IRON DM 2021 Tournament
- Thread starter Rune
- Start date
humble minion
Legend
Ghost Mushrooms
Rotting Utopia
Bear Necessities
Armored Lizard
Rootless Tree
Broken Angel
The Tree Of Dying
A Deathwatch adventure
Killteam Argonaut recently disappeared on a mission to assassinate Rugluk Brainboila, a powerful ork weirdboy, on an impossibly lush jungle world called Hamith. PC killteam is ordered to retrieve Argonaut and complete the mission.
One member of Argonaut is of the same chapter as a PC. This PC (Secretbearer) should be one whose chapter has a secret to hide. The Chapter issues secret orders to Secretbearer that the Argonaut Astartes (Target) must not survive lest this secret be revealed. If Secretbearer is a Blood Angel, Target may have succumbed to the Black Rage; a Space Wolf might suffer the Wulfen curse, etc (broken angel).
Hamith is entirely waterbound, and the 'ground' comprises vast drifts of overgrown floating vegetation. This vegetation is often fragile and PCs must travel light and only bear necessities because heavy PCs (jump packs, heavy weapons, terminator armour, carrying fallen comrades) risk falling through.
Rugluk's ship disintegrated upon re-entry and fell in fragments. Large pieces punched through the vegetation and sank immediately. Only small craft, rokkit-pack troops, etc landed safely. PCs in orbit can track that planetfall centred around a vast thousands-metres-tall tree drifting on the rich waters (rootless tree). Argonaut is incommunicado.
Orks swarm over Hamith. Observant PCs notice they are moving erratically and approximately towards the giant tree. PCs fighting orks will quickly have many more to fight unless they are quiet. If PCs are hard-pressed, something huge and fast will erupt from beneath the vegetation and eat some orks. Perceptive PCs see it's a giant lizardy thing, VERY perceptive PCs see it wears Eldar-crafted armor.
PCs must go to the tree. They can discover this by
PCs approaching the tree see Eldar wraithbone intertwines with living wood, now rotting with ork-fungus. It is impossible to burn all the fungus with the munitions PCs can carry, the tree is thoroughly infested. PCs must climb, fighting squigs and orks, to the Eldar outpost around which the tree was grown.
Climbing, Secretbearer PC hears a voice in his head. Hamith is a Maiden World, a long-ago-terraformed sanctuary and haven for the eldar race (rotting utopia). One warlock, Llifyr, riding a native giant water dragon (which the PCs saw earlier), guards Hamith. She mentally contacts Secretbearer and offers cooperation against Rugluk. She tells him his battle-brother (Target) accepted her offer, and might still survive.
High in the tree, in a wraithbone ampitheatre centred on a webway gate, Target fought Rugluk to a standstill and both lie near death. Rugluk's spores spawn eerie translucent fungus everywhere (ghost mushrooms), and through them his psychic ork genes taint eldar psychic circuitry and ghost warrior constructs. Fungus-encrusted wraithguard obey Rugluk's will. If left alone, Rugluk will recover.
Target is occasionally lucid and suspects Secretbearer is here to kill him, but insists he can still serve. GM should engineer a situation where Target saves Secretbearer's life, to impose a debt of honour & make deciding harder. If Secretbearer kills Target prematurely, Target will not be able to warn that Llifyr is untrustworthy, suggest the tree-toppling gambit to cleanse the ork infestation, or direct PCs to Argonaut's hidden transport.
Llifyr asks the PCs to delay the orks and Rugluk's ghost-mushroom constructs while she activates a psychic defense system she claims will wipe out the orks. She's lying, it'll wipe every mind within 50 miles. Llifyr intends to escape through the webway gate and let the mindbomb exterminate orks and Deathwatch alike. Unless warned by Target, Librarian PCs sense this with 3 turns before activation, non-psychic PCs only 1. Once they do, Llifyr will dispatch her giant armored lizard to defend her while she completes activation. If she is seriously wounded, activation aborts. She flees into the webway and closes it behind her.
PCs could simply kill Rugluk and escape, but his spores in the Eldar psychic node would spawn more Rugluks in future, armed with Eldar weaponry. To prevent this, the tree and all in it must be destroyed. Destabilisation is the best way to do this. The fungus-weakened tree has no roots, and will overturn catastrophically with sufficient lateral force, dumping orks, fungus, and wraithguard into the deep. PCs will only have light equipment (bearing necessities...), so ingenuity (and maybe Argonaut's transport) will be required.
