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Worldres' Zeitgeist Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Worldres" data-source="post: 8274909" data-attributes="member: 7029564"><p>They're just about to meet him next session!!! I'm vibrating with anticipation to see how things go this adventure...</p><p></p><p>So, yeah, we finished Adventure 4!!!</p><p></p><p><strong>Adventure 2, Always On Time: Oracle Unaware Her Companionship The Only Thing Stopping Man From Committing One of the Bloodiest Acts in Lanjyr History</strong></p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]136987[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>We follow the Obscurati's trail overseas! The party's secret identities were:</p><p></p><p>Mona > Daisy Mossbrew, a woman who married into wealth and is now using her husband's fortune to fund her potion business</p><p>Marcel > Rachel Mossbrew, Daisy's whiny teenaged stepdaughter</p><p>Hoya > Tifapine, Daisy's private tutor</p><p>Cleone > Lydia Benest, deva merchant recently hired into Daisy's potion business</p><p>Gatria > Catherine Hunter, Lydia's business partner</p><p></p><p>They were all Risuri. The party more or less prepared perfectly (highlights include getting Delft to disguise himself as 'Daisy's' husband to pose for a painting with his 'wife' and 'daughter', which Mona brought with her on the train...), so I didn't give them any trouble getting into Danor. They also recruited Finona, who quickly became another party favourite. </p><p></p><p>Between adventures, Gatria checked in with Morgan Cippiano. After learning that Rock Rackus had some very unusual scrolls, she used her prestige with the Family to try and figure out if he had any villas or some such overseas that she could go rob. I didn't want her to get her hands on the scroll yet, but I thought I would reward her for her good thinking anyway, so I gave her an address in Beaumont she could poke around in. She found money and incriminating evidence about Gran Guiscard's failure to recruit the oblivious Rock into Gorgeous Cell (which I called Glamor cell before, oops! That's what I meant). Gran stopped short of outright saying what the cell's goals were, but I gave them a hint towards their intentions. Now that they've stolen both his gun and his stuff, "Rob Rock Rackus Blind" is now a major party goal.</p><p></p><p>The party realized pretty quick that they were kind of useless as a group, and decided to split up when stalking marks. Everyone instantly hated Boone (we just called him Olivert), and rather than stalking him when she realized she had no stealth talents, Cleone decided just to follow him around and harass him openly for being a creep. It was very funny, and also saved the young girl's life at the first stop, though from their perspective, he just grumpily retired to a cheap hotel with his date. Cleone's player actually said, "I bet you anything he's actually a serial killer who is hiding his love of violence behind womanizing behavior." After she turned out to be right, she renamed herself Broken Clock in group chat. Then she just kept... dropping truth bombs...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]136990[/ATTACH]</p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Posted pre-Nicodemus. Steph, I REALLY need you to stop!!! </span></p><p></p><p>Gatria successfully stalked Bree and Finona's carriage using a combination of magical disguise and invisibility on the way to the Jierre's, and in an incredible moment of mind-reading, had the foresight to get out of dodge before reaching the antimagic road to the mansion. Later, she literally dove out to sea to get to the Lighthouse where Luc was heading for his demonstration, and scaled the wall to overhear their conversation. Mona, in rat form, also managed to successfully perception-and-stealth her way to the meeting with Zoltan, where she got to see the meeting with her own eyes and witness Luc's uncertainty (Zoltan complimented his ingenuity for coming up with such a device; Luc seemed a little frustrated by the compliment).</p><p></p><p>Mona made friends with Damata, who eventually told her about his problems, but the party decided not to get involved for fear of not only blowing their cover, but angering their Family connections back in Flint. When Damata went off to die, the entire chat stopped the game to pour a drink and have a little toast to our poor, brave, dead half-orc friend.</p><p></p><p>Through the combined power of Message and plain intuition, they found out about Isobel's situation right away. Similarly, though, they decided not to get involved for fear of blowing their cover. Cleone discovered Mr. Mapple and tried to arm him to the gills, but he got arrested anyway. By now, the party was pretty upset with themselves for letting innocent people die, but Gatria and Marcel tried to reason with the good-aligned party members that they were probably going to save millions of lives by stopping the Obscurati. Out of character, the party is insanely curious to know what percentage of people decide to involve themselves with various plot threats, but I suppose that information is impossible to know.