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Golden Bee posted:Captain Semya Ivanova is different from many pulp heroes. She’s not a greedy ex-con. She’s not a square-jawed South Seas captain, or a Broadway celeb solving capers that resemble their greatest hits. Doesn't use eastern martial arts to stand up to crooks and cloud the minds of men. She has a cause, of course: international communism. But her methodology is all her own. And we love her for it! I was sold right away just from that bit of her calling the Nazi factory foreman and demanding he drag his rear end into work. And a winning attitude like this: quote:The well-read Professor Callahan explained that the stolen jar could greatly expand a person’s chi. Luckily, chi was baloney and science governed the universe.
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Mar 27, 2024 22:43
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Golden Bee posted:Pailou Pileup! Paranoia pays off. That’s the lesson learned by Javid Kulfi, Afghan technician/photographer, and his pal Devika Velyapur (ex-cultist/child millionaire). Devika was still stressed out by the events of "Web Of The Spider Cult!", especially the part where she was put into a coma by a spider cult. So they were turning art dealer Sir Matthew’s townhouse into a fortress, much to his chagrin. (Devi had taken up semi-permanent residence ever since her mentor, Lord Simon, had moved in.) The doorbell rang after dinner, with two new faces: formerly dead detective JP Diamond*... and a five-year-old whose name he did not know. He found her in the woods while working a case in Minnesota, and all his instincts said bad hoodoo. And for better or worse, Miss Velyapur was an expert in cults, magic, and as a 13-year-old girl, girls. *JP Diamond has appeared once before in "The B-Team!". He met Devi very briefly in "Beignet, Done That", and is played by Florence’s old player. Because of the events of “Beignet”, he suffered from mild zombieism, which while “cured”, continues to have knock on effects. It was evening, so there was little for the team to but secure the house more and go to bed. It was a good thing were paranoid: the next day, there was evidence of powerful mystical attack, a spell designed to snatch the five-year-old’s mind and lead her back to captivity. The "fix the five-year-old" project was assigned to Devika, who called information. The right person for the job was "Dr. Dan", Manhattan’s premier child psychologist. And he was helpful, getting the girl to draw and write out her problems. The pictures contained odd blobs, chains of teeth, and other unsightly oddities. Javid consulted his knowledge of the occult and suggested Devi attack the psychic construct in the girl’s head! The ersatz exorcism had its intended effect… as much to Dr. Dan’s amazement the girl began to speak! Well, first scream, a lot, but after that, speak! Her name was Aurora Coil. She wanted her mommy. Her dad was a wicked man who wanted to open her soul to demonic possession. This scared the hell out of the already-addled child millionaire. After some effort and cupcakes, Javid and detective Diamond coaxed Devika back to her normal, arrogant self. It was scary, to be sure, but she was an expert. They needed her! Devi agreed on the condition that Aurora not be allowed in her room. It wasn’t hard to find the Cole residence. The decaying manner was in the woods near Duluth, a multilevel Victorian with its windows shuttered or barred. Infiltration was also easy, with JP pretending to be an encyclopedia salesman, and the other two sneaking in the back way. Despite locked doors and mystic wards, there was only one thing that could stop them: nerves. Fastidious Javid and cowardly Davika both screamed when they found the basement’s Sacrifice Chamber. It reeked of entrails and maggots. The screams eliminated the element of surprise. But the narrow, corner-filled house worked against the cultists. JP hammered them with haymakers. Javid put bullets through eyebrows. Devika ran support with her dagger. JP took a .45 to the sternum… and sighed, knowing he’d have to sew up that suit. Les Cole was another matter. The alienist commanded the house itself against our heroes: the windows bricking up, the furnace going full blast, the stairs inverting their nails. Cole had a weakness, though. (Two if you consider lunacy to be a weakness.) His greatest powers required eye contact. Devika took the sheets from the master bedroom and hurled them on his head! Cole soon traded his mansion for a drawer in the morgue. Detective JP scoured the now-normal grounds for clues. Old wedding records, framed photos, travel documents… It would take some doing, but he could now reunite Aurora and her mother. Javid told Devika to gather Aurora’s toys and clothes before they burned the mansion to the ground. The rest was cleanup! Diamond found the cult’s New York member in a fleabag motel. It wasn’t hard for Javid to put the man’s ideas on the wall behind him. For her part, Devika was emboldened by the group’s success. She treated Aurora like a little sister. Games, new outfits, even a guided tour through Devi’s various globetrotting knickknacks. And after mother and daughter were reunited, Devi had one more call to make. Did Dr. Dan work with adult patients, ones who we were 13?
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Apr 1, 2024 05:20
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I always find it a little bit heartening to read stories of pulp heroes breaking up occult nonsense by doing what they do best.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:36
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Golden Bee posted:Did Dr. Dan work with adult patients, ones who we were 13? The way you talk about Devil in these write ups, I wasn't aware she was 13 for a looooong time. Like, well after my first appreciation post on the subject. Golden Bee's experience running Web of the Spider Cult came up in the GM thread recently; originally the hook was a murdered acquaintance of the PCs. Bee's very simple adjustment of having the victim incapacitated instead of dead put a timer on the whole rest of the adventure, they needed to smash this cult and get the antivenin back Devika, pronto! Nail-biting stuff, I'm sure. quote:It wasn’t hard for Javid to put the man’s ideas on the wall behind him Took me a couple readings to realize you didn't mean a conspiracy-nut corkboard with red string. Only part I got right was the red 
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Apr 2, 2024 06:48
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I remember there was one time I was DMing Lost Mines of Phandelver (Return to Phandelver? I forget which is which) and the party had already cleared out some bandit lair, but for some reason they wanted to go back since there were some rooms they missed and they were insistent on returning and delaying the storyline just for some potential extra loot. As it turned out, they were at a door when they overheard two hobgoblins talking behind the door. In short, they were supposed to be working for Glasstaff who in turn works for the BBEG the Black Spider. They already defeated/arrested Glasstaff and took his eponymous staff, so they had something to help them in a deception check to avoid combat. Cue the one goofball member of the party barging in and loudly proclaiming he represented the will of the Glass Spider to let them through. Hobgoblins look at each other then look at the party. "Roll initiative..." Everyone in the party facepalms so hard while I'm cackling as the DM. Good times!
