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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flynn" data-source="post: 4222702" data-attributes="member: 1836">Session Notes - 05/14/08Good Morning, All:It's been another week, and the game goes on. Over the course of this last week, Yngvar's player came to realize that he had some life scheduling issues that required him to drop the game. Since his character was at a good point for departing, we worked it in story-wise and moved forward. Of course, now we are looking for a new player, so if you live in Austin, TX, and would like to participate in the campaign, please let me know.The Synopsis:After the Demon Prince Amdosias vanished, Calyt the Shade looked around at the chaos that had been wrought. Five dessicated monkey men bodies and the soulless remains of the Sundered Emperor littered the ground. At the archway, he saw the bodies of Yngvar the Wall and the Warlord Andrus Phaetren. Calyt's other two comrades had fled the scene of this horrific battle, and so, after checking to make sure the two fallen were breathing, Calyt set off to find the other two, just in case.Anzjin was not hard to find, for he had stopped in the antechamber before the lower temple room to recover from his fear, and prepare himself to face the Sundered Emperor. Calyt was a welcome surprise for the shaken elven priest. The rogue explained the situation, and then volunteered to return to watch over their two fallen comrades while Anzjin went to find the Magus Chrysander.Chrysander was not far away, for in his flight back to the blood portal, he came across the pit trap on the lower level, and having forgotten its presence, failed to leap aside when the floor fell out from under him, tumbling him down to the bottom of the pit some forty feet below. When Anzjin came down the hallway a little while later, Chrysander's abandoned glaive immediately told the elven priest what must have "befallen" the human magus. Between the two of them, Anzjin was able to recover Chrysander from the pit and together, they returned to the hallway beyond the golden doors.Gathered together once more, the Magus Chrysander used the Gauntlet of Joven to heal himself of some of his wounds, and they poured a potion of improved healing down the throat of the Warlord Andrus. This revived him and healed some of his wounds, but alas, Andrus's weapon arm had been too savagely wounded, and would require powerful magics to ever be useful again. The Warlord lamented the loss of his ability to fight, but Anzjin said that, once he had atoned for his sins of fearful flight, he would be able to regenerate the man's limb and help him recover.With some mundane ministrations, Chrysander revived the dwarven thane Yngvar and then began to work on his wounds. Calyt explained to everyone what had happened, expressing a sorrowful concern for the plight in which he now found himself, a servant to the Demon Prince of Lies. Unfortunately, Chrysander, distracted by the conversation and its implications, accidentally opened up Yngvar's wounds once again in his efforts to heal the dwarf, and Yngvar fell unconscious. Rather than risk another healing effort that might lead to Yngvar's accidental death, the party elected to wait for the dwarf to recover on his own.Once everyone had stabilized, Calyt and Andrus returned through the blood portal and, leaving the barrow, found Yngvar's small army waiting at their encampment. While the Warlord Andrus remained to discuss recent matters with the dwarves, Calyt returned through the blood portal to rejoin Anzjin and Chrysander, who were looking over the hidden armory attempting to figure out how to dismiss the wards that threatened to summon a creature should anyone enter the chamber. Alas, the heroes did not have the skills or magic needed to do so, and so they elected to tackle the situation the next day, after some rest. The adventurers spent the rest of the day moving their gathered treasure across the blood portal to the barrows.That afternoon, the party decided to check a few side passages that sloped up and away from the pit trap. Bringing a few dwarves with them, the party encountered a hidden trap. By attempting to open the door at either end of the sloping passages, a trap door released a large boulder that threatened to roll along the arched floors and crush anyone caught in its path. Were it not for a quickly cast and powerful web spell from the Magus Chrysander, many of the party might have been crushed. As it was, the boulder was delayed long enough for the party to flee the path of the boulder and reset the pit trap. The boulder burst free of the webs and raced down the corridor, only to fall into the pit. A little bit later, a deep rumbling filled the corridor as hidden mechanisms below the passage began to reset the boulder trap. The doors proved to be a simple facade, bait for the bone-crushing boulder trap.The next morning, Yngvar left the barrows with his small army, making his way north towards the Triumvirate to find a dwarf worthy of Tiwazbrandr, Sword of the Dwarven Kings. Yngvar's parting with his comrades was a somber moment for all, but soon the dwarven forces were heading north towards the Black Hills, leaving the four adventurers behind to return to the Prison of Ankharem and its secret armory.Back at the pyramid prison, the party prepared themselves as much as possible to take on whatever might be summoned. Using an arrow to