And so we come to the end. Did I know this would be the last session of the campaign? Hard to tell, but I posted about it going on hiatus shortly afterwards. This session ended up being a fitting conclusion for the campaign. Gus and Eric were both in attendance. We ended on real cliffhanger. The whole campaign had been building towards this moment: the party decided to attack the Jale Slaves based.
I had shared a dispatch from Space Alien Strike Force after the previous session, a couple weeks before we played, which might have nudged them towards this showdown.
The session ended with a giant mass battle, which I was once again unsure how to play out. I know I was tracking how many rounds it took to win the fight, and that would tie into casualties and other post-fight shenanigans. Maybe I have notes on G+ somewhere. Oh wait.
My map of the slaver’s base is incomplete, which is pretty funny since it was obvious early on that this was the one thread the party was most interested in pursuing. As it stands, my not finishing things worked out alright in this case.
Masters of Carcosa is the longest campaign I have run. 23 sessions, starting at the end of 2014, ending near the start of 2016. Sharing all these old play reports has been a lot of fun. I haven’t thought about this campaign in some time. Revisiting it now, all these years later, has me wanting to play Carcosa once again. It really is the fucking best.
All troop movement occurs via the large “front” door. The aliens suspect there must be at least one other exit, unless the slavers are idiots.
12 raptor riding guards always patrol the exterior of the slaver base. They think there are at least 18 raptors, based on how the guards rotate in and out of their shifts. They think they can get better intel with more time.
16 Jale Slavers took a group of 28 slaves North East. There are currently 13 slaves that remain chained outside.
There have spotted one person that they suspect might be the leader. Unlike the rest of the slavers he was shirtless and wearing a large lizard’s head as a helmet.
There has been too little troop movement for them to guess at troop size. They think there must be at least 60 slavers in the base, but likely more.
Recap:
The party mills around in Invak for an extra two weeks, prepping for a big battle, thinking hard about what to do next when it comes to the slavers.
Further news from the Space Alien Strike Force reveals that some slavers have returned with additional slaves (13 Red Men), 17 Jale Men look to have come to join as new recruits, and that’s about it.
The party decides, “Fuck it, let’s just kill those mofos.”
They ride out with an army of 120!
A make shift pontoon bridge is built to cross the river.
They leave part of their force behind, and approach with the most bad ass looking laser pistol wielding men and women.
They approach the slaver citadel, and begin making demands of the guards out front.
That doesn’t go well: laser fire is exchanged.
Normangina manages to blow a hole in one of their “arrow slits”, exposing part of the base further up the mountain.
They leave their demands staked to the ground and flee.
The party makes camp, and waits for a fight that doesn’t happen. The next day they advance with their whole army on the slavers base.
A slave is sent out from the base to parlay with the party. He informs them they must flee and never return. “the Overqueen of Small Petals” is an evil women, clearly one steeped in the ways of vile sorcery.
The party isn’t having none of that. They decide there isn’t much point waiting further, and launch their big attack.
One group of their number head up through the hole Normangina created earlier. The other bust through the front door after a bazooka is fired to make the entry easier.
The army of Invak and Jahar pour into the base.
The party come face to face with a group of 6 raptors and their riders.
A vicious fight where several of their hechmen die, and Normangina is knocked out cold. (Though not before hoping onto the back of a raptor and commanding it to bite someone!)
Dion’s character (name?) is almost killed, but the injury just makes him angrier. (Hulkamania Save vs. Death Rule!)
The party is victorious after 4 rounds of combat.
Orange Julia revives Normangina with a desert lotus potion.
What will happen to our fearless heroes?!
Comments:
Ramanan S (2016-04-26 04:29): I wanted to write it out before I forgot what happened. Gus you’ve used two bazooka blasts. Everyone else who still has weapons with explicit ammo counts remember to mark off how many shots you have left. We ended in media res. Gus you can attempt to quickly tame the raptors before you end up embroiled in another fight. It took you 4 rounds to end that fight. So that effects what your next encounter will be FYI.
Chris G (2016-04-26 04:54): +1 for Hulkamania!
Ramanan S (2016-04-26 04:55): First time that’s ever happened (natural 20 when making a save vs. death).