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Apr 4, 2024 18:01
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So I promised a post about this earlier but the post got a bit out of hand. Let me shorten it (lol) and punctuate it with the cliffhanger we ended on last week: Some prior posts about this same 7th Sea campaign: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. None of those are necessary for understanding this story, but there they are in one place. We the PCs are all in a secret society called Die Kreuzritter: ostensibly the pope's secret praetorian guard but actually in a secret war with secret aliens, in secret.   The cast: Kristjana: A Vesten/Ussuran (Scandinavian/Russian) huntress and rune sorceress. Laconic and private, her closest friend a steppes horse. (My character) Helgi: A Vesten whaler-turned-monster hunter. A soft-hearted gentile giant, rapidly becoming the party's moral core. Viktoria: A Ussuran shapeshifting noblewoman. Mandelos: An Aegean (Greek) demigod. A cocksure jock forever seeking opportunities for heroic escapades. An odd couple-type rival to Kristjana. Evelien: A Vendel (Danish) polymath, an anthropologist by trade. Circumspect widow to a Vesten, dedicated to stemming the Vendel/Vesten conflict. Our 7th Sea group is presently on an adventure ostensibly to help the Explorer's Society chart a constellation from a particular spot in the seas of Vesten. They have to do this in a particular place at a particular time, and doing so will give them more parity with the Montaigne in navigation. The Vendel ES employer in all of this says there may be a Montaigne ship sent to stop us for this reason. My character threatens her from the jump and goes full sovereign citizen because the ES lady tells us that we are honor-bound to help her in this because we are responsible for the deaths of several of her comrades in a previous adventure. (We aren't, at least not directly.) My character is a hermit libertarian Viking who was also coerced into working for the hated Vendel, so she is understandably chafed at this. The more rational members of the party negotiate with the ES and talk my character out of beating her senseless, so off we go. Our idea is to use this mission to spy on the ES on behalf of our actual secret society, Die Kreuzritter. We go on this mission as the muscle to protect all these nerds from the Montaigne if they show up. When we get to the spot, there is indeed a Montaigne ship on the horizon. And it is enormous. And there are three other ships: a Vodacce, a Castillian, and a Vendel. Every one of them outguns ours, and the Montaigne ship can outgun all of them at once. My character turns on our employer immediately, grabbing her by the collar and threatening to throw her overboard.  "What have you done to us? Why are there so many ships here? You have damned us all!"The ES lady claims ignorance, that perhaps the other interests stole her intel, or the intel that led the Montaigne here. "This research is of utmost value," she says. Against my better judgment, my character does not throw her overboard. We decide to attempt to parley with the Montaigne ship. As it turns out, they are already doing this with the other ships. The Montaigne captain is... an interesting person. Alissande, the captain, is telling every other ship that she has them all over a barrel but that she wants to hold some sort of competition to see who gets to stay for the research. We propose an obstacle course rather than a dueling tournament, because no one in our group has a Swordsman's Guild sanctioned school. She agrees to a compromise along these lines, and the carpenters of all the ships get to work building a course on a nearby island. Meanwhile, we have some shenanigans. Mandelos, my character's frenemy, is held as a hostage on the Montaigne ship, but enjoys his time there with the beautiful first mate. My character also finds a friend while trying to act as a distraction for another PCs activities. Connecting with other people is a weird new experience for her, so she has a sort of "OMG are we friends?" moment and reverts to being a tittering teenager as she and her new pal play pranks on Mandelos all over the Montaigne ship. We start joking that we should win the competition and give the spoils to the Montaigne ship full of sexy pirates. The more responsible members of our party start noticing some suspicious activities and discover that there is a saboteur somewhere. We find evidence of the use of Montaigne magic to spy on people and sabotage every ship, including the Montaigne ship. We start trying to investigate, but we're also trying to hide that we are investigating because we don't know who it is yet. Mandelos, as more or less the Montaigne first mate's willing gigilo, attends several meals in the captain's quarters. There, with her officers, she hosts the officers of each of the other ships. Mandelos is 100% himbo so he has no idea what to do with any of this information, but he reports all of this to the party: -The Castillian ship is full of Inquisitors, presumably here to prevent Thought CrimesTM. -The Vodacce and Vendel are here for the same reason as the Explorer's Society, but more in conflict with each other than anyone else at the scene. -The Montaigne don't actually care about the navigation research. Alissande and her crew are no longer being paid by l'Empereur (as his regime on the mainland is in the process of collapse), so she is shopping out her services as a privateer with a professional crew and a huge, state-of-the-art ship for hire. -All of them, independent of one another, were fed intel of this place and time by...someone After a couple days of that, the obstacle course is complete. Each ship fields a few teams, and we do pretty well. The compromise with Alissande was to use the obstacle course to winnow the field for an eventual 2-on-2 dueling tournament. Her first mate, with the help of Mandelos' persuasions, is a high-ranking official in the Swordsman's Guild and has agreed to look the other way about any of us not being sanctioned. It's a kind of "international waters" type situation. We do well enough that all three of our two person teams qualify for the duels the next day. But the very last obstacle course run is done by our Ussuran sorceress and her NPC partner. When she completes the run by lighting a torch at the end of the course, the torch explodes. We didn't catch the saboteur in time. Our sorceress is fine, and we start investigating who could have done this. Between the information we have about who could have tampered with the torch and the information we had form before, we start narrowing down suspects. Considering means, motive, and opportunity, we get things down to: -Two Castillian carpenters -One Vodacce carpenter -Our own ship's carpenter Some more intel comes in that rules out the Vodacce, but we keep him in detention to press him for information about the other three suspects. He helps us eliminate the Castillans. It was our own guy all along, and his motive is coercive. Someone put him up to it. We interrogate him for a third time and finally learn who gave him his orders. It was the Explorer's Society lady all along. Our own employer. The one that I wanted to put over the side all along (albeit, for different, personal reasons).  We keep this close to the chest and two of us go ashore to where the Montaigne captain has all the crews camped for the competition and, now, for security during the investigation. Two PCs, Helgi and Viktoria, stay on our ship. Mandelos is still with the Montaigne first mate having a great time. But Evelien and Kristjana go ashore to find the ES lady. Kristjana is a bounty hunter by trade, so she is literally made for this. She tracks her quarry to the latrines built at the edge of the camp. They have wooden walls build around them. The tracks go in but not out, so I just...wait. All night. I pass a Resolve check to stave off sleep deprivation. Just before dawn, the ES lady comes out of the latrine like she didn't just spend five hours in the terlet. Which, of course, she didn't. She isn't Vendel. She was Montaigne all along, but she has nothing to do with the Montaigne ship's crew. She's something else. Maybe an alien simulacrum of a human, or maybe just another secret society. Dunno. "Feeling alright?" my character asks her. My character is bad at social interaction and isn't hiding her menace well at all. She is sitting astride her horse, looking down at the ES lady. "Yes. It is just difficult to sleep in these circumstances," she replies. She's better a lying than my character, but that poo poo doesn't matter anymore. We've done our homework. "Sure, sure. Sleeping in a latrine all night would be more like home for you, being Vendel," Kristjana says, being provocative on purpose. "I beg your par--" The ES lady does not finish her reply. Kristjana reaches down grabs her by the collar, and hauls her bodily up onto the horse. She snarls, "Enough of this. I know you did it and the only reason I didn't kill you the second you walked out of that latrine is because I promised Evelien I would give her a chance to ask you why. Now," throwing her to the ground, "Walk." I lead her back to Evelien's tent. I keep watch outside while Evelien interrogates her. At the end of this, the ES lady says: "The Explorer's Society has proved useful, but they, and you, have outlived your use." Then she teleports away. The portal's destination appears to be the gun deck of our ship. Evelien alerts Kristjana, and they charge off toward our ship. We get on the magic "walkie-talkie" stones we have as Die Kreuzritter operatives to alert Helgi, Viktoria, and Mandelos. What ensues is a combat in the sense that we rolled initiative and took turns in that order. But no one ever dealt any damage on any side. The spy spends the whole time teleporting around and trying to cause fires and explosions. We spend the entire combat trying to put out the fires, and chasing her around. Mandelos is a demigod and is leaping from ship to ship, as they are anchored side-to-side just offshore. He is also naked as a jaybird because he did not not stop to put his pants on. Unfortunately, the saboteur gets to our gun deck and fires a shot into the Montaigne ship before Mandelos catches up to her. He grapples her just before she teleports to an object she thinks is still hidden in the hold of the Montaigne ship but that we had thrown overboard during out investigation. Underwater suddenly, she teleports both of them again to yet another object, this time back on our ship. Evelien and Kristjana use some of the Montaigne navigator's own Porte magic to teleport to their ship from shore, leaving Kristjana's horse there. Helgi and Viktoria are rousing and now helping Mandelos chase the culprit around. She teleports to the Montaigne ship, to yet another item we had misplaced for her. This one isn't in the ocean, though, but isn't where she expects it to be. Mandelos catches up to her yet again just before she finally picks the right target and teleports back to her own quarters on our ship. Not to be outdone, Kristjana sees Mandelos leaping from ship to ship repeatedly, so she does the same. What he does with the effortless grace of a demigod, she does like a bull in a China shop. But she gets it done. Both of them corner the culprit in her own quarters, just as she has set another fire in the hallway outside. We move to attack, but both of us gently caress up our rolls and she gets a turn unimpeded. She teleports away one more time, this time to an unknown place, presumably nowhere near any of the ships. She is getting away for good this time. I pass a check at the last second though and Kristjana sees what the saboteur is looking at before she leaves. She seems to consider staying to get something in the drawers of her desk, but decides its too dangerous. Kristjana quickly loots the room, focusing on the desk, while Mandelos runs to the top deck to report what has happened. All this time, Evelien has been trying to get messages to and from other ships to keep them from shooting. Shots have been fired from our ship into the Montaigne ship, but we are in contact (and good terms) with that captain. It's the other ships we're worried about. The Castillian ship is moving around the other four, to "cross the T" and obtain a firing solution on us. Mandelos and Viktoria jump and fly, respectively, to the Vodacce and Vendel ships to tell them to stand down. All we have to worry about is the Castillans who might be looking for a pretext to sink a bunch of heathens and witches. We quickly examine the items we got from the saboteur's quarters and find one item to be a focus for Porte, so we heave that overboard. Everything else is information, but there's no time to look at it now. Kristjana goes belowdecks to finish putting out the fires down there, and Helgi joins her. Helgi suggests that she go to the Montaigne ship and help do the same there, since the saboteur set fires over there. All the ships are shorthanded, since most of the crews are still coming aboard from the camp ashore. I decide to do that, and that turns out to be extremely consequential. We're still worried that the saboteur will return. We are aware of only two focus items left that she can teleport to: one that Kristjana gives to Helgi, and one we haven't found but we know is in our ship's gun deck. All the other ones have been found and thrown into the sea. With everyone else busy doing critical tasks keeping all the ships from shooting at each other, Helgi is down in our ship's gun deck by himself. He places the known focus item in one place and waits. He watches it like a hawk. But he blows the perception check to notice a large bomb pushed through to the other, unknown focus. The GM asks him for initiative to try to beat the ticks left on the fuse. Before Helgi can react, the bomb detonates. The bomb is large enough to immediately deal 7k5 damage to Helgi. But it is also big enough to set off all of the ammunition on the gun deck. The ship's magazine goes off. This will deal him another 10k8, and probably 7k5 to everyone on the top deck. Then the ship will sink, rapidly. Kristjana will see this from the deck of the Montaigne ship, and Viktoria from the Vendel ship. Everyone else is aboard our ship. But none of that has happened yet. The session ended at the bomb going off. 