break the seal from a distance, the party steeled themselves as a guardian demon appeared in the room. As the beast charged forth to wage war against those that would defile the chamber it was set to guard, Calyt scrambled for safety behind the one-armed shield-bearing Warlord Andrus. Driven by an infernal purpose, the guardian demon was hard to fell. Magus Chrysander used a concussive sonic blast upon it, and only succeeded in earning its wrath when the blast left the demon unscathed, but shattered some of the treasure within its sanctum. As the demon pressed its attack against the magus, Anzjin joined Chrysander in melee as Calyt continued to rain arrows upon the demon and the Warlord taunted their foe and provided his leadership to his comrades.It was brutal fight, one that nearly dropped the Magus Chrysander, before a well-placed blow from the hands of the elven priest Anzjin slew the demon. As a pool of black ichor poured forth from the corpse onto the outer chamber floor, the party recovered and then entered the secret armory. All of the weapons, the armor, the shield, the war mask and the jewelry found within bore a red dragon motif, and were of a culture the band had not encountered before. Theorizing this gear once came from a land to the west of the Arcadian Wood, home of the elves, they surmised that this was once worn by the rakshasa Baradbadi when he visited ancient Achea in the guise of a diplomat named Ankharem. Although a good number of crystal vials and objects d'art had been smashed by the concussive blast, the party still managed to gather up enough treasure to make their return to the pyramid worthwhile. Limping out, the four adventurers returned one last time through the blood portal, and began to make their way slowly south towards Moonwell.It was late in the day, in the midst of foraging for supplies, when Calyt came across a recently abandoned campsite. Joined quickly by the others, a quick investigation revealed footprints of a body of men of imposing stature, as well as those of a single giant that travelled with them. The campsite had only been recently abandoned, with the fire still damp from water and the hairless hide of whatever humanoid had been cooked lying not far away, the party surmised that they had only missed the inhabitants of this encampment by a few hours at most...And that's where the session ended.Commentary:It always sucks to lose a gamer. I storytold the scenes with Yngvar last night, keeping him taciturn as a result of the Sundered Emperor encounter and his suspicions of Calyt's new infernal ties. It provided a quick and easy means to move the character on into NPC-hood, with a few promises of "we'll see each other again" in the event the player can return in the future and wants to play his old character again. As gamers, we all parted company on good terms and with high regards for one another, and so that eased the pain a little bit. Now, however, it's time to recruit a new player and build up a waiting list of potentials, just in case.In terms of the game, Warlord Andrus's permanent injury (a result of the Incapacitation table) led to him losing the function of one of his arms. This is a refreshing change of pace from other gaming systems, since bad combats can have lasting effects. Fortunately, the elven priest just picked up Greater Healing, which can allow for fixing this problem (at the GM's discretion), but as Anzjin's player has elected to impose a Major Sin result on his character (no powers for a week) as a result of fleeing from the demon, it will be a few days in-game before we can address that. The Warlord Andrus still got to participate in the battle with the guardian demon, through taunting as well as lending his leadership benefits to the party. (Ordinarily, leadership Edges do not work on Wild Cards, but I allow an Edge that lets the player spend a bennie to let his leadership Edges effect Wild Cards for the duration of an encounter.) At one point, the Warlord was able to spend a bennie through the common bond-like effect of one leadership Edge to unshake an ally, which proved very useful in bringing about the downfall of the guardian demon. It was a mean fight, but well done.This was a slow session in some regards, simply because of the division of loot and attempts to identify magic items via knowledge skill rolls. Some of the treasures have been identified, but most have not. Once they get back to some kind of civilization, they hope to track down a ritual called Identify Enchanted Item, which would let them handle this more quickly than trial and error and extensive research. (I use a Rituals system from an early Shark Bytes issue to cover effects that are outside the range of Savage Worlds powers, in a manner similar to D20 Modern's incantations.) This mission went a long way towards upping the monetary and magical levels of the party, so we shouldn't need another treasure run for at least another Rank. Oh, as an aside, the party just crossed into Veteran Rank over the course of this adventure. Yay!Now, two of the members of the party are sitting at three wounds, which is just bordering on incapacitation and possibly death, and they are limping their way back to civilization. The discovery of a mercenary encampment with an accompanying giant was our cliffhanger for the session, and I'm curious as to what they decide to do.Wish Them Luck,Flynn</blockquote>

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