My game "session" notes (Dark Sun, Eberron, Gamma World and PoL)

[Aegeri]

Dark Sun: The Builder's Cry​

So I've been a bit lax on writing things up for a bit, but that's because I wanted to leave this until my PCs had advanced a bit further into the game. This means I can give a good explanation of what I'm trying to accomplish in this adventure and how I am wanting to design all of my DnD games going forward.

At the end of last session, the PCs had discovered there was a homicidal group of thri-kreen at the ruined city, that the elves weren't the bad guys, a group of broken builder cultists had infiltrated the caravan and that something sinister was going on here. Coming back to the caravan, rumors flew about as to the disappearance of the Nibenay inix with much of their precious metal weaponry. Thankfully for the PCs, the Thri-Kreen they killed were rapidly blamed for the heist and while some remembered seeing some Gulgian soldiers wander off - the PCs were not directly suspected.

The caravan made fast progress at this point, without much harassment from monsters and other hazards. In reality I wanted to get the game going and the PCs circumvention of the "order of things", notably by killing the ssurrans leader meant I didn't want to use the prepared encounters with them. It would feel more than a bit unfair to the players if their decision didn't have a major benefit, so they got through relatively unmolested until they ran into a group of nomadic desert merchants. Now if you recall, the PCs got themselves a host of metal weapons, many of which they won't actually be able to use fully anyway.

Aside from being a place to buy and sell equipment before something terrible happens - let's face it, I've been hinting for a long time this city is particularly nasty stuff - I wanted the PCs to acquire items that would help them. The first and most important one was the mace of disruption. Now nobody in the party uses maces much and the assassin is focused on light blades, but I wanted to temp them with this item. Firstly, it really does a lot of damage to undead and gives the party a valuable radiant option. The second was to give a very strong hint to the PCs they were going to be walking into undead central.

Mace of Disruption +2​

This ancient weapon made from some unknown creatures bone is inscribed with strange writing and glows brightly with radiant energy.
Enhancement: +2 attack rolls and damage rolls<br>
Critical: +2d10 radiant damage<br>
Property: Undead struck by this weapon gain vulnerable 5 all until the end of your next turn.<br>
Property: Whenever an undead creature is destroyed within 5 squares, you gain temporary HP equal to the enhancement bonus of this weapon.
Property: This weapon does not break when used with reckless breakage, but its powers and properties cannot be used until after a short rest.
Power (Daily * Radiant): Free Action. Use this power when you hit an undead creature with this weapon. Deal +2d10 radiant damage.

This weapon basically gives some very firm bite against undead creatures. It also is what I consider a very effective "rare" weapon. It will eventually fall behind other options, but while it is useful it is *extremely* useful. At the same time, as this game uses fixed enhancement bonuses it will hopefully remain quite handy for some time. Importantly, the radiant damage interacts with undead creatures in important ways - such as denying wraiths insubstantial and preventing certain other enemies from teleporting (as examples).

As well as the mace, the PCs also had access to a power jewel - an item that lets them get back a single level 1-3 encounter power. As I alluded to above, the merchant wasn't going to just trade these things for ceramic - he wanted metal. After some negotiation, the PCs took both the mace and the power jewel. The player of the executioner even riggered his character a bit to use the mace of disruption (over his usual metal rapier). That was good to see, because I wanted that item to be extremely tempting - even if it wasn't something any character was directly using.

And thus did they advance to the risen city, oblivious to the true danger that awaited them. At this point it's worth discussing what the initial part of the adventure is meant to do. The risen city was destroyed in a terrible cataclysm, which either annihilated its population or warped them into terrible monsters. For reasons that the PCs don't know yet, the city "sunk" underneath the sands and was wiped from the history of Athas (as such, it is not named specifically quite deliberately). Now that it is back, the true terror of the place is now known: It's former population are a huge horde of ravenous undead creatures. Each night they rise from the sands and swarm over anything foolish enough to be within the city.

This "feature" has several points: The first is to make the approach of night absolutely terrifying. As the PCs explore the city, they must keep an eye on the relentless sun. Should they be caught in the open at nightfall, they will be surrounded by a terrible horde of ever increasing undead. This means they need to consider finding shelter before night falls and explore the surface during the day. It also means they can face different encounters and creatures depending on the time of day. As an example, one tomb may be filled with sunwarped abominations and other creatures during the night, but by day they leave to wander the surface abandoning the tomb (and making it safer to explore).

The second point was to dramatically destroy the caravan, showing just how rapidly the undead could overwhelm even the strongest force. This meant the PCs "safety" line is cut off and heightens the terror/drama of the situation. Now survival days mattered and depending on their actions on the way to the caravan: Groups of survivors appear around the city. Some of whom can be valuable allies! Additionally, by showing how trivially the undead horde swept away the caravan, it shows the PCs they do NOT want to take on the undead.

Of course it is important to show this concept to the PCs and the first encounter of the city does exactly that. Surround the PCs with a non-stop stream of ever rising undead abominations - while they can clearly see the massacre around them.

As night falls, the PCs camp is broken by the presence of numerous undead...​

Initially the PCs treated this as any other encounter, grouping up a bit and trying to fight off the undead. But after a few rounds and the undead horde ever expanding, it soon became clear the situation was hopeless.

Increasingly, the undead were able to get closer and closer - surrounding the PCs. Bob in particular was caught out, due to his large size and the numerous undead hoarding him. Due to his low level, he was hit by pretty much everything and rapidly lost HP...​

A fighting retreat became the only option, even as Bob was torn to pieces by the undead and fell amongst them - shrieking as he did so. With their blood lust not yet sated, the creatures pursued the PCs to the nearest available structure: A tomb half buried within the sands.

