evidence before making their move on the mayor. The party was bowled over by the fact that Macbannin was the apparent villain.
* Meanwhile, they were running thin on leads to track down Wolfgang. They had questioned Lynn at the station early on (I strongly hinted to them that they'd have go above and beyond to get her cooperation, but decided I was making it too easy on them if Lynn gave them Wolfgang on a silver platter, so she was kidnapped by the Ob shortly thereafter). They started canvassing the Nettles in search of the Doc, starting with Cyrus's contact in the area, a smith named Glansir Shalefounder. After a day of searching and mediocre skill checks, however, they found themselves no closer to Wolfgang.
* The canvassing effort did put the party on Lorcan Kell's radar, however, and the next day he sent his agent to lure them into a trap. The party fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Glasnir was the victim on the stage. Cyrus surrendered his magic sword to pay the bribe to Kell -- a decision which would have some implications in the next adventure.
* Ambush at the abandoned church. The party managed to drive off Creed and sensed that the Steelshaper had them outclassed. Clairette flew out through the chimney (I decided it was too narrow for the rest of the party to get through) and summoned some reinforcements from the local PD, who set up on the roof/hill above the Cathedral. The party discovered the secret passage out of the cathedral, but the Steelshaper's gang spotted them as they emerged, and a brief chase sequence ensued. The party managed to escape with Recklinghausen and his documents in tow.
* The final act. The fight in the manor garden went down pretty well. Macbannin's curses were used to good effect -- he used the "treat everyone as enemies" curse on Alain's wolf, which had some nice synergy, since it meant the wolf made adjacent PCs grant combat advantage, the doppleganger curse caused the heavy-hitter Sora some problems, and Cyrus was hammered by the gross centipede hex. None of the witchoil geysers ended up happening near combat though. The party had the fight pretty well in hand throughout most of it... a PC or two went down, but they emerged victorious.
* They dragged a mage-cuffed Macbannin around with them into the lab. They were ambushed by a couple flayed jaguars (this time without collars) and then Creed and the knife-fighters. I also had the roof in above the reservoir collapse partially and introduce another flayed jag. The party had come prepared with some necrotic-resist armor and holy water, and they won without too much trouble. With Macbannin's assistance they were able to avert a major catastrophe, although the jaguar attacked Macbannin so they had to heal him (they were a bit at a loss about the function of the various contraptions and how best to operate them to mitigate the damage, so I guess it's a good thing Macbannin was there).
* Lynn was occupying the prison room in the lab instead of Wolfgang and the party decided to check on it quickly before leaving. Sora was in a rush so she recklessly put her hand in the obviously-trapped hole, but fortunately for her, the trapped missed, and they liberated Lynn (who had been questioned about Wolfgang's philosophy and politics).
* Wolfgang unhooked himself from his resuscitating gadgets and modified them so the party could use it as a one-off rezz if used shortly after a person's expiration (I've banned most resurrection magic until mid-paragon, but will give the party a single one-off rezz mechanism every other adventure or so).

The adventure 2 summary was probably pretty hard to read. Sorry about that.

Adventure 3

I ran the first day at the expo as a skill challenge to see give them an opportunity to explore the the sights, notice the pickpocket pattern, etc. Alain's sister (a criminal with Vekeshi sympathies) saw her brother looking around with his "cop eyes" and mocked his situation as a glorified security guard, but she also tipped him off about the Family's fey pepper smuggling op.

Prior to that, for whatever reason, Alain was drawn to Pemberton Tent and tried to talk his way in without success. Sora, at least, will get an opportunity to meet Pemberton later this adventure at the soiree Nigel invited he to.

The party did well on the skill challenge, so managed to track down Isaac Randal (and noted his possession of the Macbannin manor amulet) and got the code phrase to arrange a meeting with Kaja, but first they all made a stop at Gun Alley to watch Rock Rackus perform. I adapted the lyrics of Babycakes's Lies (warning: naughty language and silliness; the song begins at 1:09) in which Rock Rackus denies the extinction of gryphons and dragons and claims the moon isn't made of glass.