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Apr 5, 2024 03:45
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Golden Bee posted:The Whisperer in Duluth! We open in Verona. Journalist Trudy Truman has an inkling of the story… a Greek artifact that was said to be lost to time. To help her get it, she teamed up with an all-new adventurer, Dr. Hemet Hazoul. He’s a genius with a doctorate in engineering and history… and has all the humility of a Hollywood publicist at award time. He had been "encouraged" by the rest of the staff of his Turkish university to go on permanent sabbatical, and submit his research via correspondence. Rounding out the posse was Tacito Uriel Velasco, lawyer, boxer, and wielder of a Mexican panther spirit, and stuntwoman Lala Santinella. She and her adopted daughter Devika (millionaire, mystic, etc.) were visiting her homeland to work out a few glitches in their relationship. They brought a lawyer because of a little business that was… What’s the word? Elective? "Compulsory", corrected Tacito. Trudy was contacted by a member of British Intelligence. He was being followed, so the best place to talk would be during a local performance of Macbeth. Someone must’ve said the play’s name outloud too much, though. All the agent could divulge was "Minerva, at the pantheon" before being shot. The killer timed it during the witches’ lightning, and despite the lawyer's best effort, the killer got away. Hemet explained, with no degree of humility, the Pantheon was a famous structure in Rome. Lala went under protest, in disguise. She Wasn’t popular in Mussolini’s Italy after publicly leaving a Germany/Italy film collaboration. Unfortunately, that very same movie was shooting at the Pantheon! Lala’s old pal and rival, Elena Altieri, was starring in the movie Santinella turned down. The stunt woman tried to hide in her car, while Trudy used her gift for blathering to distract Director Leni Riefenstahl. The statue itself weighed hundreds of pounds, but with Hemet’s advice, the lawyer moved it aside and looked underneath. There was a gem and a scroll, which claimed a secret would be revealed at the sun’s zenith in the Flavian Auditorium. Wait, what did they call the building nowadays? The Colosseum! The stadium was 30 minutes away and it was 11:40. But the group was blessed to have an Italian leadfoot! The group rushed to the Colosseum with seconds to spare, barely noticing the new platforms and fresh sand. At noon, Hemet directed the sunlight onto a brick on the emperor’s box, burning up a Nazi flag…And springing the trap! Herr Strauss, a Nazi commander with delusions of grandeur, told our heroes the score. They could live with the knowledge they acquired… if they could beat him and his unit in gladiatorial combat. he presented a range of ancient weaponry… And the battle was on! Trudy had always been blessed with a strong nose. Instead of immediately joining the fight, she observed her surroundings… and could smell a very unfamiliar scent. LIONS. The “fair” Nazi challenge was a deathtrap! The professor was used to brawls and ancient weaponry. He held off the brown shirts… but the Lions had the opposite effect on him and Tacito that Trudy might’ve expected. Hemet had the world’s greatest ego. The lawyer had the instinct of a panther, and there was no way he’d surrender to another large cat. Lala, brimming with common sense, snuck off to open an escape hatch. Tacito and Hemet kept the lion away from Trudy. After choking the beast unconscious, Tacito flung blood onto his opponents… Making them all the more appealing for the other Pantero Leos. Egos assuaged, Trudy led a retreat. After fleeing, the group laid low at a much less historic venue… Their local library. The Palladium, the object of their search, prevented cities from falling. so there’s no way it was still in Rome. But some dusty tomes suggested it’d been moved to Constantinople! It was an awkward homecoming for Professor Hazoul. His rival, Cleric Marduk, had charged him with violating the school's decorum code… By fighting animals in a world wonder. But Hemet had an ace up his sleeve. It was his new friend, one of Earth’s greatest lawyers. Tacito emphasized that the lion fighting had been done in self-defense, and in pursuit of an archaeological treasure. This set Hemet up for some self-serving lies… and the honor committee was completely, 100% on board. The cleric shook his fist as the other panel members suggested that HH could teach ancient weaponry as an elective next semester. Trudy got to the telegraph office to send in her story. Nazis digging up the Colosseum was front-page stuff. She had another contact in town, Stavros “The Bull” Papadopoulos, a merchant mastermind with an interest in antiquities. He agreed to meet her and her cohort at the Turkish baths. Suggested wardrobe: a towel. Papadopoulos, (when not interrupted by Hazoul), explained that the Palladium they saw it it was in a monastery 70 miles out of town. And completely coincidentally, he had a delivery truck headed in that direction. A spare ride at a reasonable price. Trudy’s astounding senses paid off again… As she heard footsteps down the hallway. Assassins! The fez-wearing killers had the group at a disadvantage, but no sword can defeat the human mind. Especially when that mind belongs to a dirty-fighting professor. He soaked one end of his towel in water, and set the other on fire. The hashish-eaters caused problems, slashing Trudy’s arm badly, but the crew was clever. Braziers were used to set their foe’s robes on fire. Tacito held a goon’s head under the bath. Lala soaped the floor and smashed people in the face with water buckets. Soon, there was gap in the flow of hired killers. The group rushed to the changing rooms, and from there to Papadopoulos’s cousins’s truck. Kristos let Lala drive, but the cabin was cramped. A few people would have to ride in the back. Devika, feeling useless, gave Trudy one of the many crates. Trudy, playing along, opened it up, asking what it was. Devika read the label. "Nitrog…nitro gly…" "Nitroglycerin." Yep, Kristos was hauling enough explosive fluid to send the truck into orbit. Not a problem, until a Nazi half-track came around the bend. The party had very little in terms of ranged combat skill. They did have a maniac behind the wheel, when the Ahnenerbe machine gun opened up, Lala hit the gas like she was driving a Ferrari. And although they needed to cover miles and miles of ground, and couldn’t dodge bullets forever, the group had a mechanical genius on board. And his idea was rebellious. It was dangerous. And it was perfect. They had a truck bed full of explosives? Why not just detach the truck bed? Instead of throwing crates one at a time, they unleashed a huge trail of explosive ordinance. Far behind, a commandant demanded his troops check what was in these mysterious crates… And then proceeded, very slowly, to remove them. By the time the nitro was safely disposed of, the players had gotten away. The monastery was a bust. But it could’ve been much deadlier if the group didn’t travel with a design historian. Trudy detected a trap, and Hemet was able to keep the hidden wall blades recessed. Tacito and Hemet examined the corpses of less-careful Crusader tomb robbers… skeletons who had coins from 14th-century Vienna. Could Austria be the place?! It turns out it was. And after an ambush in Europe’s second-largest graveyard, the group found a gigantic statue of the Pallas Athena! While the antiquarians examined the device, Devika and Lala had some one on one time. Devi was concerned that Lala had gone off the deep end after the failed wedding and Devi’s time in a coma. Lala admitted that things had gotten drastic, but moms were allowed to get a little crazy. Just the way things go. The group hurried. Austria wasn’t a Nazi state yet, but brown-shirts had free reign there. The statue opened a nearby fountain, which led to a cavern containing the Palladium, and a weird electrical grid pattern. Lala was about to unplug it… When Professor HH had a better idea. The group rewired the trap. The fascists might have outnumbered our heroes, but hatred can do very little against electricity. Herr Strauss’s dueling saber was nothing more than a lightning rod. Lala, Tacito and Hemet mopped up the rest. The only thing left to do: figure out where to move the statue! Trudy was loyal to the British crown. Tacito argued that they should honor the sacrifice of the agent who told them about the thing in the first place. Hemet was fine with any option as long as he got to write the archaeological report. The Palladium was stored securely in the tower of London. Postscript: in 1938, Austria was invaded. In 1940, London was not. Was the statue to blame? You never know… Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Apr 8, 2024 |
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Apr 8, 2024 07:37
