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MrPereira's WOTBS D&D 3.5 Campaign (SPOILERS IN THE POSTS)
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<blockquote data-quote="Mrpereira" data-source="post: 6723823" data-attributes="member: 6781484"><p><strong>Session 1</strong></p><p></p><p>Before starting the first session I gave them a brief introduction from the periode leading up to the beginning of the chapter:</p><p></p><p><strong>In the period leading up to chapter one</strong></p><p>The weeks leading up to New Year’s Eve were full of rumors and panic spreading slowly throughout the town of Gate Pass. The players decided to join the Resistance to be part of the defense of a free Gate Pass. They were joined in this by their best friends (NPC’s that would prove to be short-lived). </p><p></p><p><em>DM note: I put in these extra NPC’s for two reasons, and both worked well for me. The first was to take some of the hits from the enemy, so the players didn’t get overwhelmed by the enemies many attacks. 1st level characters don’t have that many HP after all. The second reason was to give them an even better reason to hate the invaders than just being from Gate Pass. They did kill their best friends after all. A bonus was that it gave the entire session a much grittier tone, which helped making the session more intense.</em></p><p></p><p>As luck would have it, these six green recruits were put into the same Resistance cell. They had met a few times before today, but did not know each other well (Shaith and Gallion decided that since they both lived in the elven ghetto, they knew of the other person. They were not friends or knew each other well).</p><p></p><p>At first it was mostly rumors, but they got more and more substantial leading up to the confirmation of the death of the Emperor and the declaration of the Scourge.</p><p></p><p>As the days neared the Festival of dreams, so did Ragesian army. And today the army was spotted close to the city walls. As a result most people in the resistance were asked to report to their contact. For the first time they were given a real task, they were to assist another operative by the name of Torrent. She would have more details for them at the rendezvous point.</p><p></p><p>And so the story begins… </p><p></p><p><strong>Chapter one – act one</strong></p><p><strong>December 31</strong></p><p>The group met up with Torrent, pretty much straight forward as the book proposed. They were not overly cautious, exhibiting more of an excitement to finally get a real mission.</p><p></p><p>She gave them their orders and told them that the plan was to retrieve the plans from her the contact and then help Torrent get out of town, now that it was on a lockdown. The bells tolled and they celebrated New Year’s Eve and the coming of a new year by making plans in a closed down in.</p><p></p><p><strong>January 1</strong></p><p>Suddenly they heard the sounds of loud explosives, louder than the pyrotechnics should have sounded. In short lull between the explosions they detected some sounds from the top floor of the inn. As the PCs got up and readied for action all hell broke loose around them. Some darkclad characters came down from the first floor while the door to the alley was kicked in. In the split second it took to realise this a bomb fell on the inn blasting everyone from their feet and setting the inn on fire.</p><p></p><p>The players managed to fight their way out of the inn, but not before losing all three of their friends. One was killed inside the inn by the mercenaries. The second was killed by a falling flaming beam in the inn. The third sacrificed himself to get the others out of the burning inn, by charging the mercenaries at the door, a valiant death. </p><p><em></em></p><p><em>DM note: I hadn’t planned on how exactly to kill the NPC’s off, but I had decided that none of them would leave Gate Pass. </em></p><p></p><p>Just as the fight was starting to get ugly the enemies were called off by a mysterious rider on a horse. They never did follow this lead or find out more about Kathor Danava.</p><p>DM note: The fire elf, fire domain wizard naturally had taken Ignan as one of his languages, so he got to know what the armbands said. I am sure he had expected something else <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>I played out the trek through the burning city as storytelling with the option of acting on what they heard. They experienced the flight of the dragon, which gave them quite a scare. They were very relieved that they did not have to fight that one. </p><p></p><p>They decided to help the wounded family, but passed the burning building without helping out. They had the distinct feeling that they were on the clock, and that every minute counted. It was a nice dilemma they put themselves in. They did not like the feeling of letting helpless people die, but decided that their mission held top priority. </p><p></p><p><em>DM note: I decided to be the evil DM and have the wealthy merchant be annoying and insisting wasting valuable time in their eyes.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Chapter one – act two</strong></p><p><strong>January 1 continued</strong></p><p>On the way to the depository tower I threw in the fallen angel encounter, again to make them feel the time pressure.