ZEITGEIST [ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.

[RangerWickett]

Nice. I hadn't seen that scene played out yet by any of the DMs who post here. Sounds exciting. I wonder if it'd be possible to encourage more PC Eschatologist-link-to-NPC-cult stuff in the compilation, or if I should leave it as is so other folks can make connections that work for them.

 

[gideonpepys]

Nice. I hadn't seen that scene played out yet by any of the DMs who post here. Sounds exciting. I wonder if it'd be possible to encourage more PC Eschatologist-link-to-NPC-cult stuff in the compilation, or if I should leave it as is so other folks can make connections that work for them.

The encounter is easy to avoid, I guess, so maybe other groups never even ran it. My group missed the Soknik's Repairs clue in the handover from unit B to A and didn't spot it til 10th, so there was no time for them to intercept the ship. By the time they eached Soknik's it was almost the end of the session so I had a whole week to decide how to play out the encounter. We hadn't had a big, high-level fight for a while, so I built a dockside encounter that involved the Cherno Bezna, Rumdoom's old contacts, and a whole bunch of Malice Beasts (mostly the ones suggested in the Pathfinder version) - including a behir mini I've had on ice for ages. The bit about the departing wagons was added because I had been generous in allowing the players to catch the cultists at all (mainly because I wanted a fight), and wanted there to be a repercussion for their tardiness.

It turned out to be a very narrative combat - several story elements came to the fore during the fight. Rumdoom's beef with Thered and Thangir obviously made things personal and the players were quite gratified when the dockers rallied round the unit. Fun to see a high-level character demonstrate just how powerful he had become: after he was swallowed, Rumdoom did more damage to the behir than it did to him - in fact, he wasn't even bloodied. That's a rewarding moment for a player (after two and a half years in heroic tier).

I think it might be nice to suggest in a sidebar that eschatologist PCs could be linked in some way to the terrorists, but that would depend on the list of contacts the PC creates. The idea fell in my lap when Rumdoom's player created a differentiated four-man cell, but forcing the issue might not work as elegantly. (For example, I borrowed the idea about the curse afflicting Korrigan's wife and child from another DM on these boards, and more or less imposed not only the storyline, but the family upon him. It hasn't been hugely successful, as his Q&A feedback demonstrates...)

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 95a - Sunset Bench

Unit B were all set to escort Brakken and assorted members of the Risuri and Danoran peace delegations to Sunset Bench, a prestigious night club in North Shore, when the call came from Korrigan for four of them to join him at Soknik's Repairs. This left only Niniel and Wil guarding the diplomats.

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your point of view) the delegations were playing things very much by the book, and each only sent one member to Brakken's 'ice breaker': Geoff Massarde, the tiefling engineer, representing Risur; and Rosalyn Taylor, a spirited redhead with a missing eye who captained the Freux Rouge, Danor's last remaining sail-driven warship.

The group arrived at the club, where Rock Rackus was giving the second-to-last performance of his tour of Flint. He was singing a song called, "An RHC Hero is Something to Be" and regaling the crowd with the fantastic story of how he saved the city from tentacled horrors alongside officers from the constabulary. The club was crowded and there appeared to be little chance of getting a table, but as they approached one closest to the stage, the occupants decided, unaccountably and unanimously, that now was the time to leave. Which was nice.

While the group hobnobbed, and Geoff Massarde had one too many drinks, Niniel noticed a face she recognised in one of the back booths: the same pasty, porcine face she had seen leaving the backroom area at the Kell-run brothel she had infiltrated over a month ago. From what he said at the time, it had been clear he had a leadership role within the guild. Here he was, surrounded by three bodyguards, in an intense conversation with a nondescript man with beige hair, beige clothes and a beige demeanour.

She circulated discreetly and learned that this was none other than Quentin Augst - a powerful city lawyer, though no one recognised the beige man he was speaking to. (Later she would learn that he had signed himself into the club register as 'Norm'*) Augst was not only watched over by his bodyguards - Niniel spotted half a dozen Kell Guild ne'erdowells ranged about incognito. She used the messenger wind to call for backup. Several minutes later, she was told that Sergeant Veilleux was on his way and would be there as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Rackus had finished his gig, announcing that - while the intimacy of Sunset Bench was by far superior, anyone who wanted to catch him again would find him at the 'lesser venue' of the Navras Opera House for his final performance the following night. Just when Niniel returned to the table to nab Wil, Brakken launched to his feet and said, "I must meet this man!" Wil tried to discourage him by dismissing Rackus' tall tales, but Brakken insisted that he thought Rackus was telling the truth. With that, he led the diplomats over to the other side of the crowded club, where a reluctant Wil was compelled to follow, or risk leaving the delegation completely unguarded.

