[Jan05] Campaign reports

[francisca]

Kicking off a new campaign tomorrow night, using 1E AD&D w/ parts of Unearthed Arcana:
-weaponless/non-lethal/sudual combat rules
-spells (not cantrips)
-magic items
-expanded character race/class options (core classes only, we're not using the cavalier, barbarian, or thief-acrobat)

And it is set in pre-wars Greyhawk.

Tomorrow is char gen, mock combats (players are new to AD&D), and some world background

 

[Ghostwind]

World's Largest Dungeon (for my beginning D&D group):

The group has just made the transition from Map A into Map E. They had a lot of trouble with the fiendish darkmantles, but was able to kill the wererat easily, thanks to two key critical sneak attacks by the party rogue. They still have 3 kobolds and a krenshar as allies, thanks to the fact that the paladin pulled a really good Diplomacy roll and proudly stated they were friends of the kobolds, especially King Meepo. They closed the portal but the imp escaped after the death of his master. There have been character loses however, with party kill up to 4 including a fighter (equipped with silenced full plate and a +2 greatsword) who decided to single-handedly take on a rust monster. Several one's later and the fighter is naked with no weapons. About this time the necromancer decided to get in the act and cast burning hands. He killed the fighter and the rust monster got away. Oh well...

Return to Temple of Elemental Evil (my intermediate D&D group):

They have just finished in the moathouse. The rogue managed to put himself in the position of serving Tharizdum (and eating the fruit). He later decided he wanted to try it again. Anyone who's played this knows what happened after he ate the fruit a second time. They were at loss on their next move and went back to town before realizing that they were originally headed up to the temple ruins the first time, before taking a sidetrek to the moathouse. So far character deaths remain in single digits, but I expect that to change within the next session or two.

Taken (my advanced D&D group):

This one has been a blast over the past year. The primary characters come from a variety of worlds, including the modern one. Lady Danira (Buttercup's character) comes from a world where magic doesn't exist, Duncan is a stuntman from modern L.A., and Dexter is a college literature professor on sabattical also from the modern world. All of the characters arrived on this new world as the result of a strange storm that locals are familiar with (it has the tendency to make people and places appear and sometime disappear). When Danira first met Duncan, she was convinced he had suffered a head wound because he kept asking where the movie set or Ren Fair was. (She had started a really good story hour about this, but I can't find the thread anymore.) Well, defending a nearby fort against an army of goblins will soon make companions from strangers and the two quickly formed a kind of bond. Conversations with the locals revealed that they were 'taken' and would likely not be returning home.

Traveling to the largest city in the area allowed them to soon find work as serving as bodyguards for the son of a duchess. The boy, Nigel, was a 14 yr old noble who was on his way to Freeport to be married. Danira and Duncan were to act as his guards while he (and his entourage of servants and teachers) sailed there. Setting sail aboard the Rumrunner, captained by a charming half-orc giant of a man named Kruge, they managed to avoid capture when attacked by twin slaver vessels only to free a captive bard named Jean Luc. The next day, the stalwart Dexter was discovered on shore and joined the party on their journeys.

A brief stay in the port city of Parma resulted in many adventures including attempted assassinations, a rescue mission, a male bard caught in drag, Danira obtaining a flaming burst dagger, and the acquisitions of new party members. Once out to sea, Jean Luc began to fall ill from some kind of disease and grew weaker by the day. Tragedy struck when the group, facing a hurricane, see an asteroid explode high in the atmosphere and fall to earth creating a massive tidal wave and other effects.

Our party put themselves and Nigel into a lifeboat and battened down for the coming storm. Miraculously, they survived only to be washed up on an island. Jean Luc was fading fast and after fulfilling a final request, Danira put a blade to his throat in a mercy kill. The party soon thought themselves to be the only one on the island and explored what they could. Two underground passages leading into the mountains were discovered with one leading to a vast underground city that had a huge pyramid among its structures. The party was split up when Danira fell victim to a teleport trap and found herself deep in the bowels of the pyramid. there she discovered that her dagger was part of a key to a much larger artifact of power. she also found that these keys were the means of awakening a long dead race known as the Arkani. In the meanwhile, the other three party members went up the pyramid steps to the top where a red glow was now visible. There they found a dias with crystalling objects much like chess pieces that went into holes in the dias. While Dexter and Duncan explored the temple searching for Danira, Nigel decided to play with the crystals and opened a portal that brought several new party members from Faerun to the temple by accident.

More adventures ensued and Danira wound up with a legendary sword of great power that combined a longsword and two daggers into a single object. Dexter also acquired a legendary staff made of strange metal. The party has since journeyed to the island interior where they have found a world filled with dinosaurs.

Now, having recently defeated a T. Rex without losing a party member, they are again faced with danger inside a new set of temple ruins. The group is in battle with a female mage of sorts while another party member is freeing a chained woman within the same room. But which one is the evil one? Only the DM knows...