</p><p></p><p>Cleone also figured out something was up with Malia, but decided not to pursue it. After the train incident, she reported Malia's suspicious activities to the authorities, and felt horribly guilty when it turned out she was responsible for the Screaming Malice. </p><p></p><p>The party didn't involve themselves with Cardiff at all (rather, they tried once and failed their rolls to keep up).</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]136993[/ATTACH]</p><p><span style="font-size: 15px">If an Avery Coast Train goes at sixty miles per hour for six days, how many people should you let die in Nalaam?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10px">By the way, the 3D image is a Heroforge mock-up of Finona. </span></p><p></p><p>Hoya become close friends with Verzubak, who realized that they were the spies, and decided to have a straightforward, friendly chat with Hoya before he made a decision to come forward to his employer. Hoya successfully convinced him not to tell with some good Diplomacy rolls and some cash - but not before Gatria told a casino guard Verzubak had magic, cheating dice, and to arrest him at once. Oops!!! </p><p></p><p>Since Luc and Ottavia couldn't definitely prove that Mossbrew and company were the spies, they decided to throw their entire car into Nem. Olivert made a ruckus in the hall before the lantern was lit, and Hoya invited him into their car just to shut him up (there was no way the party would have let him in otherwise). Cleone and Mona made the save (I decided to let it be a one-time save, but the party outside could voluntarily decide to fail after that), everyone else fell into Nem. Gatria ran ahead to scout out the train, and Hoya confronted Boone about being a serial killer. Boone decided to attack her - I thought this was a good time to emphasize that leaving the two bards alone with a big bad serial killer was a bad play. Um, turns out they absolutely crushed him. Somehow. I was pulling out all the stops, but never underestimate the power of a good stunlock.</p><p></p><p> </p><p>[ATTACH=full]136992[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Back in the real world, Cleone and Mona figured out that shattering the car lanterns could save their friends. Just as Hoya and Marcel were arguing over what to do with Boone, the party woke up. Boone remained unconscious and eventually died. Hoya literally wept with guilt, feeling sorry for him, deciding that he might not have been so evil had it not been for the cursed gun. Oh boy, I'm giving her Triegene's Humble Hook in Adventure 7 for sure. Later, Gatria recovered the broken lantern for study.</p><p></p><p>The party was evenly split on whether to follow Ottavia to the Isle of Odiem. Look... I didn't want to let a good NPC go to waste, so I had Marcel vote to go, not gonna lie. They took Ottavia up on her offer to talk, and convinced her successfully that they had no interest in hurting anyone, but spent more time trying to convince Ottavia that the Obscurati was evil than trying to get information from her. Ottavia had no reason to believe them, so they ended up at a philosophical stalemate. Ashima Shimtu lured them to the Vault during the zombie attack, and the party gave her a little visit. Ottavia refrained from fighting Gene, and was reluctant to approach Ashima Shimtu. After the fight, the party had a talk with Ashima Shimtu alone, and asked her if she would see them safely back to Sid Minos (they declined to go to Vendricce, against Ashima's offer. Oh well!). They also asked her if she might drop Ottavia off at a pond in Torfield Palace with the intent of getting her arrested for tresspassing, so they could wrangle her later and question her. Also, it would be a threatening message to the King, if he really were a part of the Obscurati. Ashima Shimtu thought this was very amusing, and agreed.</p><p></p><p>To make a long story short, during the scramble from Sid Minos, the party split and only Mona and Gatria made it to see Lya and Luc reunite. The party absolutely refused to kill Luc, and since they already had the lantern, they weren't all that interested in taking him hostage, either. At the very least, Gatria wanted to extract poor Finona from the meeting, but then thought it would be great fun to become Invisible and pick Nicodemus' pocket for more of those Bleak Gate Amulets. He instantly perceived the attempt and alerted Lya. The party fled as fast as they could away from the scene, leaving Finona behind in their haste. Figuring out that Lya had a chainsaw and that Nicodemus could outroll a 31 spooked them enough, so I didn't give them any more trouble.