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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flynn" data-source="post: 4210259" data-attributes="member: 1836">Session Notes - 05/01/08Good Morning, All:Once again, we played to a full house, and last night's adventure ended with some quite unexpected results. It wasn't a TPK, although perhaps it could have been, but the campaign continues. It's just a little bit darker now. For details, read on...The SynopsisHaving looted the bodies of the fallen, the band of adventurers began to explore the temple room. The main hallway out of the second floor led to a pair of gold doors which bore the image of a cat-man sitting upon a throne, a benign look upon his countenance, and a number of monkey-men warriors standing behind him in readied position. Above the door, the party noted an inscription in Achean: "Beyond Lies The Court of Ankharem", an obvious reference to the prisoner said to be held in this pyramid prison. Calyt the Shade easily picked the lock and the party looked into the passage beyond. Stairs led up to another level, and natural light appeared to be coming from further down the passage above. The back of the golden doors bore a similar image to the front, save that the cat-man was leaning forward, his face contorted in rage, and the monkey-men appeared to be menacing the viewer with spears lowered forward as if to strike. The party noted the smell of fresh air and flowers, as well as the soft playing of a lute from beyond the staircase leading up. Someone was up there!Concerned about what might come at the party from other corridors leading out from the temple room, the band decided to close the golden doors and returned back to the temple room. After unlocking one of the doors, the party found a storeroom beyond. Calyt strode forward, only to be surprised by an unexpected spear trap. Escaping with but a scratch, he disabled the mechanism and slowly led the way into the wealthy storeroom. After investigating a small chest, he opened it to reveal a lot of silver coins, and a small cord that set off another trap!Immediately, the surface of the large stone table in the center of the room split and swung open, to reveal a small chamber containing hairy humanoid beasts with ravenous appetites. The pey, as they were called, poored forth into the small room and began to attack the party. Despite the undead peys' best efforts, they were taken down quickly by the combat prowess of the band of adventurers, and did not get to feast upon living flesh. The party briefly celebrated their victory and searched the treasure trove, gathering coin, objects d'art, and a small, fluid-filled crystalline vial marked with ancient Achean symbols that none of them could decipher.Beyond the second door they explored, the party found a similar storeroom. At the suggestion of the wise elven priest Anzjin, Calyt disabled the latch to the stone table, trapping the pey within. This storeroom contained much of the same treasure as the first, and another crystalline vial, this time made of smoky reticulated quartz, bearing a different ancient Achean symbol.The remainder of the rooms had already been breeched by the Sundered, and so the party had already accumulated that wealth when they had looted the bodies previously. In searching, however, the Warlord Andrus noted the seam of a secret door in one of the rooms, and Thane Yngvar, a noted stonecutter by trade, determined that a pressure plate was likely the means to open it. Taking that knowledge, Calyt located a point in the motif worked into the walls here where the two eyes of a four-armed man could be pressed in. Doing so, the secret door clicked and swung open an inch. Slowly, the Pasalovakian rogue and the Synovial Warlord entered into the short hallway, looking over a lead door that led into another room. When Calyt attempted to pick the lock, a lightning trap went off. Although Calyt successfully evaded the blast, the lightning bolt caught the Warlord Andrus full on the chest, nearly felling him on the spot. Through the healing potions that the party had recovered from their foes and the spells of the elven priest Anzjin, Andrus was brought back to full health.In the room beyond the iron door, the party spied an armory of exotic weapons and items. However, Calyt noted that the floor of the chamber was bordered by fine eldritch runes, which the Magus Chrysander identified as necessary to bind an infernal presence in place as a guardian to this vault of treasure. After a lively debate, the party decided to close the iron door once more and leave to rest.Almost as an afterthought, the Warlord Andrus dispatched Calyt and Anzjin, the stealthiest of the party, to check out the naturally lit passage at the top of the stairs beyond the gold doors. Despite their best efforts, the two slipped on the marble staircase, banged their weapons and gear against the wall of the passage, likely alerting whoever might be playing the lute. Despite their noisy entrance, the music did not stop.Cresting the stairwell, the party noted that the corridor opened into an archway that led outdoors into the open. An open-aired temple stood beyond, with silken veils hung between pillars, leaving the interior to cast its shadowy silhuoette upon them. The two noted the shadow of a cat-like humanoid on