Bob falls to the undead horde as the PCs escape off the map to flee to a nearby tomb...​

As they fled the rising horde, they found the tomb was warded and secured with thick stone doors. The doors and wards were extremely ancient, seemingly to keep things *in* instead of letting things out. None the less, some fiddling with the runes allowed the PCs entry. However this was not in itself guaranteed protection as the undead horde were soon tearing at the doors and would beat their way in given time. The PCs then fled deeper into the tomb, keeping ahead of the horde behind them and facing whatever challenges were in front of them.

I felt this was a great idea and worked out brilliantly. The PCs did not relax until they got much deeper into the tomb and even then, the horde was an ever present threat upon their minds. It also provided great impetus to get further in and quickly - because should the PCs be caught between two encounters it could have been devastating. It is worth noting that the horde is utterly unrelenting: Once they get an idea living flesh is somewhere, they go after it until they have destroyed anything alive. I like to think of them as one gigantic infinite monster, that expands and expands as you fight it - a genuine legion. More of an environmental hazard than a group of monsters and with a very similar purpose (game wise).

Eventually the PCs came to a strange room with a massive gaping face in the ceiling and a pool of water within the center. Unfortunately, the undead guardians of this room were none too happy to see these living intruders!

The zombies here actually do more damage on charging, something the PCs discovered to their horror. Burning skeletons threw fire at the PCs and the sinister shadows revealed themselves. Suffice to say, I now have my third group of players who utterly hate shadows.​

This encounter was generally handled okay, except that Alek got himself in a position where I could really have a go at him. It's worth noting that most creatures have a simple tactic: Kill the leader first, then whoever else gets in the way. The lack of caution meant the PCs needed to desperately salvage the situation for a while. It's worth noting that once up, the Ardents immensely deep healing resources quickly get everyone back on track.

Alek got a big ouch here and the executioner had to pull him out...

With the situation restored the undead quickly fell to the PCs blades. But at a terrible cost!​

With the fall of the last undead abomination, the PCs relaxed and began to move north towards the door... when there was the slightest of clicks and suddenly... A TRAP!

Now traps are a wonderful thing and allow me to take some time to explain why, even if they are a pain in the ass to design you should use traps. The first good reason is that they really break up combat and present a different challenge. For the most part, you can't attack or affect traps with powers. So this changes the tactics the PCs need to use. The second thing is that there is a puzzle element to traps that I enjoy and like inserting to them. In this case it was fairly obvious: the doors come down and the room fills with water. If the PCs force open the grate in the pool of water in the center of the room (you can see it above in the maps), they can reduce the flow. The doors are the obvious targets, so before they could be opened (unless bashed down) I put some lightning gems on them just to spice thing up. Nothing is better than water and lightning!

The second good reason for using traps is the paranoia they cause. PCs will need to advance slower and be more careful where they step. This isn't to say you should over use them, but mixing them in commonly with combat encounters - but not every one - can make life very interesting. Also bear in mind that traps are again, not something you can easily affect with powers and so provide a very different kind of challenge.

....*click*... oh oh...​

In this case, the face in the ceiling opens up and spews forth water into the room. Magic doors slam down and seal off the room while it begins to flood with water. I chose this trap for a few reasons:

1) The irony of being drowned on Athas was not to be underestimated.

2) It was more of a skill challenge than anything else, though I did also put some undead on the other side of the door (in case the PCs noticed the pressure plate on the floor and jumped over).

3) The trap is actually quite useful if the PCs don't entirely disarm it (remember they are being chased by a horde of undead trying to beat their way into the tomb from the other side)

4) Water in this module is an extremely important resource - as it provides a bonus when you rest (explain more later!).

The trap in the end managed to swirl some PCs around and fry a few with lightning, but otherwise was negotiated well. They quickly cottoned onto opening the grate to slow the water, so it wasn't quite as dangerous as it could have been in the end. The first time I used this kind of trap BTW, I also included sharks. I think the sharks make it really exciting to be frank. In hindsight, sharks are quite an essential part of this trap that was missing here. So note that down: Water Traps + Sharks = really great. Just water trap = Great, but is missing sharks.

In any event, after disarming the trap the undead on the other side were none to happy about them either. I sometimes wonder if my PCs enter every room wondering "Will we be greeted by something that IS happy to see us?". Minding when they do find something that is happy to see them, it's probably because it was very hungry and the PCs were a convenient snack that walked right into its midst.

These undead were a blockade here. The purpose of them wasn't to be a "real" encounter, but instead make the threat of the trap still an issue by blocking the doorway. If the PCs perception found the pressure plate, they could just jump over and avoid it. Hence these seemingly random undead. It's worth noting that the monk put a quick end to the corruption corpse. Turns out a stone to the head IS mightier than the biggest fullblade!​

One thing I think my PCs really enjoyed was the critical effect on the zombie undead. Basically, if they get crit they die instantly and many special effects (like death attacks) don't work either. The monks sling to the head was invaluable, taking out the corruption corpse and its powerful -5 attack aura. This mechanic though I really like and it works very well in practice, plus it happily unifies all the different zombies together mechanically.

The PCs handled them pretty easily in general, but bear in mind they are there for a specific purpose: To hold the PCs near that corridor and possibly activate the trap. Ironically, I think by activating the trap independently of drawing the undead creatures attention probably is the easier way of doing this.

The undead held the corridor for a while, but ultimately were swept aside. This is a pretty classic corridor fight as well, not something I've had in 4E for a while.​

The pressure of the horde behind them kept them going, even with the leader on 1 surge and they soon entered into another large chamber. This chamber had a huge ornate sarcophagus in the middle and seemed considerably damaged. Like elsewhere, the undead inhabitants were not happy about the PCs entering and soon attacked.

I wonder what is in the sarcophagus and OH DEAR GOD IT'S A MUMMY!​

My PCs didn't need any incentive to hate wraiths (who does?), but the mace came in handy immediately by giving the wraith vulnerability and removing its insubstantial. Unfortunately they couldn't fully capitalize due to the wraith being quite tricky and teleporting away (curse you wraiths, you win this time!). I must say that the wraiths ability to appear almost anywhere due to their teleporting ability makes players extremely paranoid. Half of one turn was focused entirely on where the wraith ended up disappearing to.