Time was ticking. Niniel approached the waitress who was waiting on Augst's table. Niniel said she was a new waitress, and she wanted to pick up a sugar daddy as soon as she could. Having heard that Augst was a sucker for brunettes, she offered to work the other girl's entire shift for nothing if she let her take over. The waitress was duly persuaded, and when Niniel was certain she had left the club, she adopted her appearance and approached her target.

Augst upbraided her for bringing their drinks so late. He was in a foul mood and thumped the table as he yelled, "We're not running! That's just throwing money away! We need firepower, not a damned escape route! And because you couldn't just shut up and agree, now I've missed the whole show!" The beige man told him to calm down which only made matters worse. Augst jumped up, spilling his drink, gestured to his bodyguards and stormed out of the cub.

Niniel followed, hoping against hope that Leon would arrive in time, but it was not to be. At a loss, she resumed her normal form and headed back into the club where Wil, Brakken and guests were returning to their table. Norm had vanished. She told Wil what had happened and asked him if he had seen the man leave. To their surprise, Brakken said he had overheard someone matching that description say, "We'll have to kill him before he talks," before burrowing into the crowd.

 

[gideonpepys]

DM's Notes - Sunset Bench

Here the party really paid for their resource management decisions (and the slightly more unfortunate fact that Leon's player couldn't make it for the second week running). They couldn't be everywhere and do everything at once, and having pulled unit B away from Brakken were completely unable to move on Augst. But I like the way it worked because it demonstrated that there are consequences to each decision.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 95b - Debrief with Delft

11th Spring

Dima summoned unit A to Delft's office early the following morning. This was a bad sign. Delft rarely pulled rank, and usually wandered into the unit's office to debrief them, but if he was in a bad mood, he would call them to him instead.

Delft said he was cross because he had so many things to complain about he'd had to make a bullet point list. "I don't like bullet points. I like to write in nice, smooth paragraphs." His list ran as follows:

• Missing the Soknik’s Repairs lead was a big mistake. It cost lives and police manpower chasing down the Malice Beasts which should have been safely intercepted out at sea. Delft encouraged the unit to be more thorough in future and to join the dots when a ‘hiccup’ might cause issues (defining ‘hiccup’ as a lapse in time, or a handover of evidence from unit to unit.)
• A warning NOT to withdraw officers from guarding Brakken. "Do you think I assigned a whole squad for fun? That was before it turned out that we have not one, but two groups that want to disrupt the conference. Keep Unit B in place around the mediator. Besides, if they'd all been there last night, we might have arrested Quentin Augst there and then."
• A reminder to go after Augst now they had evidence of his involvement with the Kell Guild. Hopefully he would not know the RHC were on to him, so it shouldn't be too hard to track him down.
• Pressure from the Crown re Ekossigan: An impatient Asrabey Varal had been to visit the King and complain about a lack of progress. Delft was put in the embarrassing position of having explain why one of his officers had gone off to meet the terrorist Hana Soliogn on his own and ("yet again") returned empty handed. It was pointed out that Leon felt sure Ekossigan was close by and that Gale was being influenced by him. "Did anyone communicate that fact to Asrabey?" asked Delft. No one had.
• In an attempt to soften the tone, Delft then added. "I know you have a lot on your plate, but you are my only available squad." (He appeared to have a bullet point for this concession along with all the rest of his complaints.)
• Let’s solidify our understanding of where we are with each mission. Eschatologists: Can’t spare the manpower to guard subrail tunnels further, though they are already manned by trained support officers. You guys will need to be on standby in case anything happens. At this point Korrigan told Delft about the huge bomb. An overwhelmed Delft scribbled furiously in his notes, saying, "Right, that's another bullet point!" Malthusius said he would interrogate the deceased dwarves. Ekossigan: Pressure from Crown aside, we need to prioritize and this thread appears to have gone cold. If Ekossigan is in the Cloudwood, how can we possibly find him, when we can't find Gale in there either? It was suggested that Uru ask the Nice Spiders to search the woods, but that idea was dismissed until Malthusius said this had 'broken' his Skyseer Vision from the night before, and that this might be worth doing after all. Uru knew the Nice Spiders were fans of Miss Fortune the puppeteer so he sent a message to her to include a request to meet with them at one of her shows. Kell: "We need a decisive strike here. No pussy-footing around. The idea is to weaken his resolve, to flush him out of hiding." So far the group had built up plenty of intel and leverage (Task Force Tokens) but only one decisive strike: disrupting a front of milliners that were smuggling magical poisons hidden in the lining of hats. It was decided that the priority today would be to assault Casa De Kell and conduct a sting operation on a group who were magically altering kidnapped women to look like eladrin and selling them into slavery in Danor.
• "Oh, and by the way, the Tin Man wants a word with you."