Rotting Utopia
Bear Necessities
Armored Lizard
Rootless Tree
Broken Angel
The Tree Of Dying
A Deathwatch adventure
Killteam Argonaut recently disappeared on a mission to assassinate Rugluk Brainboila, a powerful ork weirdboy, on an impossibly lush jungle world called Hamith. PC killteam is ordered to retrieve Argonaut and complete the mission.
One member of Argonaut is of the same chapter as a PC. This PC (Secretbearer) should be one whose chapter has a secret to hide. The Chapter issues secret orders to Secretbearer that the Argonaut Astartes (Target) must not survive lest this secret be revealed. If Secretbearer is a Blood Angel, Target may have succumbed to the Black Rage; a Space Wolf might suffer the Wulfen curse, etc (broken angel).
Hamith is entirely waterbound, and the 'ground' comprises vast drifts of overgrown floating vegetation. This vegetation is often fragile and PCs must travel light and only bear necessities because heavy PCs (jump packs, heavy weapons, terminator armour, carrying fallen comrades) risk falling through.
Rugluk's ship disintegrated upon re-entry and fell in fragments. Large pieces punched through the vegetation and sank immediately. Only small craft, rokkit-pack troops, etc landed safely. PCs in orbit can track that planetfall centred around a vast thousands-metres-tall tree drifting on the rich waters (rootless tree). Argonaut is incommunicado.
Orks swarm over Hamith. Observant PCs notice they are moving erratically and approximately towards the giant tree. PCs fighting orks will quickly have many more to fight unless they are quiet. If PCs are hard-pressed, something huge and fast will erupt from beneath the vegetation and eat some orks. Perceptive PCs see it's a giant lizardy thing, VERY perceptive PCs see it wears Eldar-crafted armor.
PCs must go to the tree. They can discover this by
- follwing the orks
- a PC librarian can sense psychic activity around the tree
- discovering Argonaut's last stand, piles of spent bolt casings and dead orks around a charred hole in the vegetation mat. Large tracks lizard tracks, not ork) lead towards the tree.
PCs approaching the tree see Eldar wraithbone intertwines with living wood, now rotting with ork-fungus. It is impossible to burn all the fungus with the munitions PCs can carry, the tree is thoroughly infested. PCs must climb, fighting squigs and orks, to the Eldar outpost around which the tree was grown.
Climbing, Secretbearer PC hears a voice in his head. Hamith is a Maiden World, a long-ago-terraformed sanctuary and haven for the eldar race (rotting utopia). One warlock, Llifyr, riding a native giant water dragon (which the PCs saw earlier), guards Hamith. She mentally contacts Secretbearer and offers cooperation against Rugluk. She tells him his battle-brother (Target) accepted her offer, and might still survive.
High in the tree, in a wraithbone ampitheatre centred on a webway gate, Target fought Rugluk to a standstill and both lie near death. Rugluk's spores spawn eerie translucent fungus everywhere (ghost mushrooms), and through them his psychic ork genes taint eldar psychic circuitry and ghost warrior constructs. Fungus-encrusted wraithguard obey Rugluk's will. If left alone, Rugluk will recover.
Target is occasionally lucid and suspects Secretbearer is here to kill him, but insists he can still serve. GM should engineer a situation where Target saves Secretbearer's life, to impose a debt of honour & make deciding harder. If Secretbearer kills Target prematurely, Target will not be able to warn that Llifyr is untrustworthy, suggest the tree-toppling gambit to cleanse the ork infestation, or direct PCs to Argonaut's hidden transport.
Llifyr asks the PCs to delay the orks and Rugluk's ghost-mushroom constructs while she activates a psychic defense system she claims will wipe out the orks. She's lying, it'll wipe every mind within 50 miles. Llifyr intends to escape through the webway gate and let the mindbomb exterminate orks and Deathwatch alike. Unless warned by Target, Librarian PCs sense this with 3 turns before activation, non-psychic PCs only 1. Once they do, Llifyr will dispatch her giant armored lizard to defend her while she completes activation. If she is seriously wounded, activation aborts. She flees into the webway and closes it behind her.
PCs could simply kill Rugluk and escape, but his spores in the Eldar psychic node would spawn more Rugluks in future, armed with Eldar weaponry. To prevent this, the tree and all in it must be destroyed. Destabilisation is the best way to do this. The fungus-weakened tree has no roots, and will overturn catastrophically with sufficient lateral force, dumping orks, fungus, and wraithguard into the deep. PCs will only have light equipment (bearing necessities...), so ingenuity (and maybe Argonaut's transport) will be required.
humble minion
Legend
Yeah, i ran this one a little close...