Oh and on the second turn I made things REALLY interesting by pulling out a mummy - who burst forth out of the sarcophagus. What undead desert adventure in a tomb couldn't use a mummy? I mean come on now. This was also an opportunity to see how the new MV mummies went. This guy is interesting because they have a curse that doesn't end (until the mummy is destroyed) and because when they first appear they can stun an enemy that sees them (the battlemind was the unfortunate victim of this). With a reasonably hard hitting main attack, mummies are a pretty neat monster and I will look forward to using them again!

Note that I hid the wounded wraith in the corridor (originally behind the tiefling mage. The PCs expected the wraith to be next to the leader, but I like to be surprising.​

Once the wraiths were dealt with, the PCs were able to take care of things reasonably safely and destroyed the remaining undead.

The wraith came back to attempt to kill the leader - it was a last ditch attempt I must admit by this point.​

It's worth noting that the executioner is the best class in the game to have against insubstantial undead. Due to death attack, which kills any enemy under X HP (10 in heroic) they are very efficient at killing insubstantial creatures like wraiths and (previously) shadows. Due to halving damage, insubstantial creatures are masters of lurking around on 1-5 HP. Not so with an executioner, who will guarantee killing them below 10 HP.

After dealing with the wraiths the PCs got another important item:

Moonsilver Staff +2​

Critical: +2d6 radiant damage
Property: Treat this staff as silvered (Player’s Handbook, page 220) for the purpose of implement and weapon attack powers made using it.
Property (Encounter): Free action. Trigger: You use an arcane power with this staff. All damage that the power inflicts is radiant damage, replacing any other damage types it would have previously done.
Power (Daily): Free Action. Trigger: You hit an enemy with an arcane power and deal damage to it using this staff. Effect: That enemy takes 7 extra radiant damage.

This gives the wizard a radiant option, again t help the PCs with undead but still keeping important tactical choices (you can see where I am going with these items). You'll note that the damage both the mace and this staff do isn't always radiant. I want - for the most part - the PCs to make difficult decisions as to what enemies to hit with their radiant powers. Especially as radiant damage isn't exactly easy for this party to get at-will.

At this point the PCs met a strange spirit, who unlike his fellow seems to have some of his mental faculties intact. The spirit explained that the city was destroyed in a great cataclysm and buried beneath the sands. He suspects the cities sorcerer-king Dralnu must have something to do with it. Unfortunately if the PCs wish to deal with Dralnu, they must somehow enter his inner sanctum. This is not an easy task, as it is warded using the life-force of his three most powerful templar: Ulyoth, Xelno'taph and Chattur'gha*. The PCs will have to find them and either kill them, or persuade them to aid the characters in opening the wards to confront Dralnu.

All the while other events within the city move forward....

Before ending this (really long) post though, it's worth discussing resting. Like in my other game Dark Prophecy, I've chosen to affect resting differently depending on where they do so. Resting during the day on the surface is actually the safest, but costs the players a surge penalty (due to resting in the sun) and is cumulative. Resting underground is neutral, without a penalty or bonus. Now I mentioned above that water is very important and it is for another reason. Resting where the PCs have easy access to water doesn't require using a survival day, but best of all it gives a +1 bonus to surges per day! So resting around water is *very* handy! This means locations where fresh water is are very valuable and well worth looking for.

Next week, the map of the city and making important decisions...

*Yes, this is totally an Eternal Darkness reference and unashamedly so. It's an awesome game and if you can find it, buy it, buy a Wii (or a gamecube) and play it. Highly recommended.

 

[Aegeri]

This is going to be long because I am quite a bit behind in actually doing these write ups consistently. Just been busy with other things in the dreaded real life and actually writing my games.

Eberron - Dark Prophecy​

So last time I wrote about this game, which was a really long time ago I was explaining how the PCs had "Circumvented" things a bit by managing to go possibly the most direct route possible. Well they have continued down that line quite successfully since then. The first thing that the PCs did upon getting to town was to bring the severely wounded barbarian to the Chapel of the Sovereign Host - where it's head priest Talorhan examined Haerag’s body. Keeping the barbarian overnight within the church, the PCs slept in the inn and got a well deserved extended rest, before going back the next morning to check his condition.

Talorhan unfortunately had grave news for the characters: His healing rituals and magic were ineffective at preventing the disease slowly spreading through his body. Desperate for answers the increasingly desperate priest had began consulting everything he knew about magical diseases and curses, until he found an account of a rare flower used in powerful curative rituals. Extremely rare and very valuable for its healing properties, the Vaalian flower grows at the base of mountains within Eberron. He realized that he had actually seen one of these flowers in the past, having had it bought to him by a friend of his one day as a symbol of good luck. While he didn’t have that flower anymore, he knew where his friend who was an avid hunter had got it: The forested area north of the town near the Last War memorial right at the foot of the mountain range. Whatever the PCs choice however, Talorhan made it clear they had only until that night to make it as Haerag would not last much longer.

At this point there was some debate about saving the barbarian, particularly because whatever started all this devastation must be out there still. Certain members of the party were keen to go and try killing the creature before it could do more harm than going flower picking. Eventually this was all sorted out and the party headed towards the hunting grounds to find the flower Talorhan wanted.

When I last wrote about this game, I spent a bit of time explaining how the areas would change over time and react to what my players were doing. Here the PCs found another example, a deranged man and his dead companions within the hunting grounds. These are the mercenaries that I mentioned early after the PCs entered Stonehelm. If the PCs had gone looking for them first, they would actually have found some of them still alive and gibbering wildly about some “unkillable” horror in the forest. Due to the fact they’ve had an entire extra day alone in the woods, any hope of survival has passed and the last mercenary is just undergoing the final steps of a terrible transformation.