Logan McCormack (2016-04-26 06:06): I just love to read your game reports! :D
Gus L (2016-04-26 17:24): Oh yeah totally taming the raptors! We ride to victory! Also collecting a solid mob of extra combatants.
Post-Session Post:
The bodies of Jale Slavers lay motionless on the ground, their velociraptor mounts mill about confused. Fighting rages all about. The armies of Invak and Jahar have joined forces to fight the scourge of slavery once and for all. The fighting will be vicious. This day was coming: the Rainbow connection crosses the threshold of the Jale Slaver’s mountain citadel.
To be continued …
The game is on hiatus … for now! The Rainbow Connection fights the slavers for the last time. We will have to wait till next season to find out what happens.
This session was all about trying to make friends. The players had a zany scheme: dress up a slaver in the space alien amour they had stolen from a tomb in order to convince the space aliens it was in fact the slavers that were out there desecrating their holy sites.
They once again returned to the Space Alien outpost, no longer abandoned. They had returned to their experiments, making use of the deranged, spherical, hunter robot that stakes the wastes at night. The Carcosa book has this to say about the robot, which is what I used as the seed for my ideas for the this whole space and how all the parts fit together: “It will seek to abduct stragglers and take them to a small, hidden outpost to be shackled in close proximity to radioactive waste. Each hour spent thus requires a successful saving throw to avoid mutation.”
This is the session Asha Rey dies! I remember the session, but don’t recall if this was a surprise round followed by an instant kill due to the dice. Harsh if so. In my head this game was a real meat grinder, but there weren’t actually that many player deaths over the course of the campaign.
Wish I could remember the context for, “Chris P gets 15XP for just being an all around great guy.” He really was, though.
The party puts the space alien armour on one of the Jale Slaver bodies they killed and jam the body in a barrel with some salt and rocks to try and stop the body from decomposing too much.
They travel south towards the space alien outpost, no looking much less abandoned.
A group of space aliens—those the party “freed”—have gone to work repairing the outpost and continuing their experimentation.
The spherical hunter robot exists to bring specimens to the wastes: they will consider turning it off, but promised to stop sending it West towards Jahar and Invak.
The Aliens are far stranger than the ones you have met thus far. They seem cold and emotionless.
The party gives them the heads up that people on Carcosa are fucked up, and then head on their way after learning the space alien strike force headed south east (towards their leaders tomb)
As they get closer they see the same giant translucent T-Rex they saw last time they explored the tomb. It doesn’t see them and wanders South.
The space aliens are nowhere to be seen, but look to have headed south, so they head that was as well, taking care to avoid the dinosaur.
They come upon the poisonous swamps, which stretch out for miles. The aliens are long gone, so they decide to head back and wait for them to return to the tomb.
On the way back they spot 4 savage Mi-Go who dive out of the sky.
Asha Rey is killed instantly — RIP
The fight quickly turns, as the party manage to kill the Mi-Go one after another.
They camp near the alien tomb, waiting for the space aliens.
The aliens come upon them in the middle of the night.
They show the aliens the armour on the slavers body.
The space aliens are disgusted with what was done and will join their fight against the slavers.
Led inside to sleep, but party elects to sleep outside
No overnight drama, they awake safe and sound.
The Space Alien Strike Force head North, planning to scope out the slavers.
Treasure:
The good will of the Space Alien Strike Force
Chris P gets 15XP for just being an all around great guy.
Comments
Ramanan S (2016-03-16 04:09): Let me know if i’ve missed anything. I’ll make an event thread for the next session. We can do the stuff that happens between sessions there.
Dion Williams (2016-03-16 08:57): I was tempted to draw a picture of Asha-Ray exploding with the Mi-Go coming though “Chest Burster Xenomorph” style.
Ramanan S (2016-03-17 05:27): Dion Williams do it!
More slaver killing antics, as the party heads north to investigate rumours of slaver activity. The party had liberated the Orange Man citadel North of their home base of Invak many sessions ago, but hadn’t returned in some time. This was another fairly vanilla session, but was a good setup for the next one, as they had plans for the body of one of the dead slavers.
Though the party was still completely uninterested in exploring the Putrescent Pits of the Ameboid God, I wanted to make it clear that there was another faction exploring the space in their stead. A note they find amongst the dead indicates someone out there was in search of as many slaves as they could get a hold of to explore “the pits”.