</p><p></p><p>They arrived at the depository tower and got inside without any hassle. Here they met Rivereye, who was acting quite strange. They caught on pretty fast and realized that it was not a gnome, but an elf in disguise. The elf ran off and tried to escape the tower, while getting help from an ally that surprised the players – the Lantern archon. </p><p></p><p>It was clear that they were surprised to be good guys fighting an angel. It didn’t stop them from trying to kill it though. In the end their attempt failed and the Archon got away. Larions escape attempt was also in vain, and his death turned out a bit gruesome. He was leaping from the tower when Galion’s arrow killed him resulting in him not being able to pass the fence, but instead ending up skewered on the spikes.</p><p></p><p>The PCs had a minor controversy with the guards of the tower after their fight. They did not take it well, that they suddenly were accused of being in the wrong. They also felt a need to follow the archon, who of course got away clean this way. The controversy ended with a Shaith trying to stare down the half-orc sergeant. Shaith won the stare-off, but ended on the floor with a bloody nose for his pride.</p><p></p><p>The guards finally manged to find the real Rivereye and the players were cleared of charges with no apologies from the guards, much the annoyance of the PCs, especially Shaith. Luckily Rivereye had overheard the elves and the Archons speaking and knew they had a contact that Gabal’s school.</p><p></p><p>They decided that whoever was there would be warned by the archon, so they would not be able to surprise anyone, and since they had spent their resources, Torrent led them to a Safe House. Shaith being a bit riled up already did not take it well when the bard played her dark and depressing tunes, resulting in the PCs leaving a bad impression on Buron Watcher. They did at least manage to save the Half-orc woman from a beating.</p><p></p><p>After a short rest they travelled to Gabal’s school. The streets were oddly calm and quiet after bombardment the previous evening, giving them a somewhat eerie feeling. They were pretty impressed by how Diogenes managed to turn the mood of the crowd with his smoothtalking</p><p></p><p><em>DM note: I was actually pretty impressed with how well this went. I had not expected them to wait for the following day, so I hadn’t really prepared anything. The good thing was that the scene gave Diogenes a lot of personality and will be a NPC they will remember.</em></p><p></p><p>Diogenes recognized Shaith as being from the school and let the group in. He asked them what their business was, since he only knew Shaith. They told him that they were looking for Shealis and that she was a potential spy. Diogenes offered his help without further ado. He took them to the kitchen and got them some food and wine while they planned on how to confront her – all for no reason as they found out when putting the plan into motion, she had left last night. </p><p></p><p>The only lead they had left was the other elves that Rivereye had mentioned. This meant spending some money and gathering information in the elven Ghetto. It did not hurt them that two of the PCs were residents in the area.</p><p></p><p>After some time they managed to localize the hideout of the elves. While casing out the place and realizing that there were no doors, they were suddenly approached by a voice from an invisible source, who offered a deal with the players. The voice would help them get inside and retrieve the case, IF it was given the case afterwards. The players declined of course. But the voice was insistent: “I didn’t say anything about the items inside the case. If you can get them out of there, you can keep them. I just want the case…”. After a moments discussion they accepted the deal. A minute later a little girl went past them speaking to some sort of guiding spirit. The spirit – the Imp – of course had the girl trigger the trap. </p><p></p><p><em>DM-Note: Watching the faces of the players as they felt that their deal just cost an elven girl equivalent of a 7-year old girl her life was a highlight of the evening. Shaith did check on her before going in, and was a bit relived to find she wasn’t dead. Later I must admit I am regretting that I didn’t change the poison and let her be dead, so the consequences of making blind deals were felt. Oh well – she got to live <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></em> </p><p></p><p>The Imp revealed itself as they were getting ready to go in. Rejoicing over its masterful plan and how it handled getting inside the house without getting any of them in danger. </p><p></p><p><em>DM-Note: I had the Imp acting very polite and courteous towards the group at all times, which really riled them. And, of course, I had the Imp virtually jumping on the sore spots for the players for the rest of the encounter, by making lots of triumphant remarks on how wonderful a deal this was. He emphasized a lot how well they complemented each other, and his triumphant comments on getting to kill and angel on top of it all, really made it tough for the players. It was evil, I know – but hey, so was the Imp <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite6" alt=":cool:" title="Cool :cool:" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":cool:" />. </em></p><p></p><p>The party entered the house and fought the badgers, the archon and the Shahalesti soldiers. At the end of the fight Shealis came down