Approaching carefully, the characters tried some interaction with the man but were met only with insane ramblings. Shortly after he finally lost his final grip on his own humanity, twisting horribly into a man eating monster! With this numerous other wendigo rose from the corpses of those around him and then the terrible beast itself: The wendigo came crashing into the clearing.

The man transformed into a terrible creature before their eyes, shortly before the beast that created him joined the combat in its full fury (the large yeti like creature). It's worth noting I've changed the art of the wendigo from the demonomicon picture, to fit better with the way the rest of the creatures look since this point.​

Naturally the PCs started by taking the fight to the wendigo and its servants, dazing the beast while attacking the others to down them. Overall this didn't seem like a difficult battle and the PCs soon dispatched most enemies except the wendigo itself (and a storm shard, who started quite a distance away before getting anywhere). With a strong blow, the parties rogue downed the wendigo and thus did they think the threat had ended.

Or was it over?

Here the players (and their characters) discovered that the wendigo had a very special property: He could not be killed. By killing the vile creature all they did was cause it to reanimate a short time later, both stronger and more deadly than the previous time it had been killed. In this case, the wendigo triggered its vile reanimation power, restoring to life with an additional level and gaining a new power for its efforts at the same time. This power triggers once per day, but ensures that it effectively takes the PCs two attempts to actually remove the wendigo in a given encounter. As mentioned, it also means that the wendigo becomes stronger and more deadly as it feeds off and learns from every defeat it suffers.

This "unkillable" enemy is the sort of concept that can easily backfire on you as a DM. So its design had to be carefully weighted against how often the creature would appear and how the PCs could deal with it. Mechanically the point of the resurrection mechanic was twofold: Firstly, to make the wendigo fight somewhat like a solo if required as he needs to be killed twice - theoretically giving him roughly double the HP of a normal elite. This also makes him resistant to conditions and effects, because his resurrection power removes him from play and reintroduces him without any status effects at a reasonably close location of its choosing.

The second point was to scale the wendigo with the party. As they defeat him, it grows stronger with the PCs and begins to get better powers. This helps in two ways: The first is that it means the wendigo cannot be out leveled very easily and secondly it keeps them guessing as to what it might do. By picking up new tricks the wendigo remains an interesting opponent even after the PCs have fought it several times, while still being familiar enough they can plan appropriate tactics.

Obviously the most important reason for this mechanic was story. When designing this module, I wanted the antagonist of it to be a force of nature and more of an obstacle than something that could be defeated. A creature like the wendigo, which can't be defeated in combat has interesting connotations on the story (and gameplay as well). Firstly, avoiding or attempting to avoid killing the wendigo becomes an interesting choice instead of "CHARGE!". At the same time, killing the wendigo is not impossible because the creature does not have to vastly out level or have some means of reliably escaping an encounter.

This also meant the PCs have to find another way to defeat the creature (which I will discuss later). For now they had to get over the horror at not only failing to stop the creature, but in having to kill it again!

The players reaction to the wendigo coming back was most pleasing, a mix of horror, being generally annoyed and realizing they needed to find another solution!​

It's worth noting before continuing, that it's important to make sure such a mechanic as this is limiting and used well. The wendigo should be a source of tension and its appearance an "Oh crap" moment in the story/encounter. It's not worth throwing the beast into every encounter just to try to make it an absurd level: Instead I use it in important encounters to enhance drama or to give the PCs a difficult choice of action. Additionally, the wendigo also gains more power over time as well, adding a looming sense of dread to the PCs travels around the area. Spend too many days hiking and the Wendigo can very well become unstoppable. Of course it takes several days for the wendigo to gather power like this, but only a single combat to become more powerful: So avoiding the wendigo where possible was always a good choice for the players.

Once again the PCs fought the wendigo, attempting to prevent it from overwhelming them and it managed to down a couple them (particularly with the arrival of the chaos shard). At this point the chaos shard, a level 4 artillery monster from MM2 is well worth using in any encounter to enforce a bit of mobility. It's basic ranged attack does a middling amount of damage, but it has an incredibly strong effect: Any enemy that doesn't move at least 4 squares from its starting position on its turn takes a whopping 3d6+6 lightning damage. You can believe that gets peoples attention, because if it knocks you below zero with its ranged power the situation can quickly become very dire! The rogue was one of the first to suffer from this and in the shot below, you can see how to move a fair distance away or risk horrible death (the best kind of death of course).

The chaos shard and the resurrected wendigo really took the fight to the PCs at the end, with the chaos shards brutal movement control effect nearly killing one character!​

In the end they prevailed, but tempered this with the knowledge they they had made their opponent the stronger with their victory. This also caused a harsh reality to dawn upon the PCs as well: This wasn't something they could beat in a fight and so finding more about their opponent became imperiative. The Vaalian flower they sought became all the more meaningful than mere "Flower picking" now.

Of course the wendigo may be a force of sheer evil, but it has its long term plots and one of its servants had been dispatched to destroy the plant already. Lyrea, a child of winter who worshipped the Wendigo as a prophet of Winters inevitable destruction and then rebirth of Eberron was also seeking these flowers. In her case though, she was sending some of her wolves to destroy the remaining flowers at the hunting grounds. The PCs arrived with enough time to spare to see the Lyrea's wolves also searching for the same Vaalian flower. With Haerag's life at stake, Lyrea spent some time taunting the PCs through one of her wolves with an animal messenger like ritual and then combat began!

Lyrea's wolves arrived to destroy the last of the flowers upon her command, but had to get past the PCs in order to do it.​

Here the players met their first winter wolf, a terrible beast that can breathe blasts of intense cold in a large area. Being a level 7 skirmisher, this creature is pretty difficult to deal with and does good damage: Especially against a level 4 party. This made life quite harrowing and before long the wolves had wounded a great deal of the party!

