ZEITGEIST Tormyr's Zeitgeist [Spoilers]
5/30/2017
We started our 5e Zeitgeist campaign with Bonds of Forced Faith. We have five players, so mayor Roland Stanfield was not played. The narration of everyone dying at the beginning went pretty well with everyone joking about the end of the campaign and moving on.
I then passed out the pregens, and let everyone take 10 minutes getting to know their characters. Everyone enjoyed the backstories and motivations for their characters. Being experienced players, they were looking for more of the standard PC class options and were surprised when they were not present.
The PCs met at the mayor's residence, informed each other of the special information they had, and dealt with the surprise events. They then decided they must head out immediately and head to Parity Lake to rescue Skyseer Rachel Lang.
The PCs arrived at the lake to find a mob led by a man calling for Skyseer's death because she is a witch that has cursed and tortured him. The PCs decided to head out on the boat to talk with Rachel Lang. Dame Melissa stepped in the boat, and as soon as it started rocking from her stepping in, a hidden troll grabbed the boat, rocked it, and pitched Dame Melissa into the lake. The leader of the mob removed her disguise to reveal herself as the witch Sister Deliria. She cursed Harkover Lee, and he forgot how to use fire magic. A second troll then pulled itself up onto the dock and hit Harkover Lee hard. A couple PCs hit Sister Deliria hard and watched in horror as several members of the mob fell over dead while Sister Deliria's wounds instantly healed up.
I have a house rule that says creatures without a swim speed who cannot breath underwater lose an additional round of air when they take damage in a round or do a strenuous activity like taking the attack action. This meant Dame Melissa was quickly in trouble as she only had 6 rounds of air to work with as she had a Constitution of 10.
Meanwhile, Harkover Lee was quickly knocked unconscious. We finished our first session with Dame Melissa underwater, Harkover Lee with 2 death saving throw failures, and Sister Deliria mocking them all...
We started our 5e Zeitgeist campaign with Bonds of Forced Faith. We have five players, so mayor Roland Stanfield was not played. The narration of everyone dying at the beginning went pretty well with everyone joking about the end of the campaign and moving on.
I then passed out the pregens, and let everyone take 10 minutes getting to know their characters. Everyone enjoyed the backstories and motivations for their characters. Being experienced players, they were looking for more of the standard PC class options and were surprised when they were not present.
The PCs met at the mayor's residence, informed each other of the special information they had, and dealt with the surprise events. They then decided they must head out immediately and head to Parity Lake to rescue Skyseer Rachel Lang.
The PCs arrived at the lake to find a mob led by a man calling for Skyseer's death because she is a witch that has cursed and tortured him. The PCs decided to head out on the boat to talk with Rachel Lang. Dame Melissa stepped in the boat, and as soon as it started rocking from her stepping in, a hidden troll grabbed the boat, rocked it, and pitched Dame Melissa into the lake. The leader of the mob removed her disguise to reveal herself as the witch Sister Deliria. She cursed Harkover Lee, and he forgot how to use fire magic. A second troll then pulled itself up onto the dock and hit Harkover Lee hard. A couple PCs hit Sister Deliria hard and watched in horror as several members of the mob fell over dead while Sister Deliria's wounds instantly healed up.
I have a house rule that says creatures without a swim speed who cannot breath underwater lose an additional round of air when they take damage in a round or do a strenuous activity like taking the attack action. This meant Dame Melissa was quickly in trouble as she only had 6 rounds of air to work with as she had a Constitution of 10.
Meanwhile, Harkover Lee was quickly knocked unconscious. We finished our first session with Dame Melissa underwater, Harkover Lee with 2 death saving throw failures, and Sister Deliria mocking them all...
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6/62017
The session started with the party mid fight with Sister Deliria and her trolls. Harkover Lee went through several rounds of receiving healing and being knocked unconscious again before someone dragged him to safety. The curse was removed, and Harkover Lee cast a burning sphere and used it to great effect against the troll on the dock that had hurt him so much.
Meanwhile, Dame Melissa managed to escape the troll's clutches and climbed it to grab a breath of air before she was pulled down underwater again. She escaped again and made her way to the shore where she could stand out of the water.
The rest of the party alternated between trying to persuade/intimidate the mob to go home. They slowly managed to get the mob to move away, but they only moved back about 50 feet and watched the fight. The trolls were eventually defeated (and the boat at the dock accidentally burned down) by Harkover Lee's burning sphere. Several PCs managed to grapple Sister Deliria and started to walk toward the water to drown her. As they got to the water, she shapechanged into a raven and almost got away, but the PCs managed to hang on. They were going to drown the witch...
