HELP! - Tonight's session - how to set up...

[Desdichado]

OK, I have a session planned for tonight, but I just got back into town late Sunday and I'm a bit on the unprepared side. Let me give a paragraph or so of background, then a paragraph or so of where I want to go, and then I'll let the best and brightest minds of ENWorld help me brainstorm exactly what to do tonight...

So, the game I run isn't really D&D. It's more like Call of Cthulhu fantasy (albeit with more capable and swashbuckly characters) in a setting that's partly Dark Sun, partly Iron Kingdoms, and partly Barsoom (the Burroughs, not the Reid version .) The charactes just took a caravan out of the big city Razina to a smaller city called Trezençe. Trezençe is based loosely on the map of Cauldron from the Shackled City adventure path, at least as a map. Almost as soon as they arrived, they were attacked by a group of thugs, whom they defeated at the end of last session. The PC's all told me (well, their players did, anyway) that they assume this was just a random mugging attempt. That's not actually true at all, but I'm OK with them thinking that if they want.

The whole point of them coming to Trezençe in the first place was to look for a guide who can take them into the nearby hill country where they can find an ancient temple or somesuch building that one character discovered while reading some mouldering Lovecraftian tome of forbidden knowledge. They can find a guide here in Trezençe without too much trouble, but he'll take them out to the backwater mining town of Bartomeu's Bluff as a staging area for the temple. And here's where I've got some vague plans that I could use some help filling out, and some discussion on what to concentrate on, and what to ignore.

• Trezençe could be an interesting town to spend some time in looking for a guide. Like I said, the map itself is based on Cauldron, but I haven't really decided on what else is in the town other than it's built in an ancient meteor crater that's partially filled up with a sludgy lake. I've kinda thought that the ancient meteor is actually some kind of alien matter; sorta like warpstone from Warhammer or something like that (which would make Trezençe a bit like Mordheim, but long after the cataclysm when it's returned more or less to normal.) However, that's not something I expect them to explore now, but I do want to make Trezençe more interesting than just "Anonymous Pit Stop A." A place they could find intriguing enough to return to someday. Not sure what else to have happen here though to make it interesting.
• Bartomeu's Bluff has a dirty little secret; it's an insular colony of folks that are turning into ratmen (i.e., skaven). The whole point was to make it a bit like a land-locked Innsmouth in most respects. I'm also not quite sure how to integrate the PCs adventure into that secret though, and I'd like some ideas. They'll probably have to stop in Bartomeu's Bluff to pick up some supplies, at least, but probably not much else unless they see something that catches their attention and makes them look twice.
• When they find the temple, it'll be using the map of that Bloody necromancer temple in the Dungeon adventure "Mad God's Key." I don't have worry about it, because we won't get all the way through it, but I'm not really sure what their actually going to find there yet either.

Just as an aside, we play on weeknights, so we only get about 4 hours max per session. Because we all get along quite well, we typically "waste" about 25-35% of our time in off-topic chatter too. So, I don't have to plan this all the way to its conclusion today, certainly, but I want to have a clearer idea of where I'm going than I do at the moment.

 

[diaglo]

you could insert a small lower level adventure like "Of Sound Mind" and make the bell out of the ancient meteor.

and instead of making them just mind numbing idiots. have the powers warp the townsfolk into rat folk.. skaven.

the temple has a cure.. or holy altar item.. which needs to be placed in the bell town instead.


or you could merge CMG's adventure... whispering woodwind. and have a cursed item.. like the flute be in the temple. or have the flute/ whatever you want to make the item into ... on the guide the party finds.

 

[Desdichado]

and instead of making them just mind numbing idiots. have the powers warp the townsfolk into rat folk.. skaven.

Heh, yeah, I guess I wasn't clear. That is exactly what I had in mind; basically Bartomeu's Bluff is Innsmouth, except that it replaces deep ones with skaven. Folks there are turning into skaven... and they likes it!

