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Rangda's Zeitgeist Campaign (SPOILERS)
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<blockquote data-quote="rangda" data-source="post: 5974895" data-attributes="member: 86125"><p>So today the campaign proper starts as the party gets into The Island at the Axis of the World. The campaign starts with the party in Delf's office, receiving the news that they are going to be in charge of security for the gathering at the launch of the RNS Coaltongue. They receive a dossier that includes fact sheets on the VIP's attending as well as a map of the docks (should have included an itinerary for the event but I forget to make one). They do the basic prep and then dig into the skill challenge. They make short work of the skill challenge thanks to my investigation rules; 5 auto successes due to investigation skills leaves them having to only roll dice 3 times (in actuality 4 as Savanna failed a check). But they still breeze through. I had Thames show up after 2 rounds were completed, Cyrus & Carlie talked to Thames while the rest interrogated the dockers they had already rounded up. Carlie is a docker and had heard of Thames, and as it turned out Thames recognized Carlie (rolled a 19 on a “who is this docker” check). This helped get through what could have been an rough introduction and convinced Thames to help. He mentions Dafton at the same time a captured docker in a fit of defiance mentions “Well, you didn't get all of us!!! Oops, I shouldn't have said that...” This leaves the entire final turn to round up Dafton which they do, and with Thames they convince him to go along quietly. </p><p></p><p>The party pulls some strings and lets the dockers go in Thames' care, even though they technically broke the law by bringing weapons with them. This impresses Thames (and unimpresses the Bobby's) enough that he asks them to deliver his message, and after they agree he promises them that he owes a favor. The rest of the christening of the ship is uneventful other than Geoff coming over to greet the party (in my game he was saved from a kidnapping in a small introductory prologue to the campaign). They then meet Harkover and set sail. One bit here, a party member spends a bulls*** detector investigation point (the investigation side of insight) to notice that Sokana is an Eladrin). This draws the attention of the party towards Ethelyn and helps them a bit later on.</p><p></p><p>The party gets the tour of the ship; I have two technologists in the party so lots of questions are asked of the ships crew. My party is totally paranoid, they ask many (fairly specific) questions about what they should do if someone were to sabotage the boiler or try to use fire gems as explosives, etc. This gives them some good data which helps greatly solving the boiler puzzle as they had a rough idea what to do before that even started. They take the duchess for her nap, the hour rolls by and they go to summon her. Heading straight for the cabin they get there while Sokana is packing up the ritual supplies. After a couple of “just a minute” responses they start to get suspicious; just as they go to break the door down it opens. Sokana tries to stall them a bit to give Ethelyn time to get away, but Lacy has the bulls*** detector investigation skill and realizes she's stalling, Cyrus & Carlie get a high result on a secret perception check I roll and hear Ethelyn exiting the ship. Cyrus has his mechanical bear break the door down, observes her riding away with the faerie and that starts the fight music. Just before fight starts Cyrus is quick on his mental feet and tells the crewman who escorted them below decks “There is a fire in the engine room get help!”. It takes a round or two to sink in but he runs off to get people to help.</p><p></p><p>Sokana gets a good head start towards the engine room, and Ilton sneaks out of the room w/o a bed and gets the drop on Ford, bloodying him. But Cyrus uses his combination attack (both hit, so 2d12 + double stat) and that make short work of Ilton. (Ilton dropping so fast really hurt the saboteurs cause.) This forces Sokana to burn one set of fire sprites to try to slow the party down on the gun deck. Despite Sokana's head start and Fey Step, Carlie is right on her heels as Lacy missed a fire sprite and used her Docker encounter power to give Carlie about 8 free squares of movement. Sokana then manages to get a second batch of fire sprites off to go play in the fire dust storage (I had the engineers remove the fire wards). And she gets the fire wand into the boiler and the door rusted shut, but at heavy cost as Carlie catches her and two engineers in two Ignition areas (action point) using her Elemental Escalation as well. (That kills those engineers as they are unconscious in 2 fire zones /w fire gems on the floor.) This leaves 2 of the 3 (I added one) Engineers dead and Sokana bloodied and teetering. (Carlie hit all 3 2x, think it was about 40 damage to all 3 of the NPC's; ouch.) Reinforcements arrive and drop Sokana before she can rust the pressure relief valves shut. Meanwhile upstairs 3 fire sprites come out of the fire dust storage with casks and make a rush at Lacy, but two of the 3 attacks miss and Lacy is only bloodied.