a throne, monkey-men guards surrounding him, as well as the image of a bald dwarf seated upon pillows to one side. Even as they began to turn away, the cat-man's voice called out, "Come, Visitors, sit and join us. Partake of my ambrosia, for it is quite exquisite."Calyt stammered back a reply, and went to fetch the Warlord Andrus. The Warlord elected not to tell Yngvar of the scene above, for fear that the situation would merit negotiation, and Yngvar's hatred of the Sundered Emperor would likely bring about conflict in a matter that might be better resolved diplomaticly. Leaving the Magus Chrysander in the company of Yngvar, the Warlord Andrus returned with Calyt and Anzjin. After posting his two companions at the archway with orders to fetch Yngvar if they ran into any problems, Andrus approached the courtly scene with confidence.The Sundered Emperor, nibbling on trail rations, watched with a smile as the rakshasa, once called Ankharem but whose true name, it revealed, was Baradbadi, pressured Andrus into partaking of the ambrosia. As the Warlord ate, the bald dwarf attempted to taunt Andrus by implying to the rakshasa that he had arranged for this tender morsel to join them. Andrus fought off the magical effects of the Ambrosia as he debated, then realized that this situation was likely to turn into a trap very quickly. Calling out to his comrades, the Warlord prepared to run as Calyt dropped a globe of darkness within the interior of the pagoda-esque courtly temple. The rakshasa, however, with his ability to see through total darkness, called upon dark powers to dominate the will of Calyt, leaving Anzjin to flee for help on his own.As the elf ran down to the lower temple room to fetch Yngvar and Chrysander, the Warlord retreated into the archway, feeling a magical resistance that hindered his movement somewhat as he tried to leave. The Sundered Emperor approached the Warlord, intent on dropping him as Calyt walked into the darkness at the order of the rakshasa lord to feast on the cat-man's ambrosia. The Warlord proved to be the greater warrior, leaving Andrus to bleed out in the archway as he returned to the pillows of the rakshasa's court, apparently unable to move beyond the archway himself.Yngvar was the first to arrive at the archway, through the use of a potion of speed, his comrades not far behind him. Calling out a challenge to the Sundered Emperor, Yngvar prepared to fight his old nemesis. The rakshasa, interested in the duel and seeking to feast upon the flesh of the loser, cast a spell, making a wall appear behind Yngvar. The Magus Chrysander charged the wall in an effort to break through it, only to pass through the illusory wall and bounce off Yngvar's back. Lowering his polearm over Yngvar, Chrysander took up a position to aid his comrade against the Sundered Emperor.With a smile, the Sundered Emperor moved forward, risking Yngvar's reactive first strike against him. Although momentarily stunned by Yngvar's blow, the Emperor shook it off with ease and finished the stroke of his magical great axe, biting deep into Yngvar's flesh. The dwarf once known as the Wall fell sadly to the stone floor, atop the fallen body of the Warlord Andrus, who had, by this point in time, stopped bleeding.Both Chrysander and Anzjin, who had just arrived, were taken aback by the ease with which the Sundered Emperor slew their friends, and both reacted in different ways. Chrysander stepped back as the Sundered Emperor stepped forward into the archway to retrieve Tiwazbrandr, the Sword of Dwarven Kings, and after saluting a worthy opponent, the Magus fled. Anzjin, however, stayed to fight the Emperor. It did not look well for the band.So rapt was Baradbadi's attention on the events in the doorway that he let his domination over Calyt slip. Taking in the situation, Calyt made a desperate move. Reaching into his pouch, he pulled for the black onyx skull that had been whispering him promises in his dreams for many a night, held it aloft, and called out for the Demon Prince Amdoseus to come forth. The chances that Calyt's empassioned plea would be heard were slim, indeed, but the Pasalovakian rogue was answered when the onyx skull burst into pieces and the form of Amdoseus appeared in the midst of the courtroom. Seeing the Demon Prince, Anzjin was filled with preternatural fear and fled back into the prison with little regard for his own life, such was his desire to flee the presence of great evil.Amdoseus demanded the terms of the pact for which Calyt had summoned him. Calyt responded that he offered the souls of the rakshasa and the vanaran guards in exchange for the death of the Sundered Emperor. Amdoseus claimed that the death of the favored child of his enemy Rundigard of the Black Court would cost more than the lives of the five monkey-men (for the rakshasa was a demon-spirit and as such, had already lost his soul to the Infernus). Calyt then offered his service to the great Demon Prince, who seemed satisfied by the bargain. Teleporting to the Sundered Emperor, Amdoseus sucked the soul from the body, then returned to feast on the vanaran guards. Amdoseus banished Baradbadi back to the Infernus and then gave Calyt his first mission: fetch the vial bearing the blood of Amdoseus, that which the party once believed to be the blood of Meritus, so that it could not be