the stairs to investigate the commotion. She saw the players and cast her fireball. Galion retaliated by hurting her badly with a well-placed arrow, almost killing her in one blow. She panicked and fled upstairs and out through the chimney, only later realizing that she had placed the case on a table in the house. </p><p><em></em></p><p><em>DM Note: I decided to take a little chance here, by letting Shealis being in the house. In most cases she would be able to kill off the party easily. I decided that she would try to kill them with her fireball, but also that she would run is she got hurt. She was a spy after all with important intelligence. The reason I dared let her use a fireball was that the doors would give them a big bonus to the saves, and that both the imp and Shaith had fire resistance. It turned out well, the dice rolled pretty low, so they hardly got any damage from it. I plan on letting her reappear in the story at some later point as part of the Shahalesti contingent.</em></p><p></p><p>It took some time, but they managed to crack open the case and retrieve the documents. The Imp was grateful and thanked them for a very good deal and teamwork, and then went off on his own.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: It was actually quite a fun discussion in the group afterwards. They were reflecting about making a deal with a devil and realizing that at no point did it cheat them, betray them or backstab them. It was actually completely honest and made them a very good deal. What made it worse for them was that they had considered cheating, betraying and backstabbing the Imp at several points throughout the encounter. Ultimately what stayed their hands was that they doubted if they could win. It was fun watching them realize that the devil was more trustworthy than they were <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /></em></p><p></p><p>Having finally gotten their hands on the plans it was time to leave the town, but how? In the end they decided to put their faith in Councilman Menash. </p><p></p><p><em>DM note: On the road there I had them play out the encounter with the mercenaries and Rantle. I did tweak it a bit, so they actually just attacked them in an alley instead of trying to lure them down an alley. They were very skeptical about Rantle at first, but then decided to believe him and never opened the scroll for Katrina.</em></p><p></p><p>At Councilman Menash’ house they had to wait a little while as he was at a council meeting. They had time to look over his motley collection of items, not really feeling sure what to think. When the councilman returned he was more than happy to help, and offered to show off his items to them. They decided to decline, they told him that time was of the essence. He was of course very disappointed. </p><p></p><p>He gave the party a letter of introduction for Captain Herreman and we concluded the session at this point and the party leveled up.</p><p></p><p><em>DM note: At the end of the session Killian remarked the following: They had fought an angel, made a deal with a devil, survived a big red dragon and had a fireball cast on them quite an eventful day for a party of first level characters. </em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mrpereira, post: 6723823, member: 6781484"] [B]Session 1[/B] Before starting the first session I gave them a brief introduction from the periode leading up to the beginning of the chapter: [B]In the period leading up to chapter one[/B] The weeks leading up to New Year’s Eve were full of rumors and panic spreading slowly throughout the town of Gate Pass. The players decided to join the Resistance to be part of the defense of a free Gate Pass. They were joined in this by their best friends (NPC’s that would prove to be short-lived). [I]DM note: I put in these extra NPC’s for two reasons, and both worked well for me. The first was to take some of the hits from the enemy, so the players didn’t get overwhelmed by the enemies many attacks. 1st level characters don’t have that many HP after all. The second reason was to give them an even better reason to hate the invaders than just being from Gate Pass. They did kill their best friends after all. A bonus was that it gave the entire session a much grittier tone, which helped making the session more intense.[/I] As luck would have it, these six green recruits were put into the same Resistance cell. They had met a few times before today, but did not know each other well (Shaith and Gallion decided that since they both lived in the elven ghetto, they knew of the other person. They were not friends or knew each other well). At first it was mostly rumors, but they got more and more substantial leading up to the confirmation of the death of the Emperor and the declaration of the Scourge. As the days neared the Festival of dreams, so did Ragesian army. And today the army was spotted close to the city walls. As a result most people in the resistance were asked to report to their contact. For the first time they were given a real task, they were to assist another operative by the name of Torrent. She would have more details for them at the rendezvous point. And so the story begins… [B]Chapter one – act one December 31[/B] The group met up with Torrent, pretty much straight forward as the book proposed. They were not overly cautious, exhibiting more of an excitement to finally get a real