</p><p></p><p>This leads to the party trying to defuse the overloading boiler. Cyrus and Ford both spend Technology investigation points to fix the valves in one turn instead of two letting them open those quickly. Ford and Lacy carry two of the fire wards back to the fire dust storage while Savanna keeps one to give her resist 20 fire while she pries the rusted furnace door open. A 20+ STR check plus a shovel as a lever gives her an open door and broken shovel. With her resist 20 fire she is able to get the fire rod out without much difficulty, and Cyrus then takes the fire ward (Savanna is a Tiefling) and the two of them proceed to shovel enough gems out onto the floor before the boiler explodes. While all this is going on Carlie drags the prisoners out of the vicinity of the boiler so they don't die in all the fire gems.</p><p></p><p>The saboteurs are stopped without even interrupting the king's speech which goes on w/o a hitch. As the party comes up looking disheveled, Delf comes over to ask what is going on (having already noticed some crewman scurrying about because of Cyrus' fire alarm). The party explains, Delf's eyes go wide, and that ends the scene. I ruled that they were quick enough that the boiler was still semi-functional so the Coaltongue is able to limp back into port at greatly reduced speed (which is pawned off as intentional “to take in the sights” to the dignitaries on board.</p><p></p><p>As a reward for being so quick on their feet; the party gets to spend an all nighter with Harkover as he gores over what happened again and again, magically recording it all for later analysis. In the morning they get a bath, suitable attire from the palace staff, and breakfast with the king. A week goes by and the party is summoned to Delf's office...</p><p></p><p>There they meet Lya (whom Ford being a martial scientist knows by name), and get the puzzle. My group fiddles with it for 2 minutes or so before they figure out that you cannot do it unless you lift one of the colors in the air. They want to make a good impression so they spend an Arcana investigation point to figure out quickly that there is no solution. The meeting goes pretty much as scripted, for props I give them a map of the island with the cave entrance, exit, and fort marked, cards for the scrolls, and a vial of residium (salt in a test tube), and what they know of Lya (some of her bio).</p><p></p><p>They then get their requisition money. My game is heavily modified as far as item costs go (A L30 item costs L10 RAW); they each get 400gp requisition money. This lets them get 4 L2-L3 items and 1 L4-L6 item (so everyone gets one item). From memory Carlie takes Shimmering Robes; Ford takes armbands adding damage to basic attacks, Cyrus takes a tattoo (forget what it does), Lacy takes Plate that gives temp HP as a daily, Savanna takes a shield that gives temp HP as a daily. I'm also using inherent bonus rules (weapon/neck/armor pluses are based on character level and have nothing to do with magic items, which just give powers and properties) so the magic plate is +0 plate @L1 (but the temp HP is very useful for a defender).</p><p></p><p>They set sail on the RNS Coaltongue, pick up the primary team, and reach Axis Island. The scripted accident happens (everyone was expecting it; this part sort of annoyed my party a bit as it was so obvious that it was coming), they free Burton and head into the cavern. They manage to get in a bit of exploring the cavern before Nicolas spots them, starts raving, and the fight music starts. Yet again the dice gods hate Ford, as the Shadow Stalker picks him for its chew toy, but its attacks all miss. The fight ends up being pretty lopsided for the party, Nicolas gets a couple of good shots in with his pistol but the elementals don't do much other than die. Highlights for the party are Cyrus holding two earth elementals at bay with his pet mechanical bear (I added a 2nd earth elemental), and Carlie taking poor Nicolas from full hp to almost dead in one shot (Elemental Escalation on a fire bolt did 34 damage and his full hp + his bloodied value is 36). Had she managed the 36 in one shot I've have ruled that they wouldn't have been able to knock him out. But they did knock him and and once they woke him up they convinced him they weren't actually with Ethelyn's rebels; he tells them what he knows has happened and leads them to the surface. Burton stays behind with Nicolas, as much for Nicolas' benefit as Burton's. The party makes the trek to the fortress, detecting and skipping the trap, bypassing the patrol, and having their other-wordly experience.</p><p></p><p>The game session ends with the party at the keep...