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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mikeawmids" data-source="post: 6333449" data-attributes="member: 6776411">Rise of the Runelords (Season 3 / Episode 3) – 13/03/2014 The party confront Barl Breakbones (the stone giant necromancer responsible for the attack on Fort Rannick) in his throne room. The centre of the cavern is dominated by a deep pit, which the heroes soon discover is chock full of corpses (mostly ogres). “So! You must be the meddlers who have been….” Here Barl pauses, struggling to find the right word, before lamely deciding on; “Meddling. In my plans.” Rast runs to the edge of the corpse pit and takes wing (GM Notes: I dearly hoped Gary would botch this roll and fall into the hole). Barl’s two stone giant bodyguards swat at him ineffectually as he glides towards the throne. The necromancer waves his hand lazily, conjuring an invisible wall of force between himself and the dwarven bomber. Rast collides with the magical barrier and falls out of the sky. One of the bodyguards raises its huge, stone foot to stamp on the stunned dwarf. Rast rolls out of the way, bouncing down the oversized steps. He stops himself just short of rolling straight over the edge of the corpse pit. Meanwhile, the rest of the party tackle the last handful of Kreeg ogres left on Hook Mountain. Moments after the heroes cut them down, Barl’s hands crackle with necromantic energy. He reanimates the slain ogres as lumbering zombies! Barl’s bodyguards wade into the fray, swinging their tree-trunk sized clubs in devastating arcs. Several undead ogres are knocked into the air, after shambling mindlessly into the path of these huge weapons. Grogg gets himself incapacitated and both Karrack and Ben are crippled (with two & three wounds respectively). (GM Notes: The players agreed this was easily the toughest fight thus far in the campaign. This was most due to three factors. 1: I had previously been capping wounds at 4, making it much easier to recover from injury on the subsequent soak rolls, I only realised my mistake at the start of this rotation. 2: The ogres are rolling d12+d8+3 on a standard hit and the giants were even stronger! 3: My dice were on fire tonight, around 50% of the (fighting) rolls I made exploded, adding additional d6 to the already horrific amount of damage that the opposition could deal out. The players could have retreated… but they wouldn’t have done. The combat could possibly have resulted in a TPK if Gary hadn’t played the Reinforcements adventure card when he did – see below). Things are looking pretty grim for the heroes. Asha crouches next to Grogg’s body, forcing healing potions down his throat. Ignoring their grievous injuries, Karrack and Ben struggle to hold the stone giants back. Suddenly, seven of the dwarven prisoners that the party rescued during the last session charge into the throne room. The dwarves occupy the remaining ogres, allowing the heroes to focus their attacks on the two stone giants. Karrack kills the first by driving his staff up through the roof of its mouth and into its brain. The second giant roars and sweeps its club towards the Saurian monk. Karrack channels his chi into his staff. When the two weapons meet, the giant’s club explodes, leaving the towering thug dazed. Karrack takes advantage of his opponent’s confusion to jab his staff into the giant’s eye socket! Barl Breakbones rises from his throne and joins the battle. The heroes pile into him. (GM: The players inflicted some significant damage in that first round, but Barl rolled really well on his soak rolls, leading to some frustration around the table as the necromancer shrugged off what should have been debilitating attacks). Doug plays the Villainous Monologue adventure card and Barl wastes his next turn explaining (at great length) his role in the imminent invasion of Varisa. “My master Mokmorian is gathering giants to his fortress of Jorgenfist!” he says, “The weapons being forged below this very mountain will arm his horde. Your cities will be reduced to rubble beneath their feet and your kinsmen taking as their slaves.” Eventually, after exhausting all his bennies, inflicting three wounds and one level of fatigue (tentamort venom!), Asha finishes Barl off with a 3d6 bolt of holy fire, reducing the stone giant to a pile of steaming slag. (GM Notes: The players agreed that this was easily the most challenging fight of the campaign to date. I was reasonably happy with how things went. There was a real risk of death, but nobody actually died. I designed the confrontation to be difficult, as Barl is the BBEB in this module of the AP. The group are now 50% of the way through Rise of the Runelords. I won’t deny that Savage Worlds is ‘Fun’ and ‘Furious’ (because it is!), but it’s perhaps not as Fast as advertised in the blurb. Sometimes, there are just too many modifiers on any one roll for things to run smoothly. Some players were rolling Fighting + Wild Attack + Gang up bonus + Large target modifier – Multi-Action penalty – Off-Hand penalty = too much math!!!). The heroes loot the room. Beside the throne rest three large, stone chests; each one is brimming with gold and precious stones. A note (written in giantish, which Jarkardros later translates) from Mokmorian instructs that the treasure should be used to buy the support of the local giants. “I can think of a better use for all this coin.” Grogg says, filling his pockets. “Money won’t buy you happiness.” Solaris warns him. “I don’t want to buy it,” Grogg replies, “Just rent it by the hour.” Amongst the gold, the heroes find a number of magical items; +3 damage slingshot, +1 attack/+1 damage spear, +2 damage halberd, scroll of Obscure, ring of power surge. Looting the dead, Ben Kotek claims Barl’s Belt of Exceptional Intellect (+3 smarts) – which the stone giant had been wearing as a bracelet. “Quick! Someone hand me a Sudoku!” he calls, buckling it around his waist. He solves the puzzle easily. Rast watches the ranger enviously. He wonders if Ben would consider exchanging the belt for bucket of eyeballs. (GM Notes: All of the treasure (apart from the stuff taken off Barl’s corpse) was randomly generated using the table in the Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion. I regret asking the players to roll 1d100 to see if they found something, as everyone succeeded except Andy. I should have just let everyone roll up one random item and then decide amongst themselves how to distribute them amongst the party. You can sometimes get some strange results by randomly generating loot (magical bagpipes?), but this time they got a fairly decent haul of magical weapons. Karrack claimed the spear and Asha will wear the ring, but I doubt the sling or halberd will see much use, regardless of the modifiers they impart upon fighting/damage). The heroes return to Fort Rannick with Vale’s (headless) body and Barl’s (bodiless) head (which the Black Arrows mount over their gate). The players get to enjoy some well deserved downtime. Wearing the Ring of Miner’s Fortune, Rast locates a promising vein of silver ore and uses his share of the party loot to stake a claim. He offers jobs to the dwarves rescued from the ogre clanhold and employs Silas Vekker as his foreman. Ameiko does not care for her husband’s jealous love of gold and badgers him to take her home to Sandpoint. (GM Notes: The issue of Rast’s surname came up this session, as now that Ameiko is married to him, surely it is her surname also? Ultimately, Gary decided on Sternhammer. I wonder how this will affect Jade Regent if we ever play that campaign in the future?). Karrack oversees the repairs to Skull Crossing and Solaris goes looking for elf friends with whom he can share his elf problems. Meanwhile, Ben Kotek struts around Turtleback Ferry, enjoying the sense of smug superiority that his new belt affords him. Grogg uses his share of the treasure to repair and refurbish the ‘Paradise’ riverboat, restoring the vessel to some semblance of its former splendour. He renames it the ‘Everstill’ and opens for business. He advertises for a captain and Snot the goblin applies for the job. Grogg rejects his application out of hand. The next day, construction work on the dam grinds to a halt, as ALL the goblins form a picket line along the waterfront. “We’re only goblins, what’s the worst that can happen?” they chant, waving their placards. Karrack is forced to mediate between Grogg and the goblin union. The half-orc grudgingly agrees to hire Snot on a trial basis (“If we sink and drown, you’re fired”). (GM Notes: The whole group were suspicious of Snot’s enthusiasm to become captain of the ‘Everstill’, they all thought I was planning to destroy the boat that Vic had spent so much character wealth investing in. Not so! I just wanted to keep Snot in the story and though the idea of a goblin captain was amusing. Most of the decisions I make are determined by what I think will be most amusing). After several months downtime, the heroes decide to return to Magnimar/Sandpoint. They plan to travel in style and comfort aboard the ‘Everstill’. Tempers flare when Grogg announces that he expects them to pay for their passage. The riverboat docks in Whistledown to pick up passengers & provisions. Grogg is approached by two gnomish gentleman calling themselves Stickle and Badcrumble. They claim to be huge fans and ask him to join them for dinner. Grogg is flattered and goes with them. He doesn’t come back. The next day, the rest of the group start looking for the wayward gladiator. Rast finds him unconscious in an alley, with a string of stitches around the circumference of his head. Solaris examines the drooling half-orc and opines that someone has cut open his skull! To be continued…! (GM Notes: I regret that I handled that last bit a bit clumsily. I wanted to sew the seeds of a Grogg-centric side mission later in the campaign, but for it to work, I needed a piece of Grogg’s brain. There were altogether too many opportunities for the rest of the party to get involved and interrupt what was going on, so I took Vic aside and asked his permission to narrate what happened to his character with little opportunity for the rest of the characters to intervene. Hopefully it didn’t taste too bitter going down. I’ll be giving Vic an extra benny per session until he recovers what was has been stolen).</blockquote>

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