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Golden Bee posted:The Palladium Peril! By Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams. Here are the things I cut in the adventure to make it run swiftly in four hours: *An NPC professor who explains everything the players find. *A double-decker bus chase, to catch thugs who don’t really know what’s going on. *A trip to Oxford, to search a townhouse, which involves a fight scene the villain has to escape from. *A lead to a fencing Academy, where you fight the Nazi again, as well as his students. (He can lose here but they suggest you use the savage world rules to let him escape one more time, so he can die in the Colosseum.) *A chase to taxi onto a Douglas C32 cargo plane. (The players can’t fail this.) Instead of a movie set, at the Pantheon, players will find local toughs, who will then chase them on mopeds. The players also can’t fail the chase, but you’re not supposed to tell them that. The Colosseum fight I kept, but the players are supposed to win it and then more Nazis show up with guns… So that players are forced to surrender and enter an underground death trap. It’s a cool death trap, but it was extremely hard to force my players to fight and then lose instead of just trying to run away from the trap. They are suggestions for if the players failed the death trap (they take a ton of damage, nearly drowning). Whatever happens, they find a jar that explains emperor Constantine took the palladium to "his city." The cool Turkish bath fight is followed by a brawl in the bazaar, which feels downright redundant. The ancient trap is interesting, but if the players get sealed inside the tomb, Stovro’s cousin is supposed to rescue them…and then they get ambushed by Nazis anyway. In my write up, I cut out an interesting side character, Beni Hassan, a coughing, disgusting assist to Stavros who betrays the gang to the Nazis. After the tomb is another fight with the Nazis, which the colonel escapes from, with plot armor. Then in Vienna, you’re supposed to fight again in the graveyard, figure out the statue fountain, and then fight an additional time. In Conclusion: It’s like an ice cream sundae covered in melted marshmallows and candy bars. A lot of goodness, spoiled by having too much of it. I plan to run more Paul Wade adventures but the general pattern is too much incident, with very little flexibility for players doing unexpected things.
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Apr 8, 2024 07:56
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According to my DM, there is no such spell as Summon Candleja
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Apr 9, 2024 13:20
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CobiWann posted:According to my DM, there is no such spell as Summon Candleja I've seen various supplements for researching your own spells in-game if you want to fix that, I think it's in an MCDM book
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Apr 9, 2024 16:05
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My players solved a problem of a three way fight between themselves, automated turrets with no friend or foe/minefields, and zombies by simply battering zombies into being dazed then having their strongest PCs caber toss them over a fence to run the turrets out of ammo shredding the confused zombies.
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Apr 9, 2024 16:31
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CobiWann posted:According to my DM, there is no such spell as Summon Candleja Well, yeah, you don't need a spell for him to show up, you just have to say candleja
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Apr 9, 2024 18:10
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Have you considered the formulary alternative, Summon Candiru?
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Apr 9, 2024 18:27
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Golden Bee posted:The Palladium Peril! By Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams. If you’re getting too much exposition, the worst thing to do is roll a legendary+ on an investigate. That was the case for our adventurers this week. The Boston Museum of Fine Art had lost touch with one of their archaeologists in the deserts northwest of the Punjab province. On the case were undead detective JP Diamond, Soviet explorer Semya Ivanova, gambling prodigy Penny An’Te, and cowgirl-novelist Querida Wilcox. The group stayed on task, so I’ll stick to the highlights and skip the procedural elements. Querida wanted to move some novels, and demanded her publicist set up a reading in Lahore. It was attended by a bunch of British officers and no one else… So in a quest to be a woman of the people, Wilcox put out her cardboard standee at a table in the village bazaar. Her main achievement: almost getting pickpocketed. The players traveled overland to the archaeological site. The land was plagued by bandits, but the group was hard boiled. Ivanova made short work of tough guys. At one point, she threatened a gang of Nazis by saying “If you don’t put down your gun, your family will get a flag.”The group ran into the incorrigible Professor Callahan at the archaeological dig^, and he was eager to help the Captain spread fear. When a murderous Bedouin started getting lippy, Semya dangled him over a canyon. Callahan grabbed his legs for leverage. “How would you like a very fast tour of your country?” Querida was handy to have around. When an assassin tried to slide a snake into her tent… She tied it into a knot and threw it back! And Penny’s pistol skills were essential. She and her purse-heater blew away a whole swarm of ambushers. It evoked her similar stunt in Baltimore, during the mission to save Dr. Enigma. Penny was a lifeguard and a lifetaker. Eventually, the players found the secret at the center of the deadly desert...a bizzare statue? An expert in mad science, Callahan explained its purpose. The “Flower of Death” was a drilling machine, sent up from below the surface of the Earth! In the end, the bandits were dispersed, the museum was mollified, and Nazi archaeologists were put in the ground. Still growing, however, were sparks between the coldhearted Russian explorer and the undead PI. Was it professional respect between two superlative surveyors? Or something more? ^AKA the player joined in, two hours into the game.
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Apr 15, 2024 05:47
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CobiWann posted:According to my DM, there is no such spell as Summon Candleja It took me a second to realize you weren't using the Final Fantasy spell naming convention.
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Apr 15, 2024 11:26
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I'm not into Warhammer, but apparently Games Workshop released or stated that there was some unit or faction that has ladies in it where previously it was assumed they did not, and needless to say, there is a veritable forest of catpiss to be seen from people who are very angry that women can also be grimdark.
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Apr 16, 2024 02:11
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Having seen the first couple pages of replies to the tweet ("...[T]here have always been female Custodians."), I would describe it as more of a deep and turbulent sea of cat piss filled with writhing, incredibly mad assholes. edit, a sampling of the piss, skipping the ones with wild slurs edit 2: thrown behind spoilers per feedback Four pages of debit charges and Games Workshop receipts attached to the tweet posted:I've been a GW customer for over 30 years. This is the kind of money I spend on GW products. Whether it's at my FLGS, online stores, the GW webstore, or other sources. I collect over a dozen 40K armies totaling approximately 50,000 points, one of which is over 4,000 points of Adeptus Custodes. I have multiple Blood Bowl teams and Necromunda gangs. I'm currently building a Bretonnia army for The Old World, and I was about to start collecting Orcs & Goblins and Tomb Kings. I have over 100 Black Library novels. And I'm subscribed to Warhammer+. >:-( posted:I'll just walk away. You aren't going to replace the income lost making the 100 women who care happy. give me PROOF posted:Show me in the previous Codices where it says that. I won't stop playing but I WILL start stealing posted:I am a female player. I have Ultramarines, Orcs, chaos marines and I collect various minis that I enjoy, like Grimaldus. ??? posted:*black void of space, nothing living exists* a wild bigot appears! posted:Have fun ending up like Star Wars! Get ready for pridehammer 40,000 guys, where the diverseperium of they/them fight the evil biggoted forces of the cis white male woke WoKe wOKE posted:Nonsense. You're pandering to woke trash. Bud Light tried something similar, it didn't end well. Rule 1: I play to escape from females in reality posted:I'm not buying anything else. You made a cool universe. Stick to the rules of it or it ruins it. I play Warhammer and I read Warhammer because it's fun escapism not because I want to engage in contemporary politics. I was totally going to play really really soon, but posted:Woke liars. I've been reading some lore and thinking about getting into Warhammer, maybe I won't now. Lord Awkward fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Apr 16, 2024 |
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Apr 16, 2024 15:03
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Lord Awkward posted:Having seen the first couple pages of replies to the tweet ("...[T]here have always been female Custodians."), I would describe it as more of a deep and turbulent sea of cat piss filled with writhing, incredibly mad assholes. I went with forest because I would not have forgiven myself if I didn't go for the Whizzard reference. Some dipshit named Mark Kern or something like that seems to be leading the charge, if you really want to just hop into a black hole of catpiss with a heaping side of grift.
