Whats going on in your game?

[Crothian]

We started a new campaign. It is a game set in Sharn (Eberron) and all the characters have an Aberrant Mark. We started the session with the players being invited to join House Tarkanan. It really wasn't a choice but thankfully the PCs didn't puch it and get themselves killed. They meet one of the high ups and had a lot of explanations about their marks, the house, the War of the Mark, and other things. From there they went down to the lower levels and got training. I started the characters out at level 0 with some house rules. They each fought an experienced pit fighter and got their ass kicked. All except the last PC to do it. Instead of fighting he used his Dragonmark and made his opponent run away in fear. The training went on for a week and then they got their first job from the House.

While the House is best known for murder, assassinations, and theft I'm broadening what they do to allow for a wider range of assignments. They were hired to rescue a kidnapped woman. Basically this was DCC 0. They role played it all well and made some potential allies. They spent money for healing and really learned fast how not having a healer in the group is a pain. They will have a healer once they gain a level.

The adventure went well and we ended it with them rescuing the prisoners and defeating the bad guys. They are now planning to perhaps take over the area the ogre in the module had and leave the Wizard's lab there and make use of it. They also might finish exploring the place and also they have to deal with trying to fence the items they "found".

 

[JiffyPopTart]

My character, a Warmage/Fighter/EldritchKnight, died 3 times in 4 weeks. The last death was the final straw to get him to give up his previous profession. His fondness for acid spells in his life got him a post-death audience with the Elemental Earth God, and he pledged his eternal soul in return for being sent back to finish the Age of Worms.

The rest of the party was suprised to see him pop back as a Sorcerer/ElementalAdept(earth) with a REAL fondness for acid spells, so much so thats the only kind of damage he can do.

Then, to kick me in the jimmy, the first two encounters I got to take part in with my new improved self was against an Acid Wraith (immune to acid) and a host of Young Black Dragons (also immune to acid).

AAAARGH!!!!

DS

 

[Piratecat]

What's that, a level 3-5 scenario?

Heck, no. 9th!

Actually, the PCs are 21st-23rd lvl. Low epic.

 

[Dark Dragon]

The party is currently a 'problem' for the Shadow Masters and their plans in Two Stars. Last session saw a night battle between the party rogue and the monk and two shadow masters. At almost the same time, the shadow masters attacked the party's home.
Most of the attackers fled when it became obvious that the attack was a failure. The party made one prisoner.
Next day, they wanted to question him. But before that the party was called to Lady Gallidy (local ruler of the town). While the group was absent, the Shadow Masters sneaked into the party's house and killed all servants and rescued the prisoner...

Now the adevnturers are a bit upset and plan their revenge...

 

[talien]

If you read my story hour, this post contains lots of spoilers...

After Sebastian sacrificed himself at the end of my highly modified version of Tatters of the King, our heroes sailed the month-long journey back from Nyambe. I used Dead Man’s Chest encounters along the way. Fighting off pirates, sea serpents, a…uh, huge sea spider, sirens, killer trees, and a spellwarped triceratops, they finally arrived in Freeport.

Once back in Freeport and attempting to keep a low profile, the heroes found a gate to Carcosa through Cresh Manor (that’d be Shadows of Freeport). Unlike the original adventure’s plot, their goal was to find the gate, not close it. Only Kham can change the destination of gates, thanks to his peculiar designation as being “The Key.” So they blew through Shadows of Freeport pretty quickly, and ended up dispatching their old enemy who supposedly died awhile back, Elijah Quelch.

The heroes then went through a 3.5 conversion of Castle Amber. Only now it’s Castle Ambrose set in Carcosa. Kham got taken out about midway through the adventure, Sebastian was eventually rescued, and then it was a long, bloody slog through monster after monster to the end. Richer, considerably more powerful (just about everyone leveled), and wondering what the hell just happened, our heroes are back in Freeport.

It seems that the Unspeakable One (AKA Hastur) was not the real problem, but rather manipulating our heroes to save his own world of Carcosa. He has withdrawn his protection from Arcanis and now his half-brother and rival, Leviathan, is about to take over. And that’s bad news if you know anything about Black Sails Over Freeport.

Given that Aldones Stefan Ambrose, the 25th level wizard who they rescued at the end of the adventure, granted them four wishes, extremely valuable jewelry, and some important information in the middle of Freeport’s streets, our heroes are about to receive some unwanted attention.