 

[Shallown]

How about the town, in some respects, is like an old western town were most people go somewhat armed and armored. Reasoning is that on occasion something crawls up from the sludgy lake that has been mutated by the metoer. Or at one time the metoer was mined and some nasty mutated people/animals/monsters still crawl up from the sewers. Not enough to make whole sale hunting them down worth it but enough that instead of carrying justa dagger around someone might carry a shortsword. The guard has a little bit more in the way of magic or alchemy stuff that would help fight the occasional horror. You can use it to increase the awarness of the city in general. they are not easily scared or intimdated by adventurers. There might be a slightly larger market for items and magical gear. There may be teams of hunters paid for by the city that sweeps the sewers.
It has a lot of potential to be toned up or down as you want. It also allows for some tougher NPC's who are not the world traveled common mercenary/adventurer.

Just an idea I can expand on later.

Also to explain the method of affording this higher level of power the meteor is used for something rare and powerful.

Later

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Perhaps the solution to the Skaven problem in Bartomeu's Bluff is in Trezençe. Gives an excuse to go back and visit the place?


Some vague rambling.

As for the weird stuff in Bartomeu's Bluff - perhaps many of the people bear the marks of the skaven transformation. Nothing too obvious - few weird patches of hair, overly pointy teeth, nocturnal habbits? At first it might seem like the place is just poor and a touch inbred? I'd imagine most of them would be horribly concerned about their condition, but too afraid to ask outsiders for help?

A good way to introduce it might be for the PCs to see something suspicious, perhaps a child with a fairly developed case of rat-itis? Normally their parents would keep them locked up while strangers are in town. However she's given them the slip and is just out playing...

Could the Bartomeu's Bluff problem be an unaturally occuring one? Perhaps some eviiil type is adding 'warpstone' to the town well at night? Only people who have fully transformed are in league with them... the rest don't understand it?

The PCs might feel strange if they stay too long?

Is there a method of reversing the change? Possibly a cleansing ritual or relic of some type?

I'd put such a thing in the hands of a Trezençe resident. Perhaps a former miner who has used the McGuffin to become rich. There's no way they're going to willingly part with it. In true lovecraftian style: It exacts an interesting price for its use? Or has unexpected additional results?

Not sure how they could find out about the McGuffin, clue in the temple?

 

[Desdichado]

Great ideas so far, folks! Keep 'em coming! I'm not going to comment on them individually, as I'm still digesting them and seeing how I can fit them in to the greater scheme of things, but I will actually use many of these already in some way or another.

 

[Desdichado]

Help! Help! I'm slipping off the first page, with only six hours to go until playtime!

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Make the town a border town. It shares a border with the Githzerai home plane of Limbo. If enough will is focused to an idea, that idea can spring into reality. It's harder to do in the town, but it is possible. Fun can happen in a grand old Cuthulu way when the players think of gold and get it. Later, they get into combat, only to realize thoughts of violence and bloodshed can be hazerdous around Limbo material....

 

[Desdichado]

Well, as an update, if anyone's interested, like I predicted, we didn't get all that far. I did set up a few hooks to keep them in Trezençe for a little while; they split up to Gather Information shortly after starting the session, and the recieved word that Ignasi, the guide they were looking for, was a bit of a drifter taking on temp work when he could, selling stuff he found out the hills otherwise, and that he had signed on for a little sewerjacking work recently. I also had the other guys see the incredibly huge and thick manhole covers that were bolted down with some serious bolts, and they were intrigued.

Turns out, to get in touch with the guide, they go talk to Anatoli, the foreman for the sewerjacks, and convince him to hire them on, and give them a rotation with Ignasi. So, they go down into the sewers, convince Ignasi that profit is to be had by all, and then (barely) decide to actually complete the job for which they were hired instead of just ditching the sewers and heading out of town. That let me attack them with four mutant bugs (represented by hormogaunt minis from WH40k; see attached image, and ignore the ones that have guns). They were pretty tough, what with the two scythe-like front limbs and the poisonbite, and the ambush strategy from the sewer tunnels, but after burning most of their action points for the level and losing a fair amount of hit points between them they prevailed. And that's about as far as we got. I was able to drop a few hints about the dark reputation the inbred and insular folks of Bartomeu's Bluff have, and a hint or two about the "Bartomeu's Bluff Look" but we've got two weeks before they can experience that first hand...