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Apr 16, 2024 15:40
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the_steve posted:I went with forest because I would not have forgiven myself if I didn't go for the Whizzard reference. Fair! quote:Some dipshit named Mark Kern or something like that seems to be leading the charge, if you really want to just hop into a black hole of catpiss with a heaping side of grift. Pass, lmao, what I saw was bad enough
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Apr 16, 2024 16:01
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Lord Awkward posted:Having seen the first couple pages of replies to the tweet ("...[T]here have always been female Custodians."), I would describe it as more of a deep and turbulent sea of cat piss filled with writhing, incredibly mad assholes. i gotta be honest this sucks to read and i wouldn't wanna share it with anybody
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Apr 16, 2024 16:40
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Ominous Jazz posted:i gotta be honest this sucks to read and i wouldn't wanna share it with anybody Yeah, on top of feeling like it's the wrong thread for this, "hey here's a bunch of lovely people saying lovely things that you would otherwise have to go out of your way to find, let me shove it at you" is a lovely thing to do
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Apr 16, 2024 16:47
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Ominous Jazz posted:i gotta be honest this sucks to read and i wouldn't wanna share it with anybody I agree, I have no interest in reading about what a bunch of broke-brained men I wouldn't cross the street to piss on if they were on fire have to think about female representation. I don't think it's worth including. Maybe later I can edit this post to add in my story of how my recent campaign crashed and burned after just four sessions, and I didn't mind.
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Apr 16, 2024 17:31
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Maybe later I can edit this post to add in my story of how my recent campaign crashed and burned after just four sessions, and I didn't mind.  This is the kind of thing I want to read here. What kind of madness transpired?
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Apr 16, 2024 17:56
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This is fair. I thought this thread had replaced the old good/bad/catpiss experiences thread, but also looking at the OP that was like twelve years ago and if I'm wrong I'm wrong. Thrown behind spoilers for now, and if you all want it deleted instead I'll do that. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Maybe later I can edit this post to add in my story of how my recent campaign crashed and burned after just four sessions, and I didn't mind. Please do.
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Apr 16, 2024 18:06
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Lord Awkward posted:This is fair. I thought this thread had replaced the old good/bad/catpiss experiences thread, but also looking at the OP that was like twelve years ago and if I'm wrong I'm wrong. It did, but one of the reasons it was rebooted and reformatted was to avoid becoming yet another grogs.txt incarnation. It's not an irrelevant topic IMO but there's so little variation in how people like that suck that any individual thing they say is unlikely to be interesting enough to be worth the sour taste in the mouth from even scrolling past it. I think spoilering it is reasonable, personally.
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Apr 16, 2024 18:15
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I do agree that this thread needs more catpiss stories in general, but... y'know, stories that people actually experienced and not just reposting heinous takes from chuds on Reddit.
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Apr 16, 2024 18:24
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Maybe later I can edit this post to add in my story of how my recent campaign crashed and burned after just four sessions, and I didn't mind. Lord Awkward posted:Please do. Also this.
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Apr 16, 2024 19:51
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Golden Bee posted:The Flower Of Death! Yeah, having a high exposition-tagged skill in Fate is like having a high Encyclopedia in Disco Elysium. The GM will tell you so many things!
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Apr 17, 2024 01:36
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Only two players arrived for the PARANOIA game so I ran a high programmer game on freeform. playing a HP so dedicated to sloth he has an autonomous dinner table to feed him with robot hands. playing a HP dedicated to his sexual perversion so much that his secret plan is to turn the entire Alpha Complex population female. Himself excepted. Crisis! There's a riot at one of the cloning facilities. I'll go there myself and do a rockstar entrance! I'll follow in my armoured litter carried by four robots like a demented Roman emperor, oh and I am sitting in a bath inside the litter. with a robot arm feeding you grapes while you're lounging in your bath.You are fairly certain you saw a confused face looking at you and then at a syringe trying to decide if the crazy procession was a product of whatever is in said syringe. you arrive at the cloning facility. as far as the civilians in attendance know an insane road crew spent half an hour building riggings and you have just now been lowered by a crane with all the pyrotechnics and loud noise (some in the crowd lost their hearing) that would accompany a fever dream rock and roll nightmare. I string a chord on my electric guitar before demanding someone approach and tell me what's been going on. I stay back in my litter. after some struggle within the crowd some poor orange level clerk is pushed forward: "the plan was to clone an incredibly venomous and dangerous lifeform! So we drowned the manager in a cloning vat" I send a robot to collect the remains in a container. The robot does that but since it was not built for that work the remains separated to pieces. I declare that the workers here must select some among them to now eat the remains! like a Roman legion's Decimation.Do the both of you watch? no. and so while strum on the guitar (not unlike Nero is often claimed at the burning of Rome) and talk to a news reporter of some type about how everything is great, you can hear the commotion as the mob is fighting with itself to find the poor citizens who'll be forced to eat a soggy corpse.And that's where the session ended. By popular demand fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 08:53
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Ilor posted:
I think I might have oversold it. Crashed and burned was too dramatic a phrase - it wasn't super-dramatic or with animosity. The DM was probably trying his best, and had good intentions. I think it was largely a combination of mismanaged expectations and incompatibility with the community on the discord server. But okay, I can do a little write-up – in bullet point form to try and keep it a reasonable length. Part of the problem is me being very new to actually participating in a TTRPG and not knowing what questions I should have asked before joining. I decided to join a game posted on the LFP/G forum on D&D Beyond mostly on a whim because it was a homebrew setting in a sandbox – and firearms were a part of it (the original post was cleared after the group was formed and I don’t recall exactly what it said – but it probably wasn’t a lot), and I realized that could be good for a character concept I had in mind. That was a mistake on my part – I should not have firmly decided on a character before talking with fellow players. I did offer to change my character, but the DM turned it down, saying he liked my idea. My idea was someone on the brink of death taken to the Fey Realm, and healed and given Warlock powers in exchange for acting as one of their agents on the mortal realm... but when they get sent back 15 days after they arrived, time warp shenanigans happen and it's suddenly 15 years later, and he has no idea where the 6-year old daughter he knew now was. But we never really got into it.
That's enough for now. Sessions 2 and 3 were better. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 14:16
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:As the player told me "it was a cool twist, but there goes my whole character idea out the window!" Ugh, I had a GM pull this in a Star Wars game and it was the most annoying thing. Dude, if you wanted a party of Chosen Ones discovering their Force potential and becoming part of the new generation of Jedi, tell us beforehand so we can build characters who work with that story.