The last time they were in Freeport, Kham was sentenced to life on the Hulks, along with the dreaded orc pirate Drak Scarbelly. A daring raid freed them but put the heroes on the Sea Lord Guard’s hit list. During that time, Kham finally got over his addiction to Ghoul Juice (the hard way, by going cold turkey in prison) and thought that was the last of it. But Ghoul Juice is now spreading through Freeport’s streets like wildfire, enough to upset the delicate balance that Finn’s Syndicate enforces.

Next adventures, in order: Gangs of Freeport, where our heroes staunch the flow of Ghoul Juice to Freeport’s streets. Then they cut off the drugs at their source in The Ghosting of the Lady Quay. After they return to Freeport, it’s time to get back on track with the final adventure series of the campaign. First comes Fair Salvage, when we find out what happened to all those Fihali and then Where the Ocean Meets the Sky to locate the Moonsilver Orb and open a portal to Yarashad. Finally, we’ll run the rest of Black Sails Over Freeport--the race to stop Leviathan from awakening is on!

All this will be told in my story hour, but the story hour postings are now like, 30 chapters behind the actual events so it’ll take awhile.

 

[Thunderfoot]

The party is currently trying to recruit allies for a war with the combined forces of the lizardfolk. They are north talking to "barbarians" which have decided that they will not join without each clan having them complete a 'task' first.

So far they have:
Brought a royal to the Red Hoofs (one of the PCs)
Retireved a branch from the 'Sacred Tree" for the Longspears (actually an 'evil' living plant)
Retrieved feathers froma Hipporgriff heard to make headdresses for admissioninto the Highriders
Slew a White Dragon for the Frozen Hawks
Currently going to slay the 'multi-headed "oops" guardian' and retrieve the 'first snowflake of winter' for the Stone Eagles

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Downtime

....and well earned downtime at that, for the PCs in my Realms campaign.

They just finished closing off three permanent portals located around the ruins of Tilverton* that allowed the Plane of Shadow to grow forth into the Prime on Faerûn and so preempt a war between the lost Army of Shade and the City of Shade itself, where the later had just invaded Cormyr’s ‘airspace’ with the intent to destroy or capture said Army, but not before Shade’s Mythallar was severely damaged by marauding Shadow Stone Golems, Shadow Dragons, Nightwalkers and worse.

The PCs then forced negotiations (and I’m talking intense, from an RP perspective) betwixt themselves and Telamont Tanthul of Shade, whereby they produced a means to repair Shade’s Mythallar in exchange for Shade’s immediate departure back to Anourach.

All this occurred during the last three days of novel time in the novel Blackstaff, which served as a superbly distracting (albeit, interesting) mystery background event, as the PCs shot back and forth between Cormyr, Waterdeep, Myth Drannor and Zhentil Keep ...all just to figure out what the deuce was going on.

Now the PCs are resting, counting their coins and making plans to build a fortress in the Stonelands and convince the elves of Evermeet to return to Myth Drannor so as to restore its fading Mythal.

J. Grenemyer

*..converted the adventure Gates of Oblivion from issue #136 issue of Dungeon Magazine.

 

[molonel]

Two d20 Modern campaigns, both following the same story (one online, one face to face).

Cell one just finished my adventure "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse" where they discovered that at least one alien lifeform has been on the North American continent since at least the time of Custer's defeat, where the alien presence was decisive in that battle. They interrogated an Indian shaman who is on the spearhead of a movement to destroy the aliens, although their interrogation was interrupted by a rogue FBI agent. They recovered the body of one alien and turned it over to the government.

Cell two just began my adventure called "Task Force" where they are recruited from the army into Joint Task Force 7 (my take on Department 7 from d20 Modern's core rules) to infiltrate a cult that I based largely on the activities of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Oregon, although I'm going to put a Ctulhu-esque spin on the cult.

 

[Peni Griffin]

Bits of this are embarrassing, and if anybody out there respects me as a DM you probably won't after this, but it's really too funny not to share.