The Incident fight was a bit of a slog between the relatively high HP of the combatants, the insubstantial trait, the weakening attacks, etc. I had Alfonse roll out and fire one of his display cannons to expedite the battle's conclusion. Sora and Alain's wolf contracted Distant Madness, and the wolf developed an Obsession mind scar (the object of his obsession was Rock Rackus's crescent-capped magic mic). Simon, Alforb and the guy Rock Rackus shot all died. (Question: Did R.R. actually shoot that bystander? I'm not clear on where the gold bullet could've come from if it not. I'm chalking it up to an accident/ricochet.) The party didn't really make any effort to revive/protect other combatants, a decision which might be raised during the audit.

More later.

After the Incident, the party was a bit at a loss as to what to investigate. They had three bodies and weren't sure which ought to be questioned, and with all of the weird magical tech around they also weren't sure what was responsible for the creatures' appearance. I decided not to have the fair-goers mob Rackus, because I figured by the end of the fight, most of the crowd would have cleared out, and those remaining would be more concerned about the monsters than an alleged shooting-death. Kvarti's motive for witnessing against Rackus was that he'd be safer from other assassins in jail.

I helped the party focus their investigation a bit by having Timothy Lammers loudly make the connection between Langfield's staff and the monsters. The party didn't notice because he didn't live long enough to accidentally summon more monsters. Clairette got her first Psychic History reading on the staff when she picked it up -- she saw an angry Macbannin accepting the staff from a pink hand with pointy fingernails.

Asaad joined the party in session that followed the Incident.

The backstory for Asaad is that he's a RHC agent who was ordered to make contact with Gale for the Vekeshis (the Adventure 2 Vekeshi plot). The Old Stag caught wind of a rumor that the B-Team (as the party has taken to calling itself) has been in contact with Gale, so Asaad has been trying to get on the team for a while. As of the start of the adventure, he had been independently investigating a smuggling plot in Bosum Strand, which turns out to be the Family's fey pepper smuggling operation, which Alain was tipped off to last session.

Alain reported this tip to Stover Delft via Messenger Wind, figuring the party might not have time to run down that lead, and Delft made the connection to Asaad's investigation, and sent Asaad to catch up with the party and have them help him if they weren't too busy after the fair closed down.

The party had an easy time arranging a meeting with Kaja thanks to their successes earlier in the day and their follow-up investigation in Gun Alley. They had some time to kill before the Kaja meet, so they decided to help Asaad with his investigation. This lead to a Bosum Strand subrail construction site where some of the workers were dealing fey pepper on the side. The highlight of this skill challenge investigation was Constable Sora throwing a (partially open) sack of fey pepper at a suspect in an attempt to intimidate him, "Does *this* look like cement mix?" which of course dosed him good.

This lead to the ship bearing the fey pepper, where the party met one of the Family bravos they'd arrested in adventure 2. He got off by pleading innocent by reason of enchantment (claiming that Danisca Waryeye was the mastermind behind the plot). He pointed the constables to Cippiano; Asaad and Cyrus went to meet him while the others kept an eye on the ship.

I knew the party wouldn't be tempted by an outright bribe, so once again I had Cippiano focus on a promise of information about other criminals if they would allow him to get away with retroactively paying some taxes and fines, with no jail time for his boys and no impounding of the ship. Cyrus, remembering what happened when they declined Cippiano's assistance in tracking down Recklinghausen, embraced the deal, and eventually managed to sell Asaad on it. Cippiano gave up his info on Kaja, and promised to do what he could to make the arrest go down easier. He had one of his spies in the Kell-Guild get assigned as guard detail for the meeting with Kaja, who sabotaged a couple of her turrets, and turned against her during the fight.

[Edit: When Saxby caught wind of the Macbannin connection, she had Kaja carted off to Slate for questioning by arcane specialists, per a suggestion I received on this forum, to avoid having three important prisoners die in custody in rapid succession.]

Fast forward to the meeting with Xambria. Alain's player was *immediately* suspicious of her, and even said, "she's probably possessed." Nonetheless I think everyone liked her. Clairette's player was empathic and everyone was supportive. The party wrangled a meeting with the uncooperative Caius Bergeron. Nobody made the connection between Bergeron's pointy fingernails and Clairette's earlier psychometric reading.