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Apr 18, 2024 15:27
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Golden Bee posted:The Flower Of Death! "Don’t expect respect". It’s true all over the world, but it’s especially true in Calcutta. The players were on a mission from the University of Istanbul; grab some artifacts from a temple, bring them back. And with a little more kindness, that would’ve been the whole thing. Unfortunately, they made an enemy of Sir Walter Sleeman, high ranking brit, and his hulking 7’3 bodyguard Mazaboot. To be fair, Reporter Trudy Truman, and huge farmhand Elliot McCaffrey held their tongues. Less so phony Brit Lord Simon, Afghan shootist Javid Kulfi and the arrogant professor Hemet Hazoul. The party kept a balance of heroism and shameful practicality. They stopped a truck bomb from destroying the palace; at the party they were invited to, after making some acquaintances and trying to rob the palace, they attacked a group of lecherous colonial soldiers. (Intriguingly, Lord Simon decided to start with the palace’s basement… Scouting out the dungeon as well as its escape routes. He ran out of time before getting any loot.) The chicanery continued at the archeological site. Arrogant Dr. Hazoul claimed he could "quickly" survey the entire Northwest section of the temple before the Teamsters had loaded all the artifacts. Instead, he and the group fell down a hole. There, they found a bloody altar to the goddess of death, and activated a rolling boulder trap. Lord Simon led the group to safety… But Elliot’s attempt to crash through a thin wall were too effective. He knocked the trap out of alignment, and it began destroying the entire basement of the complex. The destabilized temple sunk into the ground. Although no one was badly hurt, Lord Simon saw a bright side: the artifacts he and sidekick Devika would steal were even more priceless. A few lies later, the group was on the train back to Calcutta. The module had a tribe of Afghan raiders attack the train; it didn’t think one of the characters would be an Afghan tribesman! Hazoul and Javid got the horseback riders’ attention, and hastily shouted quote:"Don’t rob the train, we’re already robbing it." The lie was a good idea, except the train had Afghan campaign veterans. The railway cops were very curious about this outburst. Lord Simon would normally be in charge of deception, but he was at the other side of the train, relabeling boxes and changing inventory…AKA robbery. Trudy suggested that the group pay some fines for "causing calamity", and the trip was saved. Our heroes tried to get some rest at a hotel. This was a surprise delight in the session. The room pairings were Simon & his adopted daughter Devika, the professor & the farmhand, and the journalist & the photographer. The last duo immediately turned their suite into a darkroom. Although Trudy was from Australia’s upper crust, and Javid had spent much of his life sniping out of caves, they both loved photography. One room over, Elliot stared at Hemet. Of all the things to do with one’s time, why waste it with a book? The professor asked why it bothered Elliot so much… And the Texan admitted he didn’t know how to read! The professor was baffled but began forming a rudimentary curriculum. It was a nuisance, but it wouldn’t do to travel with someone so uneducated. Simon teased Devi as she prepared for her bath. What did she think of the 12-year-old Maharajah they had met at the party? She had pawned him off on Trudy, Devi said. "As the richest girl in India, I don’t need his money, and he’s way too young for me." (He was eight months younger than her.) Devi took to the bathroom, and Simon started reading Colliers. His reading was interrupted with a scream! In the bathroom, Devika was being strangled by a black bandaged hand! Despite his lack of physical acumen, he rushed to her defense, struggling against the severed limb as she grabbed for a towel. The commotion brought the others, and Elliot was able to restrain the appendage. Hemet said it was impossible that the thing was magic. And he proved himself right, slicing off the thumb and discovering a mass of wiring! Back in Calcutta, the group moved carefully. Someone was watching them. (Someone who overestimated the amount they bathed; each hotel room had the same trap, but only Devika activated hers.) Trudy went through the newspaper archives to find a pattern to recent stranglings… and found a web of conspiracy that eventually led back to Sleeman! (There was a brief detour to a pottery, and car chase to save one of the victims, who was eternally grateful but also an arse.) The best place for damning documents? Sleeman’s mansion. Elliot would provide a distraction up front, Trudy and Lord Simon would sneak into his office from the back. The ‘sneaking into the office’ part went wonderfully. There wasn’t a signed criminal confession, but there was a letter from the maharajah, thanking Sleeman for the additional sepoy soldiers. It was time to beef up security, considering there was a thugee strangler cult around! Meanwhile, Elliot rang the doorbell and met the butler. Being courteous, the farm boy had a hard time not being invited inside. The living room was empty except for the towering Indian bodyguard. El smiled. "I never liked you, big man. Fists up." Javid was smoking by the car, scanning the driveway for issues. He barely dodged out of the way as the front windows broke open and Mazaboot was hurled into the engine block. So much for sneaking, and so much for the villain’s bodyguard! The group drove the damaged car to the palace, hoping to stop Sleeman’s evil schemes. Yet the Brit was persuasive. The players HAD destroyed a massive temple and caused an incident at a public hotel. And, a messenger informed him… destroyed the front of his house? Death. Death to the evil cultish foreigners! Simon was clever though. It would cause a huge scandal if they executed people from so many countries and India’s richest girl. Perhaps a lifetime sentence in the dungeons? The scam worked, and the group spent mere minutes imprisoned. But they had an equal and opposite problem: assassinating Sleeman would bring chaos to India, supporting his cause of a stronger Raj! Luckily, Sleeman and the Maharajah were in the pleasure garden. It had beautiful flowers, beehives, a tiger enclosure… Trudy helped Javid sneak into a sniping position. The afghan waited for Sleeman to try and strangle someone, and aimed for the madman’s fingers. His… Mechanical metal fingers? Across the yard, Elliot covered Lord Simon as the latter unlocked the tiger enclosure. The Americans barely got clear! Sleeman and his thugs might’ve been a match for the tigers, even with his thumbs shot off… until Elliot put a pistol hole into a beehive. Cause of death? Indigent wildlife. Trudy saved the maharajah, who proposed to her… But completely lost interest when she lied she was pregnant. "Gross!" yelled the preteen prince. Don’t expect respect.
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Apr 22, 2024 07:09
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I decided to join a game posted on the LFP/G forum on D&D Beyond mostly on a whim because it was a homebrew setting in a sandbox – and firearms were a part of it (the original post was cleared after the group was formed and I don’t recall exactly what it said – but it probably wasn’t a lot), and I realized that could be good for a character concept I had in mind. That was a mistake on my part – I should not have firmly decided on a character before talking with fellow players. I did offer to change my character, but the DM turned it down, saying he liked my idea. My idea was someone on the brink of death taken to the Fey Realm, and healed and given Warlock powers in exchange for acting as one of their agents on the mortal realm... but when they get sent back 15 days after they arrived, time warp shenanigans happen and it's suddenly 15 years later, and he has no idea where the 6-year old daughter he knew now was. But we never really got into it. Session 2
I had already told the DM that (given his cowbow aesthetic) my character likely came from a region which was akin to the arid and rocky plains of the American Southwest. I asked the DM where such a region might be, but I didn’t get anything back, even though there was a world map (it has names of many large settlements, but no region names). That means I didn’t know if the area was supposed to be familiar to me or not. It was operating in a blank void. I think it was about this point between Sessions 2 and 3 that I started asking about a lore document, because – despite this being the second group in an campaign setting which had another group going in it for months, the only information the DM had provided about the world was the map which had some place names. (And as I had said before, it had been a month between Session 1 and Session 2.) I turned to the Group 1 chat – which was less of a chat, and more an unending exchange of meme animated gifs – and asked if there was any such player-facing lore document. They knew of no such thing, and didn’t really have much in terms of backstory, they were only really there to hit things. That was when I definitely realized I had hosed up and hadn’t asked enough questions, because the DM seemed to be interested in running a lore and world-building light campaign, and I wasn’t interested in making a character who lived in a blank void disconnected from the world and only wanted to hit things. Yet I didn’t also want to gently caress up everyone else’s fun by quitting the campaign, since there were already too few players. It was hard to know what to do. Session 3
Session 4, as a response to the lack of a Session 0 for the players to discuss party roles and finalize their character, had the GM try to solve the party's lack of melee and meat shielding capability by introducing a GMPC. The GMPC had as much lore around them as everything else about the setting. But that's for another post. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Apr 23, 2024 00:34