It looks as dire a situation as it actually was. So much stuff bloodied in one small area!​

Even with their injuries the characters fought on and finally felled the rest of the wolves that Lyrea had sent. Particularly important was the dispatching of the two dire wolves, which allowed the party to focus on the winter wolf and fairly easily dispatch it. Quickly gathering the flower, the party returned to Stonehelm and Talorhan prepared the ritual to cure Haerag (who was almost dead at this point).

This scene played out a little like the exorcist, but without as much green pea soup.​

Upon attempting the ritual Talorhan found that the growing spirit within Haerag was more than willing to fight back, attempting to tear him apart even as they tried to drive it out. This resulted in a skill challenge inspired a bit by the "exorcist" movies, where the characters had to restrain the thrashing barbarian and assist in the final moments of the ritual. Upon succeeding at this everything seemed normal... until the air grew very gold and an ethereal chill descended upon the chapel.

This vile beast the PCs encountered was a spectral wendigo, not quite within this reality but within it enough to have a tangible effect.​

Due to how strong the wendigo spirit that was overtaking Haerag had become, the ritual did not destroy it and instead drove it out. Taking a tangible form and still feeding off the residual psychic energy of its victim, the vile spirit animated a pair of shadows to attack the PCs! In this combat, I pictures the shadows not so much as undead creatures, but as spectral images that the dreamcatcher made to assault the PCs minds. At the time, I really should have made their attacks psychic and flavored them a bit more like that instead of the strict shadow stat block I did use. It was still an effective image and this combat proved quite difficult.

The vile beast started by imposing an encounter length effect called waking nightmare upon Ryske. This power causes the victim to basically have terrible hallucinations constantly, reducing their ability to fight (attack penalty) and increasing vulnerability to psychic damage.​

The shadows soon accosted the weaker members of the party, melding with different PCs to improve their defenses and gain a substantial bonus to their damage. This soon resulted in several PCs getting badly wounded and some fell to the cold marble floor of the chapel!

Ryske and Andraos fell to the abominations attacks in combination with its shadowy servants. The battle started to look rather desperate!​

The dual leaders of the party soon got them back on their feet, but the shadows insubstantial quality plus the dreamcatchers heavy damage attacks kept them at bay. Most of the party had penalties at this point or were firmly bloodied, only Tybalt who was standing further back with his ranged weapon escaped most damage.

Ying-Ling is moved into position tactically to provide his defense bonus aura to Andraos and Ryske to stop the onslaught.​

Eventually the PCs managed to destroy the terrible abomination and send it back to the spirit world. Its shadowy servants were able to put up a fight for a time, but inevitably the characters were victorious - if very battered and bruised.

Undead like these two shadows can be a nasty surprise in a party that isn't fighting very many and hence not prepared with a lot of force/radiant attacks.​

With the final dispatching of this foul beast Haerag began to recover, although he was still unconscious and the characters decided to retire for the night (a level higher than before as well - it felt rather appropriate to get level 5 after this battle).

Storywise, this was an important event because it ensured that the PCs obtained a really important NPC (more on why in future) and have the most direct information on their opponent possible. Even with this important victory, their contact with the dreamcatcher ensured a less than ideal sleep and full awareness of just how formidable their enemy really was...

 

[Aegeri]

Dark Sun - The Builder's Cry​

With the city no longer crawling with undead and the harsh light of Athas' sun illuminating the world once more, the PCs could now make up their minds about where to head in the city first. Consulting their map - well at the time my description of the map anyway as I hadn't quite finished it at that time - the PCs chose to head towards the great library of the city. Variya had mentioned the tome she gave the party had come from there and they hoped to learn more about the destruction of the city.

But first thing was first: The caravan had been destroyed not too far from where they had arrived. Going back for the caravans supplies would be essential if they were going to continue surviving within the city for a long period of time. Upon arriving at the caravan, the characters saw that another group of little monsters had beat them there: Horrible twisted halflings with bulbous heads filled with twisted teeth! These cruelly sunwarped abominations crawl around the city during the day and command several vicious predatory animals (Kestrekels and Cilops' as examples) as allies.

Naturally they weren't giving up the tasty morsels on the bodies and fallen pack animals to a bunch of interlopers without a fight.

The bodies around the area of the former caravan had numerous survival days upon them, unfortunately the rotting carcasses already attracted various monsters to the scene.​

In this encounter, I had a couple of different "rules" that made life a bit more difficult for the PCs. The first is that the goal was to get the survival days, requiring different actions to pick up more (or less) with each expended action. So a minor would net you 1 survival day, a move 2 and a standard 3 survival days. All 3 together would take 5 survival days off whatever you were grabbing. To up the stakes, the monsters had extra reinforcement that would begin to trickle into the combat each round after the first - representing their allies picking over other corpses in the caravan coming to their aid. So the PCs could not just wipe the monsters out and leave in peace without a substantial fight (given that two cilops' would eventually arrive, this would be one HELL of a battle even for 6th level characters).

Zephan felt the brunt of the sunwarped wilder halflings ability to deal considerable damage when they have CA. This would not be the last time he would suffer at their hands either...​

The characters gathered some survival days at first, but focused mostly on attacking the enemies until the dreaded sounds of arriving reinforcements drew their attention.

Like most creatures when I use this mechanic, the monsters arrive having only a single action on their turn. This gives the PCs some time to react to the new arrivals presence.​

This bolstered the amount of effort spent getting survival days in a hurry - especially when a Cilops turned up on the scene! A quick poisoned strike on it from Zephan, ensured the beast wouldn't be scuttling over to the characters any time soon and they soon made a hasty exit.

The party met their first Cilops (big centipede like thing over bobs corpse) rather briefly before making a hasty retreat with numerous survival days almost weighing them down.​

The party soon retreated back to the tomb and then continued on towards the library once they regathered their thoughts. There was some debate about going back to the area and trying to get the remaining survival days, but the number of creatures there was just too much (the PCs could see the monsters from where they were - the enemies did not pursue as they had "won" the prize in their mind).

