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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BSF" data-source="post: 2087022" data-attributes="member: 13098">Well, except for the players in my Friday night game.  You will have plenty of opportunity to see what is cooked up during the game.  so you can just be on your way now, thank you.-= Give a little room for folks to mosey on past =-OK, here is the situation.  I am picking up my game from a two week lapse.  Recently I have felt like my games are moving a little too slowly and I want to liven things up.  A lot! The group is mostly 5-6th level.  The class makeup is wacky with very few core classes.  but that is mostly irrelevant, so don't sweat that.  The recent setup was that the PCs were captured by a bunch of goblins.  Mind you these are goblins with a lot of organization and many of them have fiendish bloodlines.  A few were goblin tieflings.  There was a half-fiendish goblin and even a high level Devilish goblin (Green Ronin Devilish template).  While captured, the PCs heard enough insinuations of *bad things* happening.  A tiefling human even stopped by to pick up some sort of *prize*.  The goblins abandoned the ruins they were in since they have more important plots to work on and left the PCs in a cavern slowly filling with water.  Did I mention that the PCs were manacled to a water wheel?  Yeah, they kept spinning around and holding their breath as their heads passed into the water.  All of this should seem vaguely James Bond style.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Anyway, one of the PCs had escaped and he met the replacement PC for Macbeth (Whose PC died in the session prior.)  The replacement PC had been tracking goblins that had stolen a holy relic he was supposed to be safeguarding.  With some clever use of Hero cards (Thanks Barsoomcore - for creating Hero cards, and Merak Spielman - for the word file I used to print them) and the endeavors of the uncaptured PCs, the group was saved.  They were able to discover that the goblins have stepped up their plans dealing with a nearby city, and that the tiefling human took the *prize*.  Leaving the ruins, they could see a black sailed ship rapidly sailing down river.  The Shaman's spirit familiar was able to get close enough to identify a figure on the deck of the ship that the group is reasonably sure if the tiefling human.  As it stands right now, the PCs want to warn the city and try to recover the *prize* which they believe is probably the holy relic.  This is where we left off last time.  Sorry for the long windedness getting here, but I am just trying to give you good depth of background, and perhaps a decent read.  The campaign world has steampunk elements and it is time for me to introduce them.  For the next session(s) I plan on using material from Bastion's Airships, FFG's Sorcery and Steam, EN Publishing's Steam and Steel, and finally Adamant's Hot Pursuit.  (Again, thanks Barsoomcore!)  The next session is going to start off with a Chase.  The PC's are going to crest a hill to where they can see the city they want to warn.  A bit beyond the hill, they will also see a zeppelin.  If they have outrageous spot checks (And this group sometimes hits Spot in the 30's) they might see the smaller dragonfly flyers making a supply run to a nearby (friendly) wizard's tower.  That's when the 20 worgs with goblin riders will show up.  The chase will be on to see if the PCs can make it to the city and warn them about the goblins.  After that, I am hoping they get the bright idea to try to enlist the aid of the zeppelin to catch up to the black sailed ship.  Thie ship has been sailing at 6-8 knots for 3 days at this point, so the PCs have a lot of catching up to do.  But that's OK because it is a long way downriver before the ship hits the open sea.  The zeppelin does not use the rules from Airships.  This is where it gets amusing (at least for me.)  I am modelling the zeppelin and crew off Dola's Pirates from Castle in the Sky.  Oh yeah, they are goblins.  Neutralish/goodish goblins that have no ties to the fiendish goblin clans in the area.  I have already established that not all goblins are evil, so this isn't a big surprise.  But the zeppelin captain is a goblin matriarch.  Probably an 8-10th level rogue that will help the PCs if they can make her a good business offer.  Any ideas on how I can flesh out the zeppelin and crew?  I want them to be slightly comical, but competent.  The zeppelin is steampunk so there should be amusing bits with the machinery and keeping the whole thing flying well.  But in the end, it can get the PCs to the black sailed ship.  Now the ship is another piece of work.  It is running in stealth mode right now since the captain (tiefling human) doesn't want to attract any additional attention.  She is taking the holy relic back to her boss.  Her first priority will be to get to the ocean.  If I have calculated my distances & speed correctly, the zeppelin should catch up to the ship around the same time they hit the ocean.  There will be a brief layover in the port city there.  The PCs may try to get to the ship during this time, but that is problematic.  With flying ships in the game, the city there is very protective of airspace.  Dola won't go near the city because she doesn't have legitimate cargo and doesn't want to fight the defenses.  So it is likely that the PCs will have to wait until the ship leaves.  Once the ship gets a significant distance from the city, out on the ocean, the tiefling will finally drop all pretense and activate the vampiric engine on board.  Yep, the black sailed ship uses material from Airships.  Since the ship will soon move much faster than the zeppelin, the PCs will need to make their assault soon.  Since the PCs don't have fly spells, I imagine they will get assistance from the dragonfly's to drop onto the ship.  I would like this at least.  That will make them engaged in melee on a flying ship over the ocean.  Plenty of opportunity for swashbuckling action.  Bullrushes over the railing, swinging from ropes, pitching decks, etc.  If the PCs win, then they are confronted with the quandry of the vampiric engine.  If they disable it and free the captives, they crash.  If they don't, they doom the captives to death.  I want that moral quandry and the solution is their problem, not mine.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />So a few things I would appreciate input for.  <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Is this too railroady?  I don't think it is because I am leaving a lot of places where the PCs can derail the events.  But I am trying to plan for high action and that requires a certain degree of plot.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Anyone have ideas on fleshing out the goblin matriarch modeled after Dola?  I am thinking UMD, some social skills, etc.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Ideas on fleshing out the crew and the zeppelin?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Ideas on how I can keep the combat on the flying ship high action/tension?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Anything else wacky that I ought to do?</li> </ul>Thanks!</blockquote>

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