mission. She gave them their orders and told them that the plan was to retrieve the plans from her the contact and then help Torrent get out of town, now that it was on a lockdown. The bells tolled and they celebrated New Year’s Eve and the coming of a new year by making plans in a closed down in. [B]January 1[/B] Suddenly they heard the sounds of loud explosives, louder than the pyrotechnics should have sounded. In short lull between the explosions they detected some sounds from the top floor of the inn. As the PCs got up and readied for action all hell broke loose around them. Some darkclad characters came down from the first floor while the door to the alley was kicked in. In the split second it took to realise this a bomb fell on the inn blasting everyone from their feet and setting the inn on fire. The players managed to fight their way out of the inn, but not before losing all three of their friends. One was killed inside the inn by the mercenaries. The second was killed by a falling flaming beam in the inn. The third sacrificed himself to get the others out of the burning inn, by charging the mercenaries at the door, a valiant death. [I] DM note: I hadn’t planned on how exactly to kill the NPC’s off, but I had decided that none of them would leave Gate Pass. [/I] Just as the fight was starting to get ugly the enemies were called off by a mysterious rider on a horse. They never did follow this lead or find out more about Kathor Danava. DM note: The fire elf, fire domain wizard naturally had taken Ignan as one of his languages, so he got to know what the armbands said. I am sure he had expected something else :) I played out the trek through the burning city as storytelling with the option of acting on what they heard. They experienced the flight of the dragon, which gave them quite a scare. They were very relieved that they did not have to fight that one. They decided to help the wounded family, but passed the burning building without helping out. They had the distinct feeling that they were on the clock, and that every minute counted. It was a nice dilemma they put themselves in. They did not like the feeling of letting helpless people die, but decided that their mission held top priority. [I]DM note: I decided to be the evil DM and have the wealthy merchant be annoying and insisting wasting valuable time in their eyes.[/I] [B]Chapter one – act two[/B] [B]January 1 continued[/B] On the way to the depository tower I threw in the fallen angel encounter, again to make them feel the time pressure. They arrived at the depository tower and got inside without any hassle. Here they met Rivereye, who was acting quite strange. They caught on pretty fast and realized that it was not a gnome, but an elf in disguise. The elf ran off and tried to escape the tower, while getting help from an ally that surprised the players – the Lantern archon. It was clear that they were surprised to be good guys fighting an angel. It didn’t stop them from trying to kill it though. In the end their attempt failed and the Archon got away. Larions escape attempt was also in vain, and his death turned out a bit gruesome. He was leaping from the tower when Galion’s arrow killed him resulting in him not being able to pass the fence, but instead ending up skewered on the spikes. The PCs had a minor controversy with the guards of the tower after their fight. They did not take it well, that they suddenly were accused of being in the wrong. They also felt a need to follow the archon, who of course got away clean this way. The controversy ended with a Shaith trying to stare down the half-orc sergeant. Shaith won the stare-off, but ended on the floor with a bloody nose for his pride. The guards finally manged to find the real Rivereye and the players were cleared of charges with no apologies from the guards, much the annoyance of the PCs, especially Shaith. Luckily Rivereye had overheard the elves and the Archons speaking and knew they had a contact that Gabal’s school. They decided that whoever was there would be warned by the archon, so they would not be able to surprise anyone, and since they had spent their resources, Torrent led them to a Safe House. Shaith being a bit riled up already did not take it well when the bard played her dark and depressing tunes, resulting in the PCs leaving a bad impression on Buron Watcher. They did at least manage to save the Half-orc woman from a beating. After a short rest they travelled to Gabal’s school. The streets were oddly calm and quiet after bombardment the previous evening, giving them a somewhat eerie feeling. They were pretty impressed by how Diogenes managed to turn the mood of the crowd with his smoothtalking [I]DM note: I was actually pretty impressed with how well this went. I had not expected them to wait for the following day, so I hadn’t really prepared anything. The good thing was that the scene gave Diogenes a lot of personality and will be a NPC they will remember.