used to serve Rundigard. Amdoseus informed Calyt that they must claim to have destroyed the Sundered Emperor, so that Rundigard did not know of Amdoseus's involvement in the Sundered Emperor's death. With that, the Prince of Lies laughed wickedly, handed Calyt a small black steel mirror, and vanished, returning to the Infernus.And that's where we ended the session...The Commentary:As my inspiration for this adventure, I choose to use elements of Hindu mythology. Although we only saw those elements in the window-dressing for the first session of this adventure, the party actually began to encounter the "native population" of this dungeon in this session. The first creatures encountered, the pey, are essentially hairy ghouls, and for mental imagery, I reminded the party of the hairy man-thing from "Big Trouble In Little China". I used the ghoul stats from Savage Beasts, adding Armor+2 due to the hairy hide of the pey. The encounter with the pey was fun, but it also caused the party to spend a lot of bennies. This wouldn't normally be a problem, except for the scene with the Sundered Emperor.When the party entered the open-air temple, I was able to introduce the rakshasa Baradbadi and his vanaran guards. I created Baradbadi initially as a conversion of the D20 version of the creature, but then did some reading on Wikipedia, changing elements to more closely match Hindu mythology. Among the stories of these cannibalistic, sorcerous demon-spirits, I read that one of them led an army of monkey men known as vanarans. Using an article in the Shark Bytes fanzine for Savage Worlds on other player races ("Something Completely Different", in Volume I, Issue #3), I created these simian guards in the event that the party should attack the rakshasa.Sadly, the band approached the situation in parts instead of as a team, so it came to pass that Andrus fell without backup. Later, when Yngvar used his First Strike Edge against the Sundered Emperor, he only succeeded in Shaking the Emperor, who spent a benny and continued to complete his swing. The resultant damage was nasty, something in the mid-20s, as I recall, and Yngvar did not have a benny to soak the damage. Yngvar rolled high on his incapacitation check, but even at that, he was rendered unconscious.So it was that a series of bad rolls and a few tactical errors led to a desperate situation, and Calyt used the black onyx skull, an infernal focus I'd given the party earlier in an effort to entice them to corruption, to summon Amdoseus. Generally, I would have required a Knowledge(Rituals) roll for an hour-long rite that would call the Demon Prince. However, I wanted to give him a chance, so I called for a Knowledge(Rituals) roll at a -6 penalty (-2 to bring it down to 10 minutes, -2 to bring it to one minute and finally -2 to bring it down to one action, or so I thought at least as I was winging it). Low and behold, he made it with an exploding d6. (Calyt has the Jack-Of-All-Trades Edge, and has used it for a number of things. This is probably the most spectacular so far.)Of course, we stayed after the session to have a long discussion about the future of the campaign. The group unanimously wants to continue the campaign, but there was some discussion about potentially changing characters for some of the players. We worked out a scenario where Calyt, who obviously acted out of desperation, is the unwilling servant of Amdoseus, and that the Demon Prince will likely send them on various missions that they as players were wanting to go on, anyway. (Calyt has had the Orders Hindrance since the beginning of the game. Now, the orders just come from somewhere else.) Once the party discovers the problem in-game, they can work with Calyt to help get him out of the pact and work towards redemption. It fits well with Anzjin's AB(Miracles) limitations, and could provide some great opportunities for furthering one of the overarching plots going on behind the scenes. Yngvar is the player in the greatest quandry at the moment, simply because he was effectively "one-shotted". As a player, he's not upset about the events of the story nor player choices, but it did suck that he was dropped with one fell swoop, so to speak. (I roll in the open, and when two damage dice explode, a d10 and a d6, the resulting damage sucks.) Sadly, without a bennie, Yngvar didn't have a chance to soak and stay up, and so the player feels he needs to take a little time to calm down, evaluate the situation and chat with me at some point this week before he decides what he wants to do with his character. Fair enough, I say, and I'm pleased to hear that he still wants the campaign to continue.Unexpectedly, we had an epic plot element erupt this session, and the group still wants the game to move forward and continue. The first epic plot element was the Death of a Thousand Heroes in the beginning of the campaign. Now, we have the presence of the Demon Prince of Lies and hints at a coming blood war between Amdoseus and Rundigard. It's been a while since I ran a game with this kind of tumultuous events taking place so openly, particularly at the party's power level. I just hope that I handle these elements with skill, and keep the game fun without getting overpowering or overwhelming.Wish me luck,Flynn</blockquote>

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