 

[gideonpepys]

DM's Notes - Debrief with Delft

Delft is a great tool to summarize your campaign - much more effective than a simple synopsis at the start of the session. You can encourage the players to focus on specific things; remind them of clues they might have missed (the ones you want them to be reminded of); even hector them for their mistakes (which is great fun).

This week one of my players complained that 'this is like having a meeting with a real manager'.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 95c - RHC HQ

On the way out of Delft's office the unit was button-holed by a dapper, charismatic young journalist named Bartholomew Pryce. The late Johann Grimm (Korrigan's contact at The Flint Tribune) had mentioned him before - he used to rent an office in the same building and published an anti-establishment paper called The Pryce of Progress that was heavily critical of the monarchy and the RHC. Pryce pressed a copy of the latest issue into Korrigan's hand, along with his card (which had the address of the Tribune building scribbled out, his home address scribbled on). The paper was inexpertly pressed using some cobbled together equipment (now that the Tribune press was gone). Pryce confessed his left-leaning tendencies, but offered Korrigan the same 'mouthpiece to the people' Grimm had given him, in return for access. Pryce had heard Korrigan's speeches and read his articles and felt sure that, if anyone, Korrigan could win him around to a more positive view of the constabulary. Later, Korrigan read the lead story which criticized the recent crackdown in Parity Lake. The editorial suggested this was a pointless exercise in tidying up the city before the Peace Talks. Police manpower had been drawn away from the pursuit of the dwarven terrorists and from the hunt for a 'child-killer' in the Cloudwood. Pryce also went to visit Professor Ludo Marcione, and offered him a similar deal. He was interested in finding out how Ludo and his team felt about being replaced on the 'Kell case'.


Down in the evidence room, the bronze golem housing Alexander Grappa greeted the unit with an enthusiastic HELLO. He had a typewriter connected up to a gramophone speaker, and was able to haltingly broadcast what he typed. Justin Rollins stood behind his chair, beaming proudly at his new invention. Uru was fascinated and congratulated the big man. Making one for poor Khoomrung Morkanstall was mooted until they realised he had no fingers to type with. Fashioning hooks or mechanical fingers or something similar was discussed before Grappa gave a loud AHEM! He asked what if any progress had been made with the golem eye, and whether access to his old workshop had been arranged. The latter was easily sorted - Grappa would be escorted from the building incognito and taken there by carriage. As for the eye - well, the unit could only confess that they were doing their best, as yet to no avail. Grappa told them that the signals he was receiving from the eye were out of date. Designed only to transmit a few inches, the weak signal was taking days to reach him and sometimes gave out entirely. He now thought the eye was surrounded by twisted metal, somewhere that felt 'both inside and out'.

Prompted by their meeting with Grappa, Korrigan was reminded to submit a request that Harkover Lee attempt to dispel his geas. He also called in a favour with the Flint police, releasing a citywide APB for the dwarven cultists, with descriptions of key figures provided by Kvarti Gorbartiy. The Drakren gunman was only too eager to help. He felt his debt to Rumdoom was yet to be paid. The unit considered deputising him, but Kvarti was not keen. He had no reason to kill Kell Guilders or fey. The eschatologists however - they were fair game. He and Rumdoom patched up their differences in traditional dwarven fashion (which to non-dwarves looked very much like a cuddle). Kvarti promised he would fashion a 'great weapon' for Rumdoom.

Malthusius went to the morgue where he conjured the spirit of Thered Kharngraft. To say he was the more talkative of the brothers was like gauging the comparative loquacity of two stones, but Malthusius judged that he would respond if sufficiently provoked. He began by telling the angry spirit that 'your end comes when I say it does' and dismissing his petty 'doomsday cult'. Thered corrected him: "Doomsdays. Multiple days of doom. Zubov will grind your city into the dust." Malthusius then tricked Thered into showing off about the bomb they had constructed, learning that its timing was precise (26 minutes, 18 seconds) and that it was almost impossible to defuse. But the cultists had been more guarded than Malthusius thought: when it came to questions about their next attack, or their current whereabouts, Thered did not know the answer.

 

[RangerWickett]

Seeing your campaign play out is giving me lots of feedback to help improve the Campaign Guide section of the compilation, to have more GMing advice.