Eyes the time
Going very heavy on the Warhammer 40K lore here, which could backfire on me big time. Lots of assumed knowledge required to understand the whole thing, and someone who's not across that setting will miss a LOT of the connections. But alae iacta est...
Edit: and AS SOON as i hit post, I immediately see a glaring typo, aaaarrrghhh...
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/they)
@humble minion Don't forget to spoilify your comments!
Wicht
Hero
Glad you got it in.
humble minion
Legend
I think the first round is always the hardest, to be honest, simply because of word count. There simply isn't space to lay out much background or describe NPCs/setting etc. By necessity, the limit pushes round 1 entries to be linear or very high-level and abstract. I hinted last year that increasing the first round word limit to 1000 might be an rules change to consider, but obviously the judges have scoffed at my feeble weakness in the face of the true mercilessness of [ominous reverberating voice] IRON DM!
This was not my first-choice entry, but I just couldn't trim the other to fit in the words available and had to reluctantly discard it. I used up 550 words in purely from setting the scene and the PCs had only just showed up. That was never going to work. Besides, the lizard didn't really fit. It was a cool idea though....
So I went with a relatively linear plot with my final entry. I suspect I will be thoroughly destroyed on 'bear necessities' - I seriously cannot BELIEVE there is no faction, vehicle, monster, or troop type in Warhammer with a name that references bears, so i had to play silly word games. Oh well.
This was not my first-choice entry, but I just couldn't trim the other to fit in the words available and had to reluctantly discard it. I used up 550 words in purely from setting the scene and the PCs had only just showed up. That was never going to work. Besides, the lizard didn't really fit. It was a cool idea though....
So I went with a relatively linear plot with my final entry. I suspect I will be thoroughly destroyed on 'bear necessities' - I seriously cannot BELIEVE there is no faction, vehicle, monster, or troop type in Warhammer with a name that references bears, so i had to play silly word games. Oh well.
Ghost Mushrooms
Rotting Utopia
Bear Necessities
Armored Lizard
Rootless Tree
Broken Angel
While the Bear God Napped
A D&D Adventure
Hook: PCs travelling through a desolate wasteland stop at Hope Gulch as it is the only settlement and water on their route
Hope Gulch is a communal ranch founded about a decade ago by an obscure sect of an inoffensive faith, who intended it to be an idyllic holy settlement. Several dozen families live there. It sits on the only reliable water for many miles.
Hope Gulch (rotting utopia) sits at the foot of a single large mountain. At the base of the mountain a spring feeds a marshy bog. The townsfolk rely on this water and fertile land to survive. A massive recently dead mulberry domiates the town (rootless tree), and like all wood, fabric, leather etc in town, it is crusted with mould, fungus, and rot.
NPCs:
Jeroab: once-charismatic sect leader, did something very bad 10 years ago, now careworn and second-guessing himself.
Oonbulp: ghost myconid king, previous inhabitant of the marsh, murdered by Jeroab
Old Thunder: huge ancient awakened dire bear, hibernating on the mountain. Knows what happened to Oonbulp
Ifrael: angel who led Jeroab's sect here. Sect fanatic. The driving force behind Oonbulp's murder.
Skaggerit: lizardfolk conquest paladin who has enslaved Ifrael (armored lizard). Simple soul who just loves tormenting angels.
When the sect first arrived at Hope Gulch, Jeroab found it inhabited by Oonbulp's myconids, with an old druid living on the mountain. Under the druid's guidance the humans and myconids lived together for a while, but resources were tight. When the druid died matters worsened. Jeroab and Ifrael decided the settlement must survive, and killed the myconids secretly, claiming to the settlers that the mushroom-people had faded with the druid's magic.
Old Thunder, on next awakening, smelt the death-spores of the myconids on Jeroab and attacked the township in a rage. Ifrael only just drove him back. Thunder retired to sleep off his wounds. Ifrael and Jeroab told the townsfolk the bear-god must be appeased. Ever since, the townsfolk leave fish and a barrel of strong mulberry hooch outside Old Thunder's cave monthly. Thunder rouses from hibernation, eats, drinks, and falls into a stupor again before waking enough to think clearly.