</p><p></p><p>Back on the shores of Risur, the party interrogated Ottavia. I let Ottavia give them a teeny bit more information than recommended - she confessed that the lantern could harness planar energy to influence this world to protect the weak and oppressed in the coming reckoning - which might have been a mistake, because then three of my players all shouted at once "Oh, so this is Steampunk The Red Strings Club!" Hey, first of all, Zeitgeist came out before TRSC, and also, you guys can't just reverse-engineer the plot by investigating my interests. These gremlins, I swear. Anyway, this ending was very satisfying to them, so I don't really regret it, even if I tipped my hand a bit too much.</p><p></p><p>Well. Onward to Adventure 5!</p><p></p><p><strong>Intermission</strong></p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]136994[/ATTACH]</p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Marcel on the docks. ...I swear if I had been a player when some of the huge revelations happen in Adventure 5, it might have instantly incinerated my brain.</span></p><p></p><p>I know this post is already crazy long, but here's a fun minigame I did with my players. Back in Adventure 3, Hoya expended a favor for a list of all Yerasol Veterans with the initials A.G. who were treated for injuries in the 3rd Yerasol War. If your players somehow also ask for this, I made a spreadsheet in about ten minutes of work that lists randomized people. You can have it <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rIRjtECQ3I-tYfSqpLFw2DgkfiFzh-2GoeUOUkw3BiY/" target="_blank">here</a> (my google account name is just a pseudonym). By process of elimination, they figured out the name of John Doe was Alexander Grappa. </p><p></p><p>In the downtime between 4 and 5, I had a little intermission session where I let Cleone put the golem back together. (We also did a March of Kings minisode, which I'll share later, but I don't have time to get into it right now). When Alexander told them his name, they lost their freaking <em>minds</em>.</p><p></p><p>Gatria also shared her little "conspiracy theory" she had about Benedict Pemberton. As an ex-cult of the steel lord soldier, she found Flint News from Adventure 4 about Pemberton pushing for war and the simultaneous hiring of Ber immigrants in Flint factories VERY suspicious, and decided to investigate. She had enough intel from Benedict Pemberton's tent to know he worked with steel and that he probably had a factory here, and I let her find out from Cippiano by expending another favor that Pemberton sourced his steel from Ber. She then confronted the party with her intel, and said that if Risur goes to war with Ber, it'll be the rebels that benefit - and the Steel Lord Gradiax, too. Given that she's seen it is possible to house a soul in a machine, she believes that Benedict Pemberton is working with the Rebels to create a Metal Dragon that can house Steel Lord Gradiax's soul.</p><p></p><p>Group chat responded by making this meme:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]136996[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>That's all for now! I was supposed to have a major surgery in a couple weeks and was going to take a break from DMing, but it got cancelled, so, uh... let's finish Act I!!!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Worldres, post: 8274909, member: 7029564"] They're just about to meet him next session!!! I'm vibrating with anticipation to see how things go this adventure... So, yeah, we finished Adventure 4!!! [B]Adventure 2, Always On Time: Oracle Unaware Her Companionship The Only Thing Stopping Man From Committing One of the Bloodiest Acts in Lanjyr History[/B] [ATTACH type="full"]136987[/ATTACH] We follow the Obscurati's trail overseas! The party's secret identities were: Mona > Daisy Mossbrew, a woman who married into wealth and is now using her husband's fortune to fund her potion business Marcel > Rachel Mossbrew, Daisy's whiny teenaged stepdaughter Hoya > Tifapine, Daisy's private tutor Cleone > Lydia Benest, deva merchant recently hired into Daisy's potion business Gatria > Catherine Hunter, Lydia's business partner They were all Risuri. The party more or less prepared perfectly (highlights include getting Delft to disguise himself as 'Daisy's' husband to pose for a painting with his 'wife' and 'daughter', which Mona brought with her on the train...), so I didn't give them any trouble getting into Danor. They also recruited Finona, who quickly became another party favourite. Between adventures, Gatria checked in with Morgan Cippiano. After learning that Rock Rackus had some very unusual scrolls, she used her prestige with the Family to try and figure out if he had any villas or some such overseas that she could go rob. I didn't want her to get her hands on the scroll yet, but I thought I would reward her for her good thinking anyway, so I gave her an address in Beaumont she could poke around in. She found money and incriminating evidence about Gran Guiscard's failure to recruit the oblivious Rock into Gorgeous Cell (which I called Glamor cell before, oops! That's what I meant). Gran stopped short of outright saying what the cell's goals were, but I gave them a hint towards their intentions. Now that they've stolen both his gun and his stuff, "Rob Rock Rackus Blind" is now a major party goal. The party realized pretty quick that