Also, the party was called in by Carlao's to take a look at the golem crime scene. They were intrigued but weren't sure what to make of it. In sessions since they've mused over what could have possibly caused the odd destruction of the golem -- but so far haven't made the connection with Leone Quital and his metal telekinesis.

Next, up the Ziggurat of Apet.

A couple of things before the ziggurat.

Metagame-wise, the party knew from the start that Asaad is a Vekeshi Mystic, but didn't know anything about the various vekeshi plots he was involved with (although at some point I took him aside for a couple minutes to speak privately, so they were able to tell something was up). Their characters were ignorant of Asaad's vekeshi affiliation at first (it helped that Asaad's player kept forgetting to use his Vekeshi encounter power, heh).

Conveniently, the party decided to redistribute the Messenger Wind feathers, and Asaad ended up with one in his possession without having to even ask for it. In an email exchange between sessions, Asaad's player and I worked out his first contact and meeting with Gale. He wanted to meet her in a Seedist temple in Stray River (where one of his contacts is an abbot there), but the wary fey saboteur sent a songbird instead and lead him through a circuitous route out of the city. When Gale expressed reservations about serving as an assassin to the Unseen Court and asked for clarification, Asaad's player seemed unsure how to respond -- perhaps fearful of making a "wrong" choice. He did say that he trusts the Old Stag's judgment, and knows no more of the desires of the Unseen Court than Gale.

The next day, the audit was announced. This was greeted with general nervousness by the group -- especially Cyrus, who had just made a deal with Cippiano. Asaad (and his player) seemed blissfully unaware of the implications of the previous night's rendevous with one of Flint's most-wanted. I forgot to have the player make Perception checks against the audit constables, though, so I figured that Gale's paranoia was sufficient to shake any tail Asaad might have had, but was enough to pique some suspicion.

The audit would pay off, even though the party hadn't done anything *really* wrong and I didn't go super hard on them -- it was one of the elements of the adventure that I think scared them most, which is saying something.

Anyway, the party went down to Bole and then Agate, without doing too much of note in either town. They stocked up on some dungeon-delving gear but didn't think too heavily on the implications of the ziggurat being set in the deep wilderness of a place called the "High Bayou," and therefore didn't think to prepare too much for that environment specifically -- and were caught a little off guard by the giant spiderweb dams. However, the party turned out to be pretty well-equipped for the journey even without any special preparations, and performed well on the skill challenge to navigate the swamp -- they did well enough that I let them get there a bit early, without any complications beyond some lost healing surges.

A few party members were hit with Distant Madness when they approached the ziggurat, which increased the tension level nicely. The party decided to go left and solved the rainbow puzzle with a little difficult, though they had the advantage of having one character who can fly at will, and another who can teleport as an encounter power. Somehow I overlooked the button that deactivates all of the barriers and raises all the bridges, which complicated things a bit.

Clairette and Alain figured out how to use the map and noted the location of the Mavisha ziggurat. In the false seal room, Clairette used Psychic History on the indentation where the false seal was, and saw some stubby dwarven fingers heaving the seal out of place while a female tiefling looked on.

Then they found the actual seal room. Since the party was so cordially suspicious of Xambria upon first meeting her, I decided I'd give them another suspect for the being that the Voice of Rot would later charge them with driving off/destroying. Xambria described the team of specialists that Caius sent as consisting of "three tiefling spellcasters and some human guards." However, in the seal room, there were only two tiefling bodies. The last tiefling, I decided, fell through the portal to the pocket of Apet just before a Gidim warbeast killed him. The party did not dare to investigate beyond the portal, so they surmised that he might have gotten away.

Also, since Clairette's vision was of a dwarves accompanying a tiefling, they were able to work out that a second team had been at the temple since the first team that Caius sent, although I think that some of the members of the party forgot this later on, which lead them to believe that Finona had to be the first team's missing tiefling.

Cyrus decided to try to repair the wards and seal as best he could. The Big Trap was sprung while he was doing that and the bodies began to rise. They also heard the trickle of water, but weren't too concerned about it. "It will take a while to flood a dungeon this big." They became a lot more concerned when they realized the water was poisonous.