</p><p></p><p>Next game is 3 weeks out giving us all plenty of time to forget what happened (and a chance to take some of gideonpepys' advice).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rangda, post: 5974895, member: 86125"] So today the campaign proper starts as the party gets into The Island at the Axis of the World. The campaign starts with the party in Delf's office, receiving the news that they are going to be in charge of security for the gathering at the launch of the RNS Coaltongue. They receive a dossier that includes fact sheets on the VIP's attending as well as a map of the docks (should have included an itinerary for the event but I forget to make one). They do the basic prep and then dig into the skill challenge. They make short work of the skill challenge thanks to my investigation rules; 5 auto successes due to investigation skills leaves them having to only roll dice 3 times (in actuality 4 as Savanna failed a check). But they still breeze through. I had Thames show up after 2 rounds were completed, Cyrus & Carlie talked to Thames while the rest interrogated the dockers they had already rounded up. Carlie is a docker and had heard of Thames, and as it turned out Thames recognized Carlie (rolled a 19 on a “who is this docker” check). This helped get through what could have been an rough introduction and convinced Thames to help. He mentions Dafton at the same time a captured docker in a fit of defiance mentions “Well, you didn't get all of us!!! Oops, I shouldn't have said that...” This leaves the entire final turn to round up Dafton which they do, and with Thames they convince him to go along quietly. The party pulls some strings and lets the dockers go in Thames' care, even though they technically broke the law by bringing weapons with them. This impresses Thames (and unimpresses the Bobby's) enough that he asks them to deliver his message, and after they agree he promises them that he owes a favor. The rest of the christening of the ship is uneventful other than Geoff coming over to greet the party (in my game he was saved from a kidnapping in a small introductory prologue to the campaign). They then meet Harkover and set sail. One bit here, a party member spends a bulls*** detector investigation point (the investigation side of insight) to notice that Sokana is an Eladrin). This draws the attention of the party towards Ethelyn and helps them a bit later on. The party gets the tour of the ship; I have two technologists in the party so lots of questions are asked of the ships crew. My party is totally paranoid, they ask many (fairly specific) questions about what they should do if someone were to sabotage the boiler or try to use fire gems as explosives, etc. This gives them some good data which helps greatly solving the boiler puzzle as they had a rough idea what to do before that even started. They take the duchess for her nap, the hour rolls by and they go to summon her. Heading straight for the cabin they get there while Sokana is packing up the ritual supplies. After a couple of “just a minute” responses they start to get suspicious; just as they go to break the door down it opens. Sokana tries to stall them a bit to give Ethelyn time to get away, but Lacy has the bulls*** detector investigation skill and realizes she's stalling, Cyrus & Carlie get a high result on a secret perception check I roll and hear Ethelyn exiting the ship. Cyrus has his mechanical bear break the door down, observes her riding away with the faerie and that starts the fight music. Just before fight starts Cyrus is quick on his mental feet and tells the crewman who escorted them below decks “There is a fire in the engine room get help!”. It takes a round or two to sink in but he runs off to get people to help. Sokana gets a good head start towards the engine room, and Ilton sneaks out of the room w/o a bed and gets the drop on Ford, bloodying him. But Cyrus uses his combination attack (both hit, so 2d12 + double stat) and that make short work of Ilton. (Ilton dropping so fast really hurt the saboteurs cause.) This forces Sokana to burn one set of fire sprites to try to slow the party down on the gun deck. Despite Sokana's head start and Fey Step, Carlie is right on her heels as Lacy missed a fire sprite and used her Docker encounter power to give Carlie about 8 free squares of movement. Sokana then manages to get a second batch of fire sprites off to go play in the fire dust storage (I had the engineers remove the fire wards). And she gets the fire wand into the boiler and the door rusted shut, but at heavy cost as Carlie catches her and two engineers in two Ignition areas (action point) using her Elemental Escalation as well. (That kills those engineers as they are unconscious in 2 fire zones /w fire gems on the floor.) This leaves 2 of the 3 (I added one) Engineers dead and Sokana bloodied and teetering. (Carlie hit all 3 2x, think it was about 40 damage to all 3 of the NPC's; ouch.) Reinforcements arrive and drop Sokana before