[/I] Diogenes recognized Shaith as being from the school and let the group in. He asked them what their business was, since he only knew Shaith. They told him that they were looking for Shealis and that she was a potential spy. Diogenes offered his help without further ado. He took them to the kitchen and got them some food and wine while they planned on how to confront her – all for no reason as they found out when putting the plan into motion, she had left last night. The only lead they had left was the other elves that Rivereye had mentioned. This meant spending some money and gathering information in the elven Ghetto. It did not hurt them that two of the PCs were residents in the area. After some time they managed to localize the hideout of the elves. While casing out the place and realizing that there were no doors, they were suddenly approached by a voice from an invisible source, who offered a deal with the players. The voice would help them get inside and retrieve the case, IF it was given the case afterwards. The players declined of course. But the voice was insistent: “I didn’t say anything about the items inside the case. If you can get them out of there, you can keep them. I just want the case…”. After a moments discussion they accepted the deal. A minute later a little girl went past them speaking to some sort of guiding spirit. The spirit – the Imp – of course had the girl trigger the trap. [I]DM-Note: Watching the faces of the players as they felt that their deal just cost an elven girl equivalent of a 7-year old girl her life was a highlight of the evening. Shaith did check on her before going in, and was a bit relived to find she wasn’t dead. Later I must admit I am regretting that I didn’t change the poison and let her be dead, so the consequences of making blind deals were felt. Oh well – she got to live :)[/I] The Imp revealed itself as they were getting ready to go in. Rejoicing over its masterful plan and how it handled getting inside the house without getting any of them in danger. [I]DM-Note: I had the Imp acting very polite and courteous towards the group at all times, which really riled them. And, of course, I had the Imp virtually jumping on the sore spots for the players for the rest of the encounter, by making lots of triumphant remarks on how wonderful a deal this was. He emphasized a lot how well they complemented each other, and his triumphant comments on getting to kill and angel on top of it all, really made it tough for the players. It was evil, I know – but hey, so was the Imp :cool:. [/I] The party entered the house and fought the badgers, the archon and the Shahalesti soldiers. At the end of the fight Shealis came down the stairs to investigate the commotion. She saw the players and cast her fireball. Galion retaliated by hurting her badly with a well-placed arrow, almost killing her in one blow. She panicked and fled upstairs and out through the chimney, only later realizing that she had placed the case on a table in the house. [I] DM Note: I decided to take a little chance here, by letting Shealis being in the house. In most cases she would be able to kill off the party easily. I decided that she would try to kill them with her fireball, but also that she would run is she got hurt. She was a spy after all with important intelligence. The reason I dared let her use a fireball was that the doors would give them a big bonus to the saves, and that both the imp and Shaith had fire resistance. It turned out well, the dice rolled pretty low, so they hardly got any damage from it. I plan on letting her reappear in the story at some later point as part of the Shahalesti contingent.[/I] It took some time, but they managed to crack open the case and retrieve the documents. The Imp was grateful and thanked them for a very good deal and teamwork, and then went off on his own. [I]DM Note: It was actually quite a fun discussion in the group afterwards. They were reflecting about making a deal with a devil and realizing that at no point did it cheat them, betray them or backstab them. It was actually completely honest and made them a very good deal. What made it worse for them was that they had considered cheating, betraying and backstabbing the Imp at several points throughout the encounter. Ultimately what stayed their hands was that they doubted if they could win. It was fun watching them realize that the devil was more trustworthy than they were :D[/I] Having finally gotten their hands on the plans it was time to leave the town, but how? In the end they decided to put their faith in Councilman Menash. [I]DM note: On the road there I had them play out the encounter with the mercenaries and Rantle. I did tweak it a bit, so they actually just attacked them in an alley instead of trying to lure them down an alley. They were very skeptical about Rantle at first, but then decided to believe him and never opened the scroll for Katrina.[/I] At Councilman Menash’ house they had to wait a little while as he was at a council meeting. They had time to look over his motley collection of items, not really feeling sure what to think. When the councilman returned he was more than happy to help, and offered to show off his items to them. They decided to decline, they told him that time was of the essence. He was of course very disappointed. He gave the party a letter of introduction for Captain Herreman and we concluded the session at this point and the party leveled up. [I]DM note: At the end of the session Killian remarked the following: They had fought an angel, made a deal with a devil, survived a big red dragon and had a fireball cast on them quite an eventful day for a party of first level characters. [/I] [/QUOTE]
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MrPereira's WOTBS D&D 3.5 Campaign (SPOILERS IN THE POSTS)
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