Ifrael was cast out by his god for his actions. In his lowest moment, Skaggerit found him, and bound him with an enchanted bridle. Skaggerit now rides Ifrael like a pony, a bloody spiked bit in Ifrael's mouth and raw spur-wounds on his sides. (broken (to the saddle) angel)
Oonbulp and his tribe are now ghosts. They cause the wild growth of fungus etc that taints the food and eats away wood and leather. Most recently, they killed the mulberry tree with a fungal infection of the roots. Jeroab is now out of the drink he uses to tranquilise Old Thunder.
When the PCs arrive, Jeroab will:
Rotting Utopia
Bear Necessities
Armored Lizard
Rootless Tree
Broken Angel
While the Bear God Napped
A D&D Adventure
Hook: PCs travelling through a desolate wasteland stop at Hope Gulch as it is the only settlement and water on their route
Hope Gulch is a communal ranch founded about a decade ago by an obscure sect of an inoffensive faith, who intended it to be an idyllic holy settlement. Several dozen families live there. It sits on the only reliable water for many miles.
Hope Gulch (rotting utopia) sits at the foot of a single large mountain. At the base of the mountain a spring feeds a marshy bog. The townsfolk rely on this water and fertile land to survive. A massive recently dead mulberry domiates the town (rootless tree), and like all wood, fabric, leather etc in town, it is crusted with mould, fungus, and rot.
NPCs:
Jeroab: once-charismatic sect leader, did something very bad 10 years ago, now careworn and second-guessing himself.
Oonbulp: ghost myconid king, previous inhabitant of the marsh, murdered by Jeroab
Old Thunder: huge ancient awakened dire bear, hibernating on the mountain. Knows what happened to Oonbulp
Ifrael: angel who led Jeroab's sect here. Sect fanatic. The driving force behind Oonbulp's murder.
Skaggerit: lizardfolk conquest paladin who has enslaved Ifrael (armored lizard). Simple soul who just loves tormenting angels.
When the sect first arrived at Hope Gulch, Jeroab found it inhabited by Oonbulp's myconids, with an old druid living on the mountain. Under the druid's guidance the humans and myconids lived together for a while, but resources were tight. When the druid died matters worsened. Jeroab and Ifrael decided the settlement must survive, and killed the myconids secretly, claiming to the settlers that the mushroom-people had faded with the druid's magic.
Old Thunder, on next awakening, smelt the death-spores of the myconids on Jeroab and attacked the township in a rage. Ifrael only just drove him back. Thunder retired to sleep off his wounds. Ifrael and Jeroab told the townsfolk the bear-god must be appeased. Ever since, the townsfolk leave fish and a barrel of strong mulberry hooch outside Old Thunder's cave monthly. Thunder rouses from hibernation, eats, drinks, and falls into a stupor again before waking enough to think clearly.
Ifrael was cast out by his god for his actions. In his lowest moment, Skaggerit found him, and bound him with an enchanted bridle. Skaggerit now rides Ifrael like a pony, a bloody spiked bit in Ifrael's mouth and raw spur-wounds on his sides. (broken (to the saddle) angel)
Oonbulp and his tribe are now ghosts. They cause the wild growth of fungus etc that taints the food and eats away wood and leather. Most recently, they killed the mulberry tree with a fungal infection of the roots. Jeroab is now out of the drink he uses to tranquilise Old Thunder.
When the PCs arrive, Jeroab will:
- ask them to make a ritual offering at the Bear-God's cave. This is fish dusted with fungus spores, Jeroab is experimenting with replacing the spirits with soporifics.
- ask rangers (he'll avoid druids) for advice on healing the mulberry tree. No good, it's dead. PCs who dig around its roots will find they've been eaten away by fungus
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/they)
Spoilers
For what it's worth, my knowledge of Warhammer anything, let alone 40k, is extremely limited, but I still got a good sense of what was going on. The one thing I question is what relation orks have to fungi in this setting; as it stands it kind of comes of left field.
All told though, this is a pretty cool gonzo sci-fi adventure!
All told though, this is a pretty cool gonzo sci-fi adventure!
humble minion
Legend
In warhammer (since about ~10 real-life years back) orks have been canonically asexual fungal lifeforms. They gestate beneath a toadstool, emerge full-grown and ready to fight, and when they die or are badly wounded they shed fungus spores everywhere to spawn new orks. So even if you defeat the orks in an area, unless you burn the whole place, there'll be more showing up from beneath their toadstools soon. It's GWs ... left-field but imaginative solution to the 'baby ork' moral dilemma I guess!
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