Journeying to the library took a considerable amount of time, as it was deep in the city states heart near Dralnu's Ziggurat. On the way, the PCs encountered another fallen caravan - this one somewhat older than their own - half buried within the sands. Suspicious of two large flocks of birds nearby, that seemed to almost be giving away their position the characters took a defensive position upon the rocks before investigating. Shortly after they began rifling through the caravan, the birds descended and several other enemies began to arrive! They had been followed!

The large flocks of kestrekels (the birds) lured their cannibalistic sunwarped halfling masters right to the PCs. An especially nasty surprise - that the PCs oddly circumvented rather well at first by getting onto the rocks - was the burrowing anakore...​

Zephan and Eshara got off the rocks to engage the halflings down on the ground, while the rest of the party contended with the mass of squawking birds up high. This created an interesting "3D" combat, with two distinct battles happening on the sandy ground and the desperate battle against the swarms above.

Most of the party contended with the Kestrekels up on the rocks while Zephan and Eshara fought a desperate battle on the sands below.​

Zephan soon bore the brunt of a brutal critical hit from one of the sunwarped wilden's assaulting his mind. This left him rather bloodied and even after finishing the beast off, it paved the way for the creatures anakore ally waiting in ambush to rush in on the offensive! Eshara pulled the beast out from the sand exposing it to the sunlight, imposing a penalty to its attacks as it recoiled from athas' sun and then Zephan brutally stabbed the beast in the back - bloodying it. On its next turn I was then left with a very interesting choice.

The creature had a -2 penalty from its sunlight aversion and a potential -2 penalty from a mark. Attacking Eshara would give only a -2 penalty, but the Anakore would get only a single attack. On the other hand, taking the -4 penalty (and potentially a mind spike) it could attack the executioner who was bloodied twice. This was a difficult decision, but ultimately two attacks and the feeling the creature would want to strike back against the target who inflicted the most damage made me choose Zephan.

Bearing in mind the power only targeted bloodied enemies with its two attacks and that Zephan was already damaged, the Anakore struck with considerable fury! What fury it was! The first attack tore into the executioner and did a considerable amount of damage, dropping him to the sand with a terrible blow. Eshara followed that up with a mind spike, but it was not sufficient to down the Anakore. The Anakore then took its second attack - unfortunately this had to be targeted at the downed PC and not the battlemind because the power only targets bloodied enemies - getting a critical hit (of course). This meant the assassin was dead!

Zephan fell to the terrible claws of the anakore, despite Eshara's best attempts and the rest of the party began to run into some trouble with the circling Kestrekels!​

Fighting hard, with numerous characters becoming bloodied, they eventually downed the anakore at last, one Kestrekel flock with a fiery blast and the other began to flee from the encounter. Leaving only one of the halfling wilder's left to hold the battlefield.

The wilder soon saw the PCs bloody revenge for their fallen comrade.​

At this point the discussion on resurrection in Dark Sun reoccurred. If you remember back, I actually killed Initiate (the Pyromancer) at the start of the game near the exit to the arena. Oddly enough that was a crit on a downed PC - I must say maptools has quite a considerable amount of bloodlust on this issue. Normally in Dark Sun, I don't allow the raise dead and resurrection rituals to work without some effort. In this case, I hinted to the PCs that the silt oasis might be able to return a character to life (I haven't explained why yet - so I will leave the explanation as to why this is for another day). Inevitably the player decided to remake a new character, trying out the Gloomblade hexblade build from Heroes of Shadow.

None the less, while I would have made it a bit harder to get raised from the dead to suit the setting: I don't feel making it impossible would have been particularly interesting (especially because getting raised would be an interesting side quest in itself!). In any event I feel putting the decision in the players hands is the better deal, especially when players spend a lot of time making their characters in maptools (you need to macro lots of powers and such).

With a character down the PCs then raided the caravan for its supplies and put Zephan in the back. Thinking quite well, they chose to drag one of the caravan carts around with them, reducing some of their load even if it did turn Eshara/Ka'Cha (who began pulling it) into a bit of pack animal. Eventually the PCs arrived at the "Eyes of Dralnu", a pair of twin towers that oversaw a river going through the original city state. Sadly the river has long since become a quagmire of silt and a long sheer canyon has formed where it used to flow.

Naturally the PCs became suspicious: Not because of the towers but because the bridge looked somewhat unstable. This was probably because they were worried I was going to have their cart plunge hundreds of feet into the river below to smash into a thousand pieces. I wouldn't do something terrible like that would I? Possibly as the result of some fascinating skill challenge of some kind? Surely not.

In any event, upon getting close enough to the "Eyes" the party observed numerous fine strands, which seemed to glint in the light between the two towers. I didn't give the party a lot of time to admire this before a strange, emaciated looking creature stepped out from hiding in the destroyed tower... carrying a tiny little bell.

This foul creature is an iconic Dark Sun monster called a Belgoi. They are humanoid like creatures, which especially like eating the flesh of other intelligent creatures. Normally they strike travelers at night, but this one has a bit of a different trick. In his employ are two large crystal spiders, which have weaved a deadly web between the two towers. When someone comes along of interest, the belgoi lures them into the webs with his bell and causes them to sever themselves apart. Then allows his spiders to finish off any remaining enemies while he eats. This strategy has worked pretty well for him so far, with a relatively mutual relationship between the three monsters proving rather productive.

Unfortunately for him the PCs had other ideas!

The two large white objects are the overlapping webs, complete with crystal spider. Eshara paid the price of getting too close, with the Belgoi luring her right into the webs and cutting her up some!​

Incidentally, yes I am obsessed with spiders. Glad you noticed

In any event the players handled this encounter pretty well, with the Belgoi largely staying right out of trouble hiding behind the webs. Eventually though the PCs turned the battle against the creature and his spiders, particularly when they destroyed one web. This did actually luck out for the Belgoi, encouraging the creature to move away hiding behind the remaining web - just out of reach of Ka'Cha sneaking around the other side.