they were kind of useless as a group, and decided to split up when stalking marks. Everyone instantly hated Boone (we just called him Olivert), and rather than stalking him when she realized she had no stealth talents, Cleone decided just to follow him around and harass him openly for being a creep. It was very funny, and also saved the young girl's life at the first stop, though from their perspective, he just grumpily retired to a cheap hotel with his date. Cleone's player actually said, "I bet you anything he's actually a serial killer who is hiding his love of violence behind womanizing behavior." After she turned out to be right, she renamed herself Broken Clock in group chat. Then she just kept... dropping truth bombs... [ATTACH type="full"]136990[/ATTACH] [SIZE=3]Posted pre-Nicodemus. Steph, I REALLY need you to stop!!! [/SIZE] Gatria successfully stalked Bree and Finona's carriage using a combination of magical disguise and invisibility on the way to the Jierre's, and in an incredible moment of mind-reading, had the foresight to get out of dodge before reaching the antimagic road to the mansion. Later, she literally dove out to sea to get to the Lighthouse where Luc was heading for his demonstration, and scaled the wall to overhear their conversation. Mona, in rat form, also managed to successfully perception-and-stealth her way to the meeting with Zoltan, where she got to see the meeting with her own eyes and witness Luc's uncertainty (Zoltan complimented his ingenuity for coming up with such a device; Luc seemed a little frustrated by the compliment). Mona made friends with Damata, who eventually told her about his problems, but the party decided not to get involved for fear of not only blowing their cover, but angering their Family connections back in Flint. When Damata went off to die, the entire chat stopped the game to pour a drink and have a little toast to our poor, brave, dead half-orc friend. Through the combined power of Message and plain intuition, they found out about Isobel's situation right away. Similarly, though, they decided not to get involved for fear of blowing their cover. Cleone discovered Mr. Mapple and tried to arm him to the gills, but he got arrested anyway. By now, the party was pretty upset with themselves for letting innocent people die, but Gatria and Marcel tried to reason with the good-aligned party members that they were probably going to save millions of lives by stopping the Obscurati. Out of character, the party is insanely curious to know what percentage of people decide to involve themselves with various plot threats, but I suppose that information is impossible to know. Cleone also figured out something was up with Malia, but decided not to pursue it. After the train incident, she reported Malia's suspicious activities to the authorities, and felt horribly guilty when it turned out she was responsible for the Screaming Malice. The party didn't involve themselves with Cardiff at all (rather, they tried once and failed their rolls to keep up). [ATTACH type="full"]136993[/ATTACH] [SIZE=4]If an Avery Coast Train goes at sixty miles per hour for six days, how many people should you let die in Nalaam?[/SIZE] [SIZE=2]By the way, the 3D image is a Heroforge mock-up of Finona. [/SIZE] Hoya become close friends with Verzubak, who realized that they were the spies, and decided to have a straightforward, friendly chat with Hoya before he made a decision to come forward to his employer. Hoya successfully convinced him not to tell with some good Diplomacy rolls and some cash - but not before Gatria told a casino guard Verzubak had magic, cheating dice, and to arrest him at once. Oops!!! Since Luc and Ottavia couldn't definitely prove that Mossbrew and company were the spies, they decided to throw their entire car into Nem. Olivert made a ruckus in the hall before the lantern was lit, and Hoya invited him into their car just to shut him up (there was no way the party would have let him in otherwise). Cleone and Mona made the save (I decided to let it be a one-time save, but the party outside could voluntarily decide to fail after that), everyone else fell into Nem. Gatria ran ahead to scout out the train, and Hoya confronted Boone about being a serial killer. Boone decided to attack her - I thought this was a good time to emphasize that leaving the two bards alone with a big bad serial killer was a bad play. Um, turns out they absolutely crushed him. Somehow. I was pulling out all the stops, but never underestimate the power of a good stunlock. [ATTACH type="full"]136992[/ATTACH] Back in the real world, Cleone and Mona figured out that shattering the car lanterns could save their friends. Just as Hoya and Marcel were arguing over what to do with Boone, the party woke up. Boone remained unconscious and eventually died. Hoya literally wept with guilt, feeling sorry for him, deciding that he might not have been so evil had it not been for the cursed gun. Oh boy, I'm giving her Triegene's Humble Hook in Adventure 7 for sure. Later, Gatria recovered the broken lantern