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Emissaries of the Old Ones, Book One Chapter 3 - “Hunting For Heretics / The Oracle’s Pronouncement” X X X X X Table of Contents Link - https://shorturl.at/aiTX1 X X X X X quote:“The most merciful thing in the world, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” -H.P. Lovecraft X X X X X Previously on Everything In And Around This Tower Is Trying To Kill Us: The newly minted Fallcrest Greencloaks made their way down the Brandywine River to a Wizard’s tower to retrieve a book that would explain how to destroy an ancient sword capable of destroying the locks that prevented a collection of elder beings from reclaiming our world. The party recovered the Librum Escorpus from the tower with the aid of the wizard’s petrified apprentice. The book provided them with a prophecy which stated that the sword could only be destroyed by a weapon sanctified by the Demigod of Death while frozen by the First Cold… X X X X X Prophecy in hand, the Greencloaks split up to gather more information, with Piran, Poppy, and Yllestria heading to the Church of Lethik, Neutral Demigod of Death, to inquire about Fate’s Fulcrum from Soulwarden Talbot Alrenia. According to the Church, Fate’s Fulcrum was the first weapon to be sanctified by Lethik after his ascension to godhood. The weapon had previously been lost for over a century until recovered by Poppy’s father Biff from Ancellyon, a nation of sadistic Sidh over the eastern mountains. However, six years before the present day the weapon, along with several other artifacts, had been claimed by apostates who disappeared underneath the city, where they were rumored to have built a shrine to their apostolic vision of Lethik – whereas the mainline Church of Lethik believed that a body must be given proper burial rites upon death, the apostates believed that once the soul departed, the body may still be put to use. Soulwarden Alrenia provided a further warning, in this case regarding a group called the Deathless, undead heretics who hewed close to the tenants of Annwn, the now-deceased Evil Goddess of Death. Velia and Iteru journeyed to the Temple of Arwin, Good Goddess of Wisdom and Justice, to speak with Truthseeker Katherine Silverbrook about the First Cold. Off the western coast of the continent lay the island of Sear, which vanished from Tanicus for millennia until its reappearance over two decades prior. Until recently, the island was closed to all but royally sanctioned expeditions, although mercenaries, adventurers, and armed forces from other nations landed on Saar as well. The ruins on the island appeared to date back to the creation of the world itself, including a towering statue of Fergus, the deceased God of Crafting. In the base of the tower, a group of adventurers found a single snowflake magically suspended in time – the First Cold, the template for all snowflakes to come. Truthseeker Silverbrook stated that more information on the island and the First Cold could be found on Karinos, formerly Kaern Karn, a bustling port city on the western side of the continent. Going through the sewers is something no adventuring party wants to do yet is something every adventuring party does. In an attempt to make the sojourn as painless and ick-free as possible, the party contacted Fallcrest’s Head Rat Catcher Miles Tuppet.  Tuppet – “Heard rumors of a shrine of some sorts near the Southern Reservoir. Area’s started stinking like the devil past few months too. Then there’s the whole infestation of spiders nearby. Big ones. Talking dog-sized.” Poppy – “That’s better than pony-sized spiders at least.” Tuppet – “Nah, we call specialists for ones that big.”  Tuppet provided wax-sealed bodysuits, waders, and gloves (“one size fits all”) to the Greencloaks before leading them into the sewers with a warning to keep any flaming weapons or combustible spells to the barest of minimums. The party encountered some of the sewer’s denizens, including shadow dogs known as Temagyr and Dream Spiders whose venom could make people hallucinate and turn them into addicts known as shiverheads.    The party eventually encountered a wide channel filled with sewage. While Yllestria summoned material from the Elemental Plane of Wood to make a plank, Piran and Iteru heard an unexpected sound - the rattle of castanets, as two goat-legged halflings (Calignis, or "Darklings") crawled out from a nearby grate, followed by a tall, thin figure shaking a castanet staff, a figure Piran recognized as a Caligni Dancer. “This looks like him,” the Dancer proclaimed, pointing his staff at Piran. “Do what must be done.”     One of the Darklings grabbed the plank and threw it into the water before flashing a cocky, feral grin to the party. In return, Iteru grabbed the plank with his six-fingered Telekinetic Hand and set it back across the channel before using the Hand to throw the Darkling the middle finger. GM - “You’re out of actions so it’s a half-hearted, 2/3rds extension middle finger.” Iteru - “So the Orange Cassidy of middle fingers?” GM - “According to your GM, no professional wrestling references at the table.” The other Darkling as well as the Dancer managed to catch Piran flat-footed, thanks to Piran rolling a critical failure and being cursed by the Dancer. “This one is the quori-born,” the Dancer hissed. Poppy managed to kill one of the Darklings, which exploded in a flash of light that blinded both her and the Dancer. Unfortunately Yllestria missed with a ranged attack and ended up with poop water in her eyes. With Piran on the ropes, Velia broke out a spell called Forced Mercy which made the Dancer’s attack non-lethal for one round, buying time for the party to put it and the other Darkling down. After looting the bodies the Greencloaks moved deeper into the sewer towards the Southern Reservoir. Eventually they came to a narrow bridge. “Shrine’s supposed to be that way, and you don’t mind, gonna wait right here.”  Of course, as the party crossed the bridge more creatures made themselves known to us in the form of Sewer Oozes, who used Filth Wave to knock the party back and drop Piran into the thick, putrid muck below.   Once they made it to the other side of the bridge, the party found a door carved into the stone wall of the sewers. Poppy stepped forward and knocked, receiving no answer, so she pushed open the door. Beyond the door was an antechamber with a pair of hanging cages flanking a bell. Three mummified corpses poked at the desiccated corpses inside the hanging cages with motions more remembered than intentional.    Poppy once again stepped forward and asked one of the zombies to call the priest “or nearest convenient parish leader.” One solid ring of the bell later two gaunt forms, a man and a woman, emerge from the back room and introduce themselves as Sister Dreadshade and Brother Graydoom.  Graydoom - “The apostates are no longer here. Most of them are no longer among the living. Soulbinder Grail has fled to the west, likely to the apostate abode beneath the Sutherland. The hierophant of the Deathless follows them. We wait for his return, confronting any heretics of Death’s Inheritor who enter our temple.” Poppy - “Well, I’m one of those heretics. Bring it.” They did bring it to the party, as we tend to kick off one fight that the GM originally planned as two (“I didn’t expect you guys to ring the bell, but here we are”). Graydoom activated his Aura of Dread, which gave the party the Clumsy condition and made them easier prey for the zombies. Meanwhile, Dreadshade used an ability called Renounce Heretic to counter Velia’s divine magic, only for Sir Kerien to denounce the heretic with his warhammer. Dreadshade went down, only for Graydoom to Harm her back up, only for Piran to drop Dreadshade, only for Graydoom to Harm her back up for her to knock Piran unconscious… Poppy - “You descend upon an endless spiral of death!” Dreadshade - “As one should.” X X X X X As Piran lay unconscious, a vision unfolded before his closed eyes - of a beautiful woman in an amorphous dress floating within the void who came to pass on a dire warning… quote:From beyond the umbral entanglement, Saracco (SAYR ah ko) is reaching. We thought that we'd gone far enough... escaped, but though we became the Enlightened and the Inspired -- the Kalashtar and the Rashtari -- it appears that it was not enough... it will never be enough. A line must be drawn or we will never find peace. X X X X X Fortunately, Iteru was able to get Piran back on his feet. In response to being knocked down but getting up again, Piran critted on a zombie, killing it outright before the crit and turning it into a pile of esoteric goo. As Iteru used Biting Words to take down another zombie while Velia and Poppy focused on Graydoom, Yllestria experienced the duality of the dice, first with a critical failure (Overthrow) that sent his Elemental Blast sailing past Dreadshade until it hit something (thankfully the wall behind her) and then with a critical success (Elemental Might, which let her add electricity damage to the Blast) which put Dreadshade down. With all local undead soon motionless on the ground, Poppy headed for the door Dreadshade and Graydoom had emerged from. Poppy - “I check for traps by grabbing the handle and swinging the door open.” Piran - “Fortunately there wasn’t a trap on the door which read ‘Face Explosive Runes Towards Enemy.’” Behind the door was a small shrine with purple crystals surrounding an altar. Despite their best efforts, the party was unable to discover anything special or unique about the shrine other than its use for the veneration of the tenants of the Deathless.  Iteru - “I’m going to check the sconces on the wall, see if anything happens when I twist them.” GM - “One of the torches turns a quarter inch… because the bolt is loose.” Iteru - “Darn it. Who the heck provides the stuff for this kind of aesthetic anyway? Is there like a wholesaler or something?” Piran - “Gnomes. It’s a known fact that Gnomes own World Market and the Drow run Spencer’s Gifts.” While the party continued the fruitless search, Piran tells them of the vision from his dream visitor and explains that he’s quori-born, a term Yllestria somehow recognized - translated, it means “Dreamperson'' or “Enlightened.” Saracco was their ancient home and they were driven off by the same beings who currently were trying to invade Tanicus. With their journey into the sewers completed, the Greencloaks retreated to the Temple of the Joys for a sorely needed spa afternoon and a much deserved divvying up of the coin and loot.   The plan from this point was to travel from Fallcrest to Karinos in the Southerlands to seek out the apostates holding Fate’s Fulcrum. The journey would normally take over a week, but thanks to the Aedar (dwarves), it’s possible to make the trip in less than a day thanks to the Cograil, a railway that runs from the Aedr capital of Merak to Karinos. The best way to describe the Cograil is “a train that’s wound up and fired like a crossbow from stop to stop,” according to noted travel writer Loic Proups whom the party would eventually meet on the train. The party had five days until the Cograil passed through Fallcrest. Yllestria took the time to provide the Starmetal found on the journey to the Mage Tower to a local blacksmith, Thomadin, who could turn it into something that would allow the Kineticist greater access to the Elemental Plane of Metal. Piran sought out a runesmith who could transfer a potency rune from a looted dagger to his pick. And during one of his performances, Iteru met Melora Ablewood, who either owned the bar he was playing in or was better than whomever owned it. She told him his drumming was “almost competent” and to come back once he’s improved and he might find a Patron.    