she can rust the pressure relief valves shut. Meanwhile upstairs 3 fire sprites come out of the fire dust storage with casks and make a rush at Lacy, but two of the 3 attacks miss and Lacy is only bloodied. This leads to the party trying to defuse the overloading boiler. Cyrus and Ford both spend Technology investigation points to fix the valves in one turn instead of two letting them open those quickly. Ford and Lacy carry two of the fire wards back to the fire dust storage while Savanna keeps one to give her resist 20 fire while she pries the rusted furnace door open. A 20+ STR check plus a shovel as a lever gives her an open door and broken shovel. With her resist 20 fire she is able to get the fire rod out without much difficulty, and Cyrus then takes the fire ward (Savanna is a Tiefling) and the two of them proceed to shovel enough gems out onto the floor before the boiler explodes. While all this is going on Carlie drags the prisoners out of the vicinity of the boiler so they don't die in all the fire gems. The saboteurs are stopped without even interrupting the king's speech which goes on w/o a hitch. As the party comes up looking disheveled, Delf comes over to ask what is going on (having already noticed some crewman scurrying about because of Cyrus' fire alarm). The party explains, Delf's eyes go wide, and that ends the scene. I ruled that they were quick enough that the boiler was still semi-functional so the Coaltongue is able to limp back into port at greatly reduced speed (which is pawned off as intentional “to take in the sights” to the dignitaries on board. As a reward for being so quick on their feet; the party gets to spend an all nighter with Harkover as he gores over what happened again and again, magically recording it all for later analysis. In the morning they get a bath, suitable attire from the palace staff, and breakfast with the king. A week goes by and the party is summoned to Delf's office... There they meet Lya (whom Ford being a martial scientist knows by name), and get the puzzle. My group fiddles with it for 2 minutes or so before they figure out that you cannot do it unless you lift one of the colors in the air. They want to make a good impression so they spend an Arcana investigation point to figure out quickly that there is no solution. The meeting goes pretty much as scripted, for props I give them a map of the island with the cave entrance, exit, and fort marked, cards for the scrolls, and a vial of residium (salt in a test tube), and what they know of Lya (some of her bio). They then get their requisition money. My game is heavily modified as far as item costs go (A L30 item costs L10 RAW); they each get 400gp requisition money. This lets them get 4 L2-L3 items and 1 L4-L6 item (so everyone gets one item). From memory Carlie takes Shimmering Robes; Ford takes armbands adding damage to basic attacks, Cyrus takes a tattoo (forget what it does), Lacy takes Plate that gives temp HP as a daily, Savanna takes a shield that gives temp HP as a daily. I'm also using inherent bonus rules (weapon/neck/armor pluses are based on character level and have nothing to do with magic items, which just give powers and properties) so the magic plate is +0 plate @L1 (but the temp HP is very useful for a defender). They set sail on the RNS Coaltongue, pick up the primary team, and reach Axis Island. The scripted accident happens (everyone was expecting it; this part sort of annoyed my party a bit as it was so obvious that it was coming), they free Burton and head into the cavern. They manage to get in a bit of exploring the cavern before Nicolas spots them, starts raving, and the fight music starts. Yet again the dice gods hate Ford, as the Shadow Stalker picks him for its chew toy, but its attacks all miss. The fight ends up being pretty lopsided for the party, Nicolas gets a couple of good shots in with his pistol but the elementals don't do much other than die. Highlights for the party are Cyrus holding two earth elementals at bay with his pet mechanical bear (I added a 2nd earth elemental), and Carlie taking poor Nicolas from full hp to almost dead in one shot (Elemental Escalation on a fire bolt did 34 damage and his full hp + his bloodied value is 36). Had she managed the 36 in one shot I've have ruled that they wouldn't have been able to knock him out. But they did knock him and and once they woke him up they convinced him they weren't actually with Ethelyn's rebels; he tells them what he knows has happened and leads them to the surface. Burton stays behind with Nicolas, as much for Nicolas' benefit as Burton's. The party makes the trek to the fortress, detecting and skipping the trap, bypassing the patrol, and having their other-wordly experience. The game session ends with the party at the keep... Next game is 3 weeks out giving us all plenty of time to forget what happened (and a chance to take some of gideonpepys' advice). [/QUOTE]
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