The session started with the party mid fight with Sister Deliria and her trolls. Harkover Lee went through several rounds of receiving healing and being knocked unconscious again before someone dragged him to safety. The curse was removed, and Harkover Lee cast a burning sphere and used it to great effect against the troll on the dock that had hurt him so much.
Meanwhile, Dame Melissa managed to escape the troll's clutches and climbed it to grab a breath of air before she was pulled down underwater again. She escaped again and made her way to the shore where she could stand out of the water.
The rest of the party alternated between trying to persuade/intimidate the mob to go home. They slowly managed to get the mob to move away, but they only moved back about 50 feet and watched the fight. The trolls were eventually defeated (and the boat at the dock accidentally burned down) by Harkover Lee's burning sphere. Several PCs managed to grapple Sister Deliria and started to walk toward the water to drown her. As they got to the water, she shapechanged into a raven and almost got away, but the PCs managed to hang on. They were going to drown the witch...
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6/13/2017
The PCs dragged Sister Deliria in Raven form into the deep water of the lake and held her underwater. Sister Deliria failed to get free, and Harkover Lee cast a wall of force around the bird, pushing the PCs to the outside of the sphere and keeping Sister Deliria locked in a 3 foot sphere underwater. She eventually reverted to human form, struggled a bit, and ran out of air underwater as the PCs looked on. Sister Deliria was dead.
Skyseer Rachel Lang brought the boat with her acolytes in to the dock and disembarked. She tended to the wounds of King Lorcan Finn and Tomas before she delivered her prophecy instructing the PCs to attack at dawn the next day and break the curse by having someone willingly get into the witch's cauldron. Amielle spoke up and mentioned that the spell must be broken before the lunar eclipse at 11:37. Rachel Lang, realizing that the party was going to head up the mountain immediately offered a magical ward she had made for the king and his party. Everyone except Amielle placed a drop of their blood into a gourd of magically prepared milk. Rachel Lang said she would go back to her residence and pray of the gourd to maintain the protection over the party.
The party headed to Cauldron Hill to deal with The Red Contessa and break her hold over the city. Tomas reached out to pull down one of the dead people being used as a scarecrow, and a viper slid out of its body and bit him. Thankfully, he is immune to poison. As they continued up the hill, the sun had set, and Tomas used his halo to light their way. Unfortunately this attracted some wandering spirits who attacked.
After dispatching the spirits, they headed up the hill further and reached the halfway point where they stumbled upon Sister Pernicity's hut. Amiell had the only stealth roll that was not horrible, so she circled around while the rest of the group accordioned into a pile of stones and alerted the whole camp to their presence before Pernicity had a chance to give any orders to her minions. Pernicity gave orders to attack and flew up above the camp in her cauldron...
The PCs dragged Sister Deliria in Raven form into the deep water of the lake and held her underwater. Sister Deliria failed to get free, and Harkover Lee cast a wall of force around the bird, pushing the PCs to the outside of the sphere and keeping Sister Deliria locked in a 3 foot sphere underwater. She eventually reverted to human form, struggled a bit, and ran out of air underwater as the PCs looked on. Sister Deliria was dead.
Skyseer Rachel Lang brought the boat with her acolytes in to the dock and disembarked. She tended to the wounds of King Lorcan Finn and Tomas before she delivered her prophecy instructing the PCs to attack at dawn the next day and break the curse by having someone willingly get into the witch's cauldron. Amielle spoke up and mentioned that the spell must be broken before the lunar eclipse at 11:37. Rachel Lang, realizing that the party was going to head up the mountain immediately offered a magical ward she had made for the king and his party. Everyone except Amielle placed a drop of their blood into a gourd of magically prepared milk. Rachel Lang said she would go back to her residence and pray of the gourd to maintain the protection over the party.
The party headed to Cauldron Hill to deal with The Red Contessa and break her hold over the city. Tomas reached out to pull down one of the dead people being used as a scarecrow, and a viper slid out of its body and bit him. Thankfully, he is immune to poison. As they continued up the hill, the sun had set, and Tomas used his halo to light their way. Unfortunately this attracted some wandering spirits who attacked.
After dispatching the spirits, they headed up the hill further and reached the halfway point where they stumbled upon Sister Pernicity's hut. Amiell had the only stealth roll that was not horrible, so she circled around while the rest of the group accordioned into a pile of stones and alerted the whole camp to their presence before Pernicity had a chance to give any orders to her minions. Pernicity gave orders to attack and flew up above the camp in her cauldron...