The time came to depart. As the Cograil shot across the countryside towards Stonebridge, it dawned upon Iteru that once the train passed the crossing, it would mark the first time in nearly five years that he would leave Wintermount. Ever since his arrival, all the bard’s attempts to leave the kingdom had been blocked by various means - a mudslide, a skirmish with hobgoblins, a merchant caravan going broke and leaving its passengers stranded, and in one case a toll booth springing up overnight across the road. Whiskey from Poppy and soothing words from Velia helped calm Iteru down, but an appearance from glowing metal triangles with green eyes quickly ramped his anxiety back up.     Known as Norvi, the shapes were accompanied by creatures that Piran, using Recall Knowledge, recognized as the Remnant - blue-green skin creatures in copper-esque chainmail with deep blue irises who were the first race to use the word Foreclaimer. They’re magically resistant and disintegrated upon death.  Cut off by the Norvi’s sudden appearance, Iteru made for the Cograil’s engine to warn the driver while the rest of the party fought their way to the VIP car at the rear of the train. Inside the VIP car were the dead bodies of two bodyguards, a scared little Saoirsidh girl hiding under a table, two wispy dragon-like creatures, and a faceless devil-like creature Yllestria recognized as a Nightgaunt.    On the other side of the train, Iteru was crossing between cars when he looked up and saw a disheartening sight - an airship descending from the sky, a Remnant Raptor, crewed by more Remnant and captained by a robed Remnant eventually identified as an Overseer.    Iteru quickly reversed course and rushed towards the VIP car, where Sir Kerien had driven his warhammer into the stomach of the Nightgaunt, landing a nasty crit, Crushed Intestines. Poppy - “That’s what killed Houdini, you know.” Yllestria - “Yep, a faceless demon appeared from the void and hauled off on Houdini right in the gullet.” Iteru - “Everyone! There’s an incoming airship with more of those blue guys!” Velia - “And there’s a faceless dragon attacking a little girl right here!” Iteru - “I’ll rephrase - incoming blue guys about to attack full-grown adults!”  The wispy dragons spat black phlegm that snuffed out the light, taking advantage to put down Poppy and Velia. The little girl managed to touch Yllestria, granting Guidance and allowing her to pop the wispy dragons and sending the Nightgaunt retreating through a hole in the roof. As Iteru worked quickly using Battle Medicine to revive Poppy, the little girl proceeded to heal Velia, but not before Velia had a vision of her own. X X X X X quote:A dark-skinned man in the armor of a Knight of the Griffon dives behind a ruined wall as a beam of intense heat sweeps the ground behind him. He reaches for his sword but his hand comes up empty, and his eyes dart over to the weapon laying a dozen feet to his right. He braces himself as a creature resembling a golden helmet with white-feathered wings appears over the rubble, the hot light behind its visor beginning to intensify. X X X X X The train’s weapons finally began to fire, sending projectiles toward the airship, which absorbed some of them with a ring of blue energy.  (the weapons weren’t ballistas, but the GM worked with what he had!) Iteru had finished patching everyone up as best he could when the little girl, who had introduced herself as Annyha Starsong, glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. “There are two incoming on the roof.”  Against their better judgment (save for Velia and Yllestria who were the first up), the Greencloaks climbed onto the roof where a Remnant warrior and the Overseer awaited. The Overseer gave Sir Kerien a curious glance as the spectral eidolon prepared for combat. “We believed such technologies did not exist on this primitive plane. You will be analyzed.” The Overseer flicked his hand, snapping a Psychic Whip towards Poppy. The fight was made more difficult by the fact that movement required a Reflex save to keep one’s balance. It also didn’t help that Annyha had followed the party onto the roof and, as all little girls do in role-playing games, began floating. With her eyes glowing white and Velia keeping hold of her wrist, Annyha called out into the air, reciting a prophecy the party didn’t have time to pay attention to as they were too busy trying to stay on their feet. At one point the Overseer pulled out a deck of cards and slapped one on the warrior, covering it in a shimmer shield of green energy, only for Piran’s warpick to slice through the energy and send the warrior off the train, where it disintegrated in mid-air.  A tense moment came when Yllestria went unconscious and the motion of the Cograil threatened to send her sliding down the roof and in between the moving cars. Fortunately, Iteru got off a Soothe that put the Kineticist back on her feet. The Overseer’s stoic expression faltered slightly as the Greencloaks refused to stay down and Piran crit for a Deep Wound. “You have hindered my ability to kill,” it told Velia when she managed to get off a Forced Mercy. It was Poppy who managed to get the final blow with a crit, landing a Thunder Strike (honestly, the Pathfinder critical success/fail deck is a wonderful thing and I can’t recommend it enough as a player) which put the Overseer and turned him into dust, but not before leaving some loot behind. With the threat passed and the airship retreating thanks to the not-ballistas, the party climbs back into the VIP car where Annyha gives her thanks and formally introduces herself. “My name is Annyha Starsong, Oracle to the Starspeaker of the Saoirsidh. I was traveling to Aelu Derai to speak prophecy to the Moonspeaker of the Lwnasidh. However, they would simply know of the prophecy. You will be able to use it.” (Here, the GM was nice enough to repeat the prophecy, which was the words she had been speaking on the roof during combat with the Overseer). X X X X X Ancient forms from Umbral Shade Seek return to times unmade, Reaching from their malformed lands To open gates through mortal hands. Heroes rise to give them pause, Holding fast to nature’s laws. But from an ally proven true A hidden foe awaits its cue. From the city -- timeless, lost -- Entangled threads of darkness crossed. Through muck and mire the beast will rise To bring awake the Thousand Eyes. X X X X X Velia sighed as the prophecy put her vision into perspective. “While I was unconscious,” she tells the party, “I had a vision of a young woman named Cass fighting in the ruins of a city. Apparently, Arwin was dead and Cass was leading a contingent of warriors against a glowing creature made of eye-covered golden rings.” Velia pulled a locket from around her neck and opened it up, revealing a portrait of a young Sidhborne girl. “This,” she said quietly, “is my daughter Cassia. Cass for short.” Cass was the reason why Velia was so hesitant to leave and head off on a long journey while everyone else in the fledgling Fallcrest Greencloaks seemed eager to go on a grand adventure. Annyha comforted Velia, implying her to trust that Arwin would never ask her to leave her child if it wasn't absolutely necessary.     With the train robbery thwarted, the Cogline stopped briefly in Vale so Annyha could meet her Lwansidh escort before continuing to its final destination in Karinos. Karinos, a sprawling trade city granting access to the interior of the southern portion of the continent, is famous not only for its deep ports but for the Transcontinental Arch, a permanent gateway between the eastern continent of Ceilar and the western continent of Thyrin. Upon the party’s arrival, Piran was approached by a man named Dante Parch, a fellow Greencloak who immediately recognized Piran by his colorful attire. Parch is “played” by Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator and Star Trek fame. GM - “My goal is by the end of this campaign is to have twelve NPC’s played by Jeffrey Combs, which would be one more role than he’s had in all of Star Trek.” The adventure ended with the party being directed by Parch to the Blue Shoal Inn, a combination inn and seafood restaurant, to recover from their train ride and determine how and where to gather information on the First Cold. CobiWann fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Apr 23, 2024 16:12
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CobiWann posted:In response to being knocked down but getting up again, Piran ♪(Oh Piran boy, Piran boy, Piran boy) I get knocked down, but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down♪ Your DM never fails to impress with their dedication to models and terrain, the airship and train are great
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Apr 23, 2024 17:16
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Lord Awkward posted:♪(Oh Piran boy, Piran boy, Piran boy) He's fantastic not only with using terrain and models but reusing them. So many times we'll see the same tile set(s) but with new accessories / LEDs / furniture minis - like how many times Vasquez Rocks has been used over and over again.
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Apr 23, 2024 17:59
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According to my GM, adventurers are immune to being charged with breaking and entering into tombs, dungeons, castles, and other private domiciles per Gygax and Arneson vs. Greyhawk (1974).
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Apr 25, 2024 12:31
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CobiWann posted:According to my GM, adventurers are immune to being charged with breaking and entering into tombs, dungeons, castles, and other private domiciles per Gygax and Arneson vs. Greyhawk (1974). Tell your GM I'm taking this as legal advice and helping myself to the contents of Windsor Castle this weekend, royal guard and legoland security be damned!
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Apr 25, 2024 17:11
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