OD&D The Iron Ark of Esperil

[Reynard]

I am finally taking a foray into OD&D with a setting and megadungeon placed solidly in the science fantasy sub-genre. Here is the first draft of the background:
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The Iron Ark of Esperil

For uncounted millenia the Fate of the World waxed and waned. Civilizations rose and fell. Gods and Men struggled for supremacy. Magic and science came and went in turn. And through it all, the immortal Elves stood as stewards of the World -- until the day they chose to take it back.
Though it was within their power, the Elves did not wipe the lesser races from the world, nor did they pulled the Gods down from Heaven. Instead, they ended the cycle that balanced magic and science. They embraced both and with their timeless mind and bottomless will they melded them into some more miraculous than either.
So they searched the universe and found a thousand thousand worlds fit for the squabbling mayfly people with whom they shared the World. Thus began the Great Diaspora, in which multitudes boarded Elven Arks to be transported to distant worlds.
Even with the mystical power of the Elves, the voyages were interminably long for the lesser races. So the Elves set their passengers into magical sleep while just a handful of Elves and magimechanical guardians watched over them during the silent years in the Void.
One such ship came to a verdant world called Esperil in the Elven tongue. As was custom the great ship settled on the planet and the passengers in their teeming thousands were awakened from their sleep. The Ark became the center of what would be a great city, and would stay so for one hundred years while the colonists carved out a place on Esperil under the watchful eyes of the Elves. Then, a lesser portion of the Ark would launch once again into the Void and the Elves would depart forever, returning to the one true World.
But something went wrong. Only a few decades into the process, the inscrutable engines of the Ark that serves to power the City and its outlying villages became unstable. Soon the city was awash with uncontrolled magical energy and those that could fled in terror. Those that could not were consumed by it, transformed by it, controlled by it. The Iron Ark of Esperil became a necropolis of broken promises and mutant monstrosities.
For almost two hundred years the survivors huddled in their outlying villages. Every foray into the wilds of Esperil met with disaster, for without their powerful magitech they were no match for the native flora and fauna. Every foray into the irradiated city met an even worse fate, for it wasn’t death that awaited the brave there, but grotesque transformation.
All seemed lost as the survivors reverted to a more and more barbaric state. The few remaining elves were forced into hiding, become pariahs blamed for the terrible fate of the colonists’ descendants. Then, as suddenly as it had occurred in the first place, the chaotic belching of the Ark engine ceased. Did it burn itself out, or run out of fuel? Or was it repaired by whatever strange beings now inhabited the city?
For the desperate and hungry huddling at the fringes of the city, it is time to find out.
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I plan to use this thread as a brainstorming space, so I welcome comments and suggestions (both fluff and crunch, such as it is). Once I actually get to run a session or two, I'll report back on that, too.

 

[Reynard]

Races
Elves are exceedingly rare. Only a few dozen remain after the accident of the Ark, and they are considered pariahs, blamed for the failed colonization. Now that the Ark engines have quieted, some elves have dared the ruins in order to hopefully discover a way to finally return home.
Humans made up the majority of the passengers on the Ark, just as they made up the majority of the population of the old World. Places on the Ark were given by lottery, so no single nationality, ethnicity, creed or faith of mankind dominates the population: the human population on Esperil is the most cosmopolitan it is anywhere in the universe. Being short lived by demi-human standards, humans have born and lost the most generations on Esperil and no humans remain alive that woke from their magical sleep on the planet.
Halflings were the second most common race among the colonists, though fewer than the humans by an order of magnitude. Truth told, their numbers fared better than those of humans simply because halflings are not generally inclined to city life and established homes in many of the outlying villages as early as possible, so relatively few of their number were in the Ark city when it was overcome by the chaos magic of the engines.
Dwarves are as rare on Esperil simply because few trusted the Elves’ plan to empty the olf World of non-Elves. Some clans did choose the Ark, though, hoping to find wealth to mine on new worlds. These dwarves were given mining rights in exchange for helping build the Ark city, however, and so when the calamity happened an estimated half of all dwarven colonists were consumed by the chaos. Those that remain are insular and untrusting and still seek their promised riches -- and, above all, hate the Elves.
Lizard folk of various kinds are the primary native intelligent species of Esperil, and seem to come in as great a variety as demi-humans. None appear to have a culture or technology above that of stone age hunters and gatherers, and their magic is equally primal and strange. They hunt and husband and sometimes even ride all manner of arthropods, from great beetles to spiders to dragonflies. Little progress has been made in diplomatic relations with the lizard folk, even after so much time, and the colonist villages live in constant fear of raids by the lizard folk.
Along with the human, halfling and dwarf colonists, another race travelled to Esperil in the Ark: goblins. This race, thought of as little better than vermin by most, stowed away in the forgotten and disused spaces of the Ark. They lived for generations while the Ark travelled through space, and the Elves either did not know they were there, or ignored them. Some goblins made their way into the wild after landing, but most remained in the Ark city. What became of them or what part they might have played in the calamity is unknown.
There are many other “races” on Esperil, especially in the Ark city ruins, but they are not true breeding races. Rather, they are mutants, warped by the chaotic magical energy unleashed by the Ark engine. There is no limit to what might be encountered in or wander out of the Ark city ruins.