for study. The party was evenly split on whether to follow Ottavia to the Isle of Odiem. Look... I didn't want to let a good NPC go to waste, so I had Marcel vote to go, not gonna lie. They took Ottavia up on her offer to talk, and convinced her successfully that they had no interest in hurting anyone, but spent more time trying to convince Ottavia that the Obscurati was evil than trying to get information from her. Ottavia had no reason to believe them, so they ended up at a philosophical stalemate. Ashima Shimtu lured them to the Vault during the zombie attack, and the party gave her a little visit. Ottavia refrained from fighting Gene, and was reluctant to approach Ashima Shimtu. After the fight, the party had a talk with Ashima Shimtu alone, and asked her if she would see them safely back to Sid Minos (they declined to go to Vendricce, against Ashima's offer. Oh well!). They also asked her if she might drop Ottavia off at a pond in Torfield Palace with the intent of getting her arrested for tresspassing, so they could wrangle her later and question her. Also, it would be a threatening message to the King, if he really were a part of the Obscurati. Ashima Shimtu thought this was very amusing, and agreed. To make a long story short, during the scramble from Sid Minos, the party split and only Mona and Gatria made it to see Lya and Luc reunite. The party absolutely refused to kill Luc, and since they already had the lantern, they weren't all that interested in taking him hostage, either. At the very least, Gatria wanted to extract poor Finona from the meeting, but then thought it would be great fun to become Invisible and pick Nicodemus' pocket for more of those Bleak Gate Amulets. He instantly perceived the attempt and alerted Lya. The party fled as fast as they could away from the scene, leaving Finona behind in their haste. Figuring out that Lya had a chainsaw and that Nicodemus could outroll a 31 spooked them enough, so I didn't give them any more trouble. Back on the shores of Risur, the party interrogated Ottavia. I let Ottavia give them a teeny bit more information than recommended - she confessed that the lantern could harness planar energy to influence this world to protect the weak and oppressed in the coming reckoning - which might have been a mistake, because then three of my players all shouted at once "Oh, so this is Steampunk The Red Strings Club!" Hey, first of all, Zeitgeist came out before TRSC, and also, you guys can't just reverse-engineer the plot by investigating my interests. These gremlins, I swear. Anyway, this ending was very satisfying to them, so I don't really regret it, even if I tipped my hand a bit too much. Well. Onward to Adventure 5! [B]Intermission[/B] [ATTACH type="full"]136994[/ATTACH] [SIZE=3]Marcel on the docks. ...I swear if I had been a player when some of the huge revelations happen in Adventure 5, it might have instantly incinerated my brain.[/SIZE] I know this post is already crazy long, but here's a fun minigame I did with my players. Back in Adventure 3, Hoya expended a favor for a list of all Yerasol Veterans with the initials A.G. who were treated for injuries in the 3rd Yerasol War. If your players somehow also ask for this, I made a spreadsheet in about ten minutes of work that lists randomized people. You can have it [URL='https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rIRjtECQ3I-tYfSqpLFw2DgkfiFzh-2GoeUOUkw3BiY/']here[/URL] (my google account name is just a pseudonym). By process of elimination, they figured out the name of John Doe was Alexander Grappa. In the downtime between 4 and 5, I had a little intermission session where I let Cleone put the golem back together. (We also did a March of Kings minisode, which I'll share later, but I don't have time to get into it right now). When Alexander told them his name, they lost their freaking [I]minds[/I]. Gatria also shared her little "conspiracy theory" she had about Benedict Pemberton. As an ex-cult of the steel lord soldier, she found Flint News from Adventure 4 about Pemberton pushing for war and the simultaneous hiring of Ber immigrants in Flint factories VERY suspicious, and decided to investigate. She had enough intel from Benedict Pemberton's tent to know he worked with steel and that he probably had a factory here, and I let her find out from Cippiano by expending another favor that Pemberton sourced his steel from Ber. She then confronted the party with her intel, and said that if Risur goes to war with Ber, it'll be the rebels that benefit - and the Steel Lord Gradiax, too. Given that she's seen it is possible to house a soul in a machine, she believes that Benedict Pemberton is working with the Rebels to create a Metal Dragon that can house Steel Lord Gradiax's soul. Group chat responded by making this meme: [ATTACH type="full"]136996[/ATTACH] That's all for now! I was supposed to have a major surgery in a couple weeks and was going to take a break from DMing, but it got cancelled, so, uh... let's finish Act I!!! [/QUOTE]
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