 

[gideonpepys]

Seeing your campaign play out is giving me lots of feedback to help improve the Campaign Guide section of the compilation, to have more GMing advice.

That's good to know. Writing these reports has made my own DMing more thoughtful and successful, so everyone's a winner!

This session was the first time the group thought to use Prestige to aid them. They opted for a citywide alert for the cultists rather than extra men for the Kell operation, because they were very concerned about the enormous bomb. I'd like to see Prestige referenced more often throughout the campaign, to be honest. It's a great mechanic, and a cool idea, but it doesn't get much of a mention.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 95d - The Enemy of My Enemy is My Family

The whole unit, plus every police officer they could muster, marched on Casa de Kell in the early hours of the morning. Matunaaga and Uru had ranged ahead and disabled the numerous traps set throughout the nearby buildings. The Kell Guilders were arrogant. Their numbers had been bolstered at the last minute and they did not seem at all surprised by the assault, but eventually the sheer amount of foes ranged against them encouraged them to surrender without a fight. Another reminder, as if one were needed, that there was a mole in the squad.

Malthusius decided that he would spent the rest of the morning investigating, while the others (without any police officers to help or hinder) would engage in the sting on the 'eladrin' traffickers. This last raid went off without a hitch.

Meanwhile, Malthusius quickly rooted out the officer responsible for the leak that morning. While he did so, a message came that a parcel for him had been delivered to RHC HQ. Learning that a known Family associate had dropped off the parcel, Malthusius hastened to return and discovered a marvellous pair of magical shoes, along with a note inviting him to talk with Morgan Cippiano at the Brave Hall fashion show at any time that day. Malthusius had a long history with Morgan and had asked him for help against the Kell Guild a long time ago. Then, having already lost men in an attempted hit on Kell, Cippiano had replied that the RHC must first demonstrate that they were serious. Clearly, that message had reached him, if not Lorcan Kell. Malthusius donned the shoes and hastened to the meeting.

Cippiano was his usual self - achingly polite, respectful; talking at first of clothes and style and everything but the business at hand. Eventually, he drew Malthusius out on to a balcony and revealed that he now had a reliable man on the inside, who could help the unit get to Kell himself. Such an arrangement would be necessary, said Morgan, as Kell had a secure escape plan involving his shadowy patrons - who Cippiano freely admitted he knew very little about. In return, he would need a moratorium on murders in Parity Lake; a prisoner release; and he wanted to know what Ashima-Shimtu had offered Malthusius!

Surprising though this last question was, Malthusius answered at once, "She offered me godhood, and I declined." Morgan nodded, impressed. The other two conditions could not be met by Malthusius who sent a request via Delft to the King himself. (Privately, he balked at the thought of releasing Giovanni Algardi - otherwise known as 'the Carver', a sculptor who magically animated his creations and caused them to murder and rob his rich patrons.)

To sweeten the deal, and demonstrate his good intentions, Cippiano proffered this tidbit of information: the leader of the Obscurati facility here in Flint had shown his face in the Nettles some time ago. (Malthusius remembered this occasion all too well of course.) As a Crisillyiri demonstrating considerable power, he had attracted Morgan's attention. His enquiries revealed that the man was a 'savant' (along with Azon the Stoneforger, Ludo Marcione, and others) - individuals able to manipulate reality with their minds. The Church had once persecuted them, and they remained taboo in some parts of Crisillyir. His name was Leone Quital, the 'Steelshaper' and his rich and influential family had an estate to the northeast of Vendricce.

Some time later (while the rest of the unit was otherwise engaged - see session reports 95e & 95g) Malthusius went to visit the cobbler Dozi Mendici, as planned. There he fell into conversation with another customer - a scruffy, cheeky, chatty type (with two concealed daggers) called Dester Rathtine. Rathtine said that everything had been arranged in accordance with 'his employers' and went on to say that he was one of Kell's trusted runners, who delivered messages from Kell to the rest of his guild. He said that Kell did indeed have a last-ditch escape route, which enabled him to teleport away from trouble: a magical device provided by 'the other guys'. But Kell was wary of using this route and was currently petitioning his Obscurati contact for more help. Dester thought that he could fake a reply from this contact (who called himself 'Norm'), and draw Kell out into the open - but only when Kell felt sufficiently nervous to flee. Dester - demonstrating an impressive knowledge of such matters - could ensure his route took him past 'an ideal bottle-neck' (a bridge across the Stanfield Canal, perhaps) where the RHC could lay down some sort of dimensional lock. (Once again, Malthusius thought of Harkover Lee.)

Of course, all this required even more pressure to be put on the guild...