With the webs falling and the spiders beginning to get picked off by the party, the Belgoi was not liking how this situation was going.​

Eventually the Belgoi "wigged out" of the combat, leaving the map and slinking into the destroyed ruin of the city. I hinted very strongly that the PCs will be seeing this creature again. With Three-Fang also implied to be around the city as well, due to the pain within Initiate and Ka'Cha's old wound - this was certainly a place for a reunion! I always feel if an intelligent enemy should have a good reason to flee, then you should do so. For one thing, if the PCs don't stop him it can lead to an encounter with a monster that they have met before. This gives a lot more weight to an encounter and the monsters foreknowledge is a good excuse for having them fight much better.

With the Belgoi out of the way, the PCs explored the intact tower and of course, ran into some of its undead inhabitants (who were none too pleased to see them). In this encounter, I wanted to demonstrate to the PCs how during the day some areas have beams of light that can affect the undead monsters within. Basically regions where cracks and similar illuminate areas of the room intensely enough to damage undead within it. This terrain I felt was refreshing for the PCs because it's only positive to them. It can be used to their advantage, but doesn't hurt them in any way - making fighting around light of tactical interest against undead.

This also helped make the extremely cramped environment feel more dynamic and interesting - breaking up the tight region somewhat.

Although 4E likes some space and such, sometimes a good old fashioned CQC scrap is what you need. Bearing in mind the shadows and wraiths can phase, allowing them to get around the party if required to spread out attacks.​

I think my players really appreciated the chance to turn the tables on the monsters with the beneficial terrain. Normally terrain is either rather neutral (can be used by anyone) or well in the monsters favor (typically because they actually live there). Being able to use it exclusively to their advantage was a pleasing chance of pace, and they did indeed get a fair amount out of the light. The second purpose of the light was to provide the party another option for dealing radiant damage, which can prevent the wraith and shadows insubstantial quality.

Skeletons popping up from the basement was always going to make the scene a bit more exciting!​

The undead came from below, they came from above and ultimately had a nice jolly scrap in a tight environment. Bursts and blasts in particular proved to be quite devastating as well, pretty much hitting everything! Overall the combat was quite brutal, but the PCs ultimately prevailed - if battered.

This was pretty brutal at the end, with both of the skeletons having got to the main floor and one of the wraiths still alive (He's actually floating just above the mess inside, not outside). Originally I had another wraith in this encounter, but I removed one with Zephan's death. I think the encounter worked better for this actually.​

Once the undead were dispatched, the characters explored the tower and found something odd happening in the basement. Some of the bricks on the floor began to move and then a blast blew them asunder. A strange man crawled forth from underneath the floor and rather testily introduced himself: Sereb, a revenant templar hexblade (Gloom Pact) and former servant of Dralnu! This was the new player character (playing Zephan before his untimely demise) and first hexblade that I had seen in 4E. I actually quite like the Hexblade and was keen to see how it was going to go in a fight, but introductions had to come first.

The neat thing with introducing a new character to an ongoing campaign is it doesn't have to be entirely disruptive. In this case, as Sereb is a revenent and has been dead for a while having just crawled forth from - oh wait, I can't say that just yet :O Rest assured, his origin is an important plot point! In any event, being who he is I decided that if his character had memories of the city before it was destroyed, this could allow me to give them additional information in an IC view (without it feeling ham handed). It lets me flesh out Dralnu's personality a bit beyond "This is some random Sorcerer-King who destroyed the city". It also let me give the city a name: Abalach*, which fell to calamity in the distant past and then all memory of it wiped from history by the remaining Sorcerer Kings.

Conveniently, in the time between while I was doing this and now, Rodney Thompson released an excellent (and immensely inspiring) article on Kalidnay. In many ways the themes I had intended for this city and what happened to Kalidnay are similar in some ways - making it an incredibly pleasing article to read. The calamity that destroyed Abalach though was considerably different, but none the less I was very inspired and I think the way the plot will develop in this game will benefit greatly from that article!

After establishing himself within the group, the PCs spent a cold night at the top of the tower and then continued onwards (with cart) to the great library. I got to emphasize through Sereb just how destroyed the city is now compared to what it was. Upon arriving at the great library, they encountered more of their beloved horrible little halflings. This time they had a Cilops with them and the dreadful beast wasn't having a bar of entering the library whatsoever. One of the other halflings who had attempted to enter earlier, found itself being torn apart by some horrible fiery creature.

As always, the PCs interruption of their raiding was not taken very well and a fight promptly occurred. Everything got mixed up quickly, with the Hexblade taking on the halfling shrieker and the cilops getting Eshara's attention. One thing I should note is that I handed Eshara a jagged fullblade some time ago, which has a 19-20 crit range and ongoing 10 damage on a crit. To date, she hasn't managed a crit with it until *this* combat and it had quite an effect. The Cilops copped it early and absorbed the ongoing for most of the encounter - dealing an additional 40 or so damage.

Turns out today was not a good day for saving throws against ongoing damage. The shrieker had a piece of Sereb before dying horribly at least.​

The Cilops had his brutal revenge though, tearing apart Eshara with its terrible mandibles and then running around on a rampage! I must admit that the Cilops is an hilarious elite monster. For one thing, they have a power that basically gives them permanent CA and their bite attack triggers extra damage when it has CA. This combines pretty well. Then you can throw on dazing antenna for another minor action attack AND a move action rampage that sees them scuttling over everyone for more damage! Overall a single cilops can deal an insane amount of damage against grouped up characters. I think this will make them rightly feared by the party.

The Cilops makes up for his failure to save against anything by simply dealing out what he takes.

Free from the shackles of his battlemind defender oppressor, he went for a little stroll and said hello to Alek.​

Eventually the PCs killed the remaining enemies except the Cilops, who was firmly upset with them at this point. Even with penalties to his attack and being constrained by the party, it had a good chomp of a couple of characters before the ongoing damage (applied right at the start) finally saw to the creatures downfall.