6/20/2017
Most of the party had alerted Sister Pernicity and her minions to there position. After some incredibly bad initiative rolls (Tomas got 13, Amielle got 6, and everyone else got a 5). The party started feeling nervous as the pile of dead bodies rose up and dashed over to surround them. Amielle threw a well placed grenade, Harkover Lee learned that the zombies were resistant to fire and used shatter effectively, Tomas used his short term Sanctuary, and the party managed to hold off the horde of zombies and gremlins.
Near the end of the fight, Sister Pernicity hit Tomas with her scythe and almost managed to drag him off the edge of the cliff. He instead managed to grab on her cauldron. She lifted up into the air and tried to knock him off. He managed to hold on (I had a lot of bad rolls this session), and he actually pulled her out of her cauldron. She fell 40 feet to ground, and several nearby prisoners fell over dead. She then used suggestion to have Tomas land the cauldron and get out. He did so, but the spell then ended, and he got back in and flew up 15 feet. Pernicity failed to grab him as he got away.
Amielle managed to grapple Pernicity so she could drag Pernicity over and toss her off the cliff. Tomas flew in and grabbed Pernicity as well and flew over the edge of the cliff. Amielle decided to hang on to Pernicity as well. The ground was 1000 feet below. I have modified falling damage rules (which you can find in my downloads), and that fall would do 164 points of damage. Tomas looked down at the heathen Tiefling from Danor and said, out of earshot of the rest of the party, "You do understand these are acceptable losses," and let go of Pernicity. Amielle and Pernicity fell, and Tomas watched as they disappeared into the fog layer...
Most of the party had alerted Sister Pernicity and her minions to there position. After some incredibly bad initiative rolls (Tomas got 13, Amielle got 6, and everyone else got a 5). The party started feeling nervous as the pile of dead bodies rose up and dashed over to surround them. Amielle threw a well placed grenade, Harkover Lee learned that the zombies were resistant to fire and used shatter effectively, Tomas used his short term Sanctuary, and the party managed to hold off the horde of zombies and gremlins.
Near the end of the fight, Sister Pernicity hit Tomas with her scythe and almost managed to drag him off the edge of the cliff. He instead managed to grab on her cauldron. She lifted up into the air and tried to knock him off. He managed to hold on (I had a lot of bad rolls this session), and he actually pulled her out of her cauldron. She fell 40 feet to ground, and several nearby prisoners fell over dead. She then used suggestion to have Tomas land the cauldron and get out. He did so, but the spell then ended, and he got back in and flew up 15 feet. Pernicity failed to grab him as he got away.
Amielle managed to grapple Pernicity so she could drag Pernicity over and toss her off the cliff. Tomas flew in and grabbed Pernicity as well and flew over the edge of the cliff. Amielle decided to hang on to Pernicity as well. The ground was 1000 feet below. I have modified falling damage rules (which you can find in my downloads), and that fall would do 164 points of damage. Tomas looked down at the heathen Tiefling from Danor and said, out of earshot of the rest of the party, "You do understand these are acceptable losses," and let go of Pernicity. Amielle and Pernicity fell, and Tomas watched as they disappeared into the fog layer...
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gideonpepys
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Interested to see how this goes. I plan to restart my own campaign (after a two-month break) by running Bonds of Forced Faith just before we head into Diaspora.
I'll be particularly interested to see who Lorcan chooses to succeed him. He doesn't appear to have that much choice really! (Can he crown Newly arrived foreigners?!?)
I'll be particularly interested to see who Lorcan chooses to succeed him. He doesn't appear to have that much choice really! (Can he crown Newly arrived foreigners?!?)
Short answer is that the Rites of Rulership only disqualify Harkover Lee and Roland Stanfield. The adventure explains it more fully.
gideonpepys
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
That's what I thought. The problem for me would be if he bestows the crown on Amielle. I didn't mention that when the players did their history checks during Schism!
Maybe let it play out if the King Lorcann chooses Amielle, but she is killed / does not have the support of the people / removed shortly after? I haven't gotten a copy of Schism yet, so I do not know how that all plays out.
RangerWickett
Legend
The first time I ran BoFF for a group including Morrus at GenCon, the guy who was playing King Lorcan was the only person linked to the Red Contessa, so he cheerfully tossed the crown to Amielle and flung himself off the mountaintop.