In a nutshell, my heavily-modified RHOD is getting more modified by the second. The PCs arrived in Elsir Vale with a rep, two warhorses and a palfrey advanced under Noble Steeds, a war dog, and two paladin cadets (0 level). Events in game - each and every one perfectly logical - have increased their reputation and increased the party size. The paladin has a pegasus mount, which since we're under 3.0 is a real pegasus rather than a pokemount. The cadets have been invested and are first level. Two NPCs from Drellin's Ferry have been persuaded to ride along. And the pegasus was persuaded to recruit good-aligned monsters from the mountains, resulting in two giant eagles and seven pegasi willing to act as scouts and periodically as mounts.

The Red Hand is gunning for them, but most of the encounters in the book would, logically, run away screaming from this party, so I'm having to put together new encounters using the existing elements, and varying the suggested strategy to deal with the reality of situation. Since I think Red Hand underutliizes a lot of elements, this isn't that hard - but so far it isn't working. Last night's debacle is a case in point.

At the suggestion of the PCs, the evacuees are scorching the earth behind them. The landscape is not just deserted, but burnt over - very little cover apart from hedgerows and trees lining roads, in orchards, and acting as windbreaks. The PCs, on their way to a mission, hole up for a day in an abandoned farmhouse, where the casters will be doing prep work for the mission while the eagles scout, and the fighting types plan to take an excursion looking for trouble, hoping to get the new paladins some experience before the main mission. As they're gearing up, they see a wyvern, at considerable altitude, obviously casing the joint and then flying off toward another farm.

This is in fact part of a plan by the strike force following them to split the party - lure away the "big guns," slip in, take a hostage/interrogation subject, and bug out again. And the party took the bait. Both clerics, all three paladins, and the combat monster fighter take off on pegasi, leaving two pegasi, two warhorses, the war dog, miscellaneous ground-based mounts, a stray cow, the bard, the rogue, and the timid, inexperienced-in-combat NPC wizard to hold down the fort. Pleased, the two barghests, four durzagon (my modification of what's in the module), ogre, and hobgoblins sneak up the lane using the trees for cover.

At which point, the rogue decides to climb out on the roof and take a 360-degree look around. He maxes his spot check, and sees them before they get within bowshot; meanwhile, they don't see him seeing them!

The rogue warns the bard and wizard, sends one of the remaining pegasi to catch up with the combat monsters and warn them, mounts his palfrey, and rides out to draw fire and, he hopes, lead them a merry cross-country chase. The reality is much more absurd. The warhorses and pegasus ride out after him. The wizard starts casting protection spells, the bard starts summoning monsters, and the war dog takes up a position to defend them. The resulting combat is animal-based mayhem as the warhorses in particular (run by the players who run the PCs riding them) stomp the opposition into the ground. By the time the distracted "big guns" return, it's all over but the gravedigging and interrogation. One durzagon got away (with one hit point!) and one was saved for interrogation by the bard's binding his wounds in time; the others were piles of goo, including the ogre. They never even got to the door of the farmhouse.

Things would have gone very differently had the rogue not spotted them coming and had I not made a serious error when typing up the barghest stats. I forgot their damage reduction! So now there's such a thing as a minor barghest in my campaign, with most barghest features but no DR. The durzagon were also rolling crap. But it's totally worth the shame of screwing up for the mental picture of the reaction when the escapee and the wyvern rider carry back a report of being defeated by (from their point of view, since they couldn't see what the bard was doing) the Legion of SuperPets.

And of course the next foray against them will be much, much tougher!

The bard now wants to advance her pony under Noble Steed rules, too, and the party is much less nervous about leaving the mounts unattended when they fly off or go into a dungeon/castle/lair situation than they were before. The horses are puffed up - their noses had been a little out of joint about the pegasi - and have been made much of. No one knows what the stray cow thinks.

 

[MaxKaladin]

At which point, the rogue decides to climb out on the roof and take a 360-degree look around. He maxes his spot check, and sees them before they get within bowshot; meanwhile, they don't see him seeing them!

Every once in a while, my slight paranoia about being snuck up on pays off.

the mental picture of the reaction when the escapee and the wyvern rider carry back a report of being defeated by (from their point of view, since they couldn't see what the bard was doing) the Legion of SuperPets.

They weren't the only ones who were surprised. I thought we were going to be toast but the combination of our various pets and the summoned animals turned the tide quite effectively.

Of course, I'm starting to wonder if anyone is going to start advancing that cow we picked up. You know, just for the extra muscle...