 

[Reynard]

The Starting Village
Bleak Crossing wasn’t always called that. When the Ark landed and the Ark city was first built, the village of Silver Crossing was established at a ford on what some dwarven colonists had named the Silver Rush River. At the time it was the most southerly village and served as a gateway to the wild frontier where those same dwarves began their prospecting. While a few villages were later established past the Crossing, they did not last long: the calamity ended the push into the frontier and Silver Crossing became known as Bleak Crossing after a few attempted incursions by monsters and lizard folk over the ford. For two centuries Bleak Crossing has been the southern border of the colonial territory. There have been times of trade or even peace with the lizardfolk, but something -- usually an accident misunderstanding but sometimes outright intentional animosity -- always thrusts the two sides back into conflict.
The village has grown into a walled community of 1000 people: 70% human, 20% halfling and 5% dwarven with a few outliers like lizard folk, goblins or even the rare non-crazed, peaceful Ark city mutant. Over the years it has evolved into an almost militarized society, with the Captain Mayor in charge (currently a human woman named Galaea Shan) but advised by various prominent townsfolk. All able bodied citizens serve 2 years in the active Guard and are required to maintain readiness as militia.
Bleak Crossing trades with the other fortress villages along the Ark Road and there is money to be made as guards and scouts. Other “adventurer types” make a living attempting trade with the lizard folk, pillaging giant insect nests for honey or eggs, and collecting bounties on mutants. Now that the engine has ceased and it is “safe” to go into Ark city, some few have begun exploring the ruins in search of lost treasures and technology.

 

[Reynard]

The first "test" session is tonight. The players have created their characters and they are set to explore an "subway station" beneath their village in hopes of finding an accessway to the Ark city. I'll report back post game.

 

[GuyBoy]

Good luck with the game. looks really cool. and I like the name Esperil; suggestive of Hope...if it can be found.

 

[Reynard]

The first session was a test with my usual gaming group (that plays 5E primarily). The setup was simple: there was a transport station outside of Beak Crossing used for getting people, equipment and goods back and forth from the Ark city to the village before the calamity. When the calamity happened, it was locked up tight to make sure no mutants could use it to get to the village. Now with the magical radiation zone gone and people wanting to explore the ruins, the PCs were tasked with trying to open up the transport station so Bleak Crossing would have a more direct path to the Ark city.

The party found a manhole access that led to the administrator's office, which was infested with 18" long centipedes. One character boldly threw himself down the hole to fight the centipedes and got himself paralyzed and nearly killed almost immediately. The rest of the party managed to rescue him by tossing torches down to dissuade the centipedes then haul him back up. It was their first lesson in "this ain't 5E" and he was lucky he survived.

After the paralyzed party member recovered and they bound his wounds, they were more careful. they dropped torches Indiana Jones style ('Why did it have to be centipedes!") and were able to search the room. They found a key card in the administrator's desk but the one who found it kept it to himself. So when a character bashed down a door (rather than unlocking it with the key card) it set off the disintegrator ray security turret in the ceiling down the hall. Luckily it missed and the party was able to disarm it with the administrator's control console. NOTE: The wizard PC rolled an 18 int and is able to understand a lot of the technology because it is really "magitech."

They continued to explore, discovering a room full of environment suits and a tricorder with an airlock leading who knows where. they found a tunnel blocked by arcing magical energy (power) that they don't know runs ender the transport tunnel. They looted a couple offices of some minor junk. We ended the session when the goblin PC opened the security office door and the robot inside recognized him as an "infestation" (part of their programming from the long years when the Ark was travelling through space).

It went well overall. It took a little bit for the players to get in the old school mode but I think they embraced it by the end. We are finishing the adventure next week and then as a group we will have to decide if we want to continue or go back to 5E.

 

[GuyBoy]

Sounds like a fun session. Barrier Peaks meets subway horror.

 

[Reynard]

We played the second part last night.

The goblin PC slammed the door shut and the wizard cast hold portal to seal the security robot in the room and they ran away. They went back to the room with the environment suits and put them on, passing through the airlock and finding a door leading into the actual transport tunnel. inside they found three goblins from the city digging their way through the tunnel floor and having exposed a power conduit in the process. the magical energy was randomly mutating the goblins, who were enjoying the jolts and laughing about their mutations. The PC goblin decided to talk to the city goblins who weren't especially trusting of what they called the "pet goblin." One PC got impatient and charged and the whole thing turn into a messy fight. During this fight they discovered that the little 2 shot pistol they found in the administrator's office did law rocket level damage, vaporizing a goblin. In the end, one goblin was still alive and had been mutated again with dwarfism (so he shrunk and grew a beard) and became the "pet goblin's" own pet. The PCs squeezed their way through the hole in floor (which led to the tunnel they had found earlier) but one PC (the one that had started the fight) tore his suit in the process and took a huge dose of magical radiation, mutating into a hyper quick but exceedingly dumb man ape (Quickness, Simian Deformity and Atrophied Cerebellum).

The party made their way through the dungeon, bypassing security doors and avoiding being killed by sentry turrets with their key card, until they found the maintenance office. There, they discovered a spider-like robot they had to "convince" to bring back to the damage the goblins had done. in the end, they realized that had to gear up with appropriate work and safety gear -- coveralls, boots, eye protection and hard hat, with a toolbelt -- to get the robot to follow them. While it set to fixing the damage, the PCs found the main transport station entrance and figured out how to open both the doors to outside and the doors to the tunnel to the Ark City. At this point they effectively succeeded at the adventure, and with no plans to play this again they did the only logical thing and decided to go fight the sentry robot.

Now, they knew they did not have to. it responded fine to the humans in the party and only tried to apprehend the goblin (it would have killed the mutant had it ever seen that character but they did not know this). But, this being a one shot, they went for it anyway. They geared up in the sentry room (the robot was elsewhere after breaking out of the held door) and decided to "ambush" the robot. The character with the tiny pistol took his shot and when the smoke cleared the robot was... mildly scorched. It responded with a grenade launcher that fine-red-misted the attacker and the simian mutant. The party goblin beat feat and the wizard decided to go out throwing two grenades at the sentry robot -- which took it out!

The End.

It was a fun little experiment but in the future I would be inclined to do such adventures with mutant Crawl Classics.