The Cilops finally died, but not before he took a good chunk out of the party. Most of that damage there was his doing!​

Taking whatever meager riches they good from the sunwarped halflings, they entered the library to have a look for the precious books. Well, at least some of the party thought they were precious and others distinctly didn't see the point of this "words" nonsense. This happened to upset the creature that was guarding the place from the previous haflings - a spectral librarian!

This guy is a bit of an exception to the rule as far as undead go. This beast, called an ash wraith, is an undead creature that actually has a strong affinity with both the sun and fire. Unlike other undead, it's not actually vulnerable to radiant energy and instead is vulnerable to cold. This provides a bit of a mix up in energy types and provides a kind of undead that only appears during the day. Ash Wraiths are much more powerful than normal undead, but are very uncommon as they are produced under very unusual circumstances. As such, they are creatures to be considerably feared when the PCs happen to stumble across them.

Ash Wraiths are not the most reasonable lot and when he discovered that Initiate had a tome stolen from his library (confirming that this is indeed a place Variya had visited), he flew into a rage. Summoning his might, he activated ritual contingencies he had prepared and created an immense animated golem created from a swarm of damaged books, pieces of masonry and rock. Him and his pet golem then took to the characters with considerable fury! Noting that I put an interesting variation on the way the Ash Wraith here worked. Due to his obsession with the tome the party carried, he was utterly immune to any mark from a character NOT carrying the book. So in short, he would go right for initiate! I also roleplayed the monster in this manner as well, with it utterly ignoring anyone who wasn't carrying the book. The PCs used this to their advantage, quickly throwing it to the defender who then took all the creatures attention for the rest of the combat.

Here I feel the Hexblade paid quite a lot of dividends for the party. Firstly, the hexblade has some nice control effects, which the party has rather lacked with the pyromancer being more of a blaster wizard. Secondly, Assassin's bane was very effective at preventing the ash wraith operating how it would please, making life much easier for the characters (as it could not turn invisible).

That's one hell of a lot of status effects on that Ash Wraith.​

Even with the initial advantage though, the giant swarm of books began to run rampant over the characters. This is actually an older solo that I used in a previous campaign and 're-envisioned' for this battle. Effectively it randomly changes its damage types when hit by an attack, representing how magically unstable the thing is. This dictates what damage types it is resistant and vulnerable to, as well as adding different ongoing damage riders onto its main attacks. Further, it can pelt PCs with magical energy and automatically impose different effects based on what kind of magical energy imbues it. For example, if it gains necrotic power an enemy cannot regain HP (save ends). Or if it gains radiant power an enemy is blinded (save ends).

The first time I ran this monster my players commented that it was really fun and the second go proved just as entertaining. Especially when they discovered it was almost as dangerous to its creator as it was to them (due to not being very focused on ally friendly effects, save its aura).

This creature just makes stuff absolutely everywhere, as you can tell.​

The characters wore down both the ash wraith and the golem over time, with burst attacks dealing the most damage. Ongoing damage and automatic damage zones/auras began to take their toll on the party, with Eshara having to leave the situation on chronically few HP.

A wise retreat from a fairly dangerous situation, especially while both creatures were dazed.​

Finally however they eliminated the ash wraith and then the golem - after it had one final swing at the party of course. Once it was destroyed the beast collapsed back into inert (and frequently burnt) books and rubble. Its energy rapidly flowing from it and right towards the tome that they acquired earlier.

And that is where I stopped the session! So they had to wait until the next week to find out what exactly was the deal with why that happened... and how important it was :O

*I am aware this is an actual canon City State, but I felt like using the name because I liked it. I would have used Kalidnay, but ironically in this case I had already chose not to use established ruins on the map. The fit would be perfect though!

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

It's a shame these stopped over a year ago. I've enjoyed reading this thread in preparation for my own planned Dark Sun game. Thanks for posting, [MENTION=78116]Aegeri[/MENTION].

 

[Aegeri]

Yeah I sometimes come back to this thread and wish I hadn't stopped my 4E games because my computer crashed. Unfortunately, that was just the excuse I needed to give up 4E, in combination with some of the decisions that Wizards were making I really began disagreeing with (like dropping support of epic tier monsters almost entirely in published materials). Well also the fact I lost all of my work that I had been doing and that I didn't have the energy to keep going anymore with how disenfranchised I had become.

As I am not enthused with 5th edition in the least, I don't think I am likely to ever be able to return to these games sadly. Not sure if I could even get all the players involved back as it's been a while.

Moral of the story: Always have another option (backup computer!) when playing an online game and always thoroughly back up all of your work (no matter if they are online or not!).

 

[Herobizkit]

[MENTION=78116]Aegeri[/MENTION]: Any chance you'll start again with a different/new gaming system? Your descriptions and stream of consciousness are such a joy to read.

 

[Aegeri]

[MENTION=78116]Aegeri[/MENTION]: Any chance you'll start again with a different/new gaming system? Your descriptions and stream of consciousness are such a joy to read.

Yeah I will actually, once my new group determines what they would like to play I shall make a thread for it. Most likely I will be playing Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, Mouseguard, World of Darkness or something similar to that.

 

[Raunalyn]

Those mapsets are awesome! I can tell you're using Maptools...where fdid you get those maps?

I'm returning to Maptools for my DS game, so I would love to get a hold of them...

 

[Aegeri]

Those mapsets are awesome! I can tell you're using Maptools...where fdid you get those maps?

I'm returning to Maptools for my DS game, so I would love to get a hold of them...

I get them from many sources, one of which was actually wizards themselves from various adventures. Some of the maps I drew in map tools, the sewer in the dark sun game on page 1 for example. Another source of maps I used was the cartographers guild, which has numerous awesomely talented map makers.

In general, I used whatever I could find and stick a grid on in map tools.