Modern Horror (Horror done the Spycraft way):
This one is a bit of an experiment for me. Take FBI agents that are stuck in a dead-end department because of their reputations as screwups and mix in a bit of Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, Shadowforce Archer, and X-Files. The result? Agents who are convinced that aliens exist and are using the occult to subvert the government and ready the world for a takeover. The truth? The aliens are agents of Cthulhu who are working with evil organizations like The Hand of Glory and the Shop to do more than just take over the world. They are going to wake the Deep Ones from their long slumber.

All in all, it's been an interesting time. Now if I can get my epic group to meet more than once this year...

 

[demiurge1138]

In my IRC Eberron campaign, we've finally reached the end of the first "season" of Dungeons and Dragnet: Sharn Freelance Police. The party is the Freelance Police, a rag-tag group of private detectives authorized and aided by the Sharn City Watch, essentially serving as a dumping ground for dangerous, mysterious and other cases that the Watch doesn't want to touch.

On the second annual celebration of the Treaty of Thronehold, a warforged captain on the floating fortress Argonth went insane, killing one of her subordinate soldiers during his religious rites to the Blood of Vol. The confrontation between her and the Freelancers nearly turned violent, before she was disarmed of her new armbow. The weapon was cursed, forcing her to kill any member of the Blood she saw.

Tracing the weapon back to the shop where it was sold, the party pursued the shopkeeper, apparently held hostage by "The Artisan" deep into the belly of Sharn, where a massive pack of dire corbies nearly killed the Freelance Police. Traveling through an ancient abandoned goblin temple to the Mockery, the detectives found the Artisan, who was also the shopkeeper. A being of the Plane of War, the Artisan had been manipulating events in Sharn (such as previous cases) to draw Breland and Karrnath into war, and is close to completing his task. After offering the Police the oppurtunity to join him, the Artisan fled, leaving a Beast (bar-lgura) behind to kill them.

As the Freelance Police returned to the surface, bloody and exhausted, they emerged into a new day to see a column of smoke rising from the northeast. End of Season. I'm taking a short break before resuming at the cliffhanger, and my players are clamoring for more.

Demiurge out.

 

[Pants]

I like to keep track of campaign progress by keeping a list of the NPC's that the party has pissed off in one way or another:

In Eberron:
The party (consisting of a Changeling Rogue Sli, a Human Dragonmarked Bard Lorenzo, and an NPC Half-Elven Sorcerer Zenestro) has recently recovered the Silver Hand of Morenhoth, an old pirate lord in the Lhazaar Principalities, and decided to head for Sharn in order to sell it. They decided to trek across the Mror Holds to Krona Peak where they will take the Lightning Rail (mostly) to Sharn. Along the way, they meet up with a member of House Orien (Human Dragonmarked Psion Daren) who barely escaped the Day of Mourning but, as a result, started to manifest strange 'powers.'

Fearful of these powers, the Heads of House Orien shipped Daren off to one of the most out of the way enclaves they could find where he would continue living doing menial tasks and degrading work. Sick of being an Orien punchingbag.

The others managed to piss off a group of Valenar Warrior Elves (mostly due to Lorenzo, who sang an insulting song about elves...), which resulted in the leader elf challenging Lorenzo to a duel. The PC's, being greedy and opportunistic, decided to reap vengeance upon the elves preemptively by stealing from them. Lorenzo stalled the duel while Sli crept into the elves' quarters and pilfered all he could. Meanwhile, in an act of personal vengeance, Daren played his part in the scheme by getting the House Orien Stablemaster drunk, setting the Valenar horses free, and lighting the stables on fire.

The duel started and, surprisingly, Lorenzo nearly defeated the elf in combat (no spells, no song, only stab/thrust/parry etc.), but when he was reduced to 1 hp and he saw the smoke rising from the stables down the street, Lorenzo stepped out of the ring and conceded. The elf's victory was shortlived when he noticed that his riding horses were running loose while the stable was currently turning into an inferno. Needless to say, the group made a hasty retreat.

Afterwards, the PC's joined up with a caravan as guards. The caravan made its way under the mountains (via the Darkway, an underground highway) to the Mirror Lake. The game promptly ended because, well, everyone was tired and the game had been going for almost 5 hours.

Hopefully, next session will see them aboard the Lightning Rail at Krona Peak along with a few run-ins with some old 'friends.'

 

[Mytholder]

In Sharn City Watch, half the PCs have just completed Shadow of the Vampire's Blade rather efficiently (web the airship to the tower, storm it, and beat up the vampire even when they're all exhausted from an earlier fight with him and he's fresh and fast-healed), while the rest are investigating flying jewel thieves, a fighting arena of failed warforged, a mysterious puppet theatre ghost and the growing incidence of things falling from the upper towers. Oh, and the masked figure who's been stalking them.

In the Edge of the Unknown (Aundair University) game, it's all gone bad. The PCs were sent on a secret mission to find the headquarters of the Lord of Blades, but they've ended up crashing their airship and have no been framed by Aundairean Intelligence for theft, murder and treason. They've taken refuge with House Orien (thanks to a Favoured in House feat), who have agreed to shelter them until they can clear their name.