My notes for the first floor of the dungeon describe two factions. Lawful Yellow Man cultists who are trying to prevent access to the pits, and Chaotic Purple Man cultists that worship the Ameboid God and want to venture down. There were two entrances down to a level I never bothered mapping (smart!), once guarded by the Lawful cultists, the other a secret entrance discovered by the Purple Men. These Purple Men cultists were operating in the wilderness, though North of the players, so they never really encountered them.
My notes of the dungeon from that time. Maybe I’ll revisit this one day:
There are two levels of caverns above the actual Putrescent Pits of the Amoeboid God. These natural caverns were built by the Snakemen thousands of years ago to cover the actual pit that leads to the Amoeboid God.
Who is here? Ameboid God Cultists. (Two factions: one inside the pit proper, the other trying to find their way down.) Mushroom Men. Space Aliens. Irrational Space Aliens. Primordial Ones. Shohgoths
The pit travels from level 3 all the was to the lowest levels of the dungeon, terminating at the giant Ameboid God. Several entrances to other levels via the pit.
God is several (hundred?) feet below the lowest level
Rival cults distributed between levels 3,4,5
Shogoths on lower levels
Aliens on 5,6,7 fighting irrational aliens
Fungus Men distributed throughout?
Primordial ones 8, 9 battle shogotths
Yeah, that could have been a fun time too.
Players:
Eric Boyd: Orange Julia - Orange Women Fighter
Chris P.: Bone Crone - Bone Women Sorcerer
Dion: Asha-Rea, Ulfire Women Fighter
Recap:
The party leaves Invak and heads north to Investigate rumours about more slaver activity.
They are accompanied by 20 Bone Men from Invak, who will reinforce the citadel to the North.
At the ford where the party normally crosses the river they spot two fish like dinosaurs.
After some investigation it looks like they have just fed, and ignore the party
The citadel welcomes the party. They inform them of two settlements near by that are friendly to slavers: a citadel of Blue Men to the North, and a Village of Green Men to the North East (South of the Putrescent Pits of the Ameboid God)
The party decides to head to the Green Men village, along with two soldiers from the citadel.
Along the way they come upon 13 Bone Men, and 14 slaves manacled together.
The party skirts around and rolls down some rocks onto the slavers below, killing one person and somewhat blocking the path forward.
A big fight breaks out!
The Bone Crone is wounded, but manages to survive a blast from a laser gun.
The party manages to fall back and pick off the slavers in smaller groups, finally killing them all.
The party leads the captured slaves back to the citadel, where they sleep for the night.
They head to Invak in the morning.
They dig up the old space alien armour, which they plan to put on a dead slaver and present to the space aliens.
Treasure:
13 dead slavers can be claimed for the slaver bounty (1300 GP)
14 slaves freed (1400 GP)
2 Laser Rifles (“long” range, d10 ammo die, 2dCarcosa damage)
13 Obsidian Swords
13 Black / Brown “Leather” armour
14 manacles with chain and two sets of keys
200’ of strong rope
20 bone spikes
A letter requests “as many slaves as are currently available”. A price of 50GP per slave is mentioned, some sort of bulk rate. “Must be reasonably able bodied, as they are to be sent down to explore the [putrescent] pits [of the ameboid god].”
Comments:
Eric Boyd (2016-03-01 17:37): And two laser guns, d10 shot die, if I recall correctly.
Ramanan S (2016-03-01 17:38): Ah yes you are right!
Bryan Mullins (2016-03-01 19:44): Nice one you all!
Chris P. (2016-03-02 04:05): Gus L The tidbit about us finding a Jale slaver corpse and preparing to deliver it next session with the armor is probably relevant to you.
Chris P. (2016-03-02 04:09): Also of note, that letter requesting the slaves, and buying at bulk rate, some jerk is REALLY interested in exploring the pits of the amoeboid god. We should look into this. Whomever is getting the Costco discount from the Jale slavers is not somebody I think we want breathing.
Gus L (2016-03-02 06:46): Chris P. Indeed it is - with a day more notice I will certainly be there - I don’t mind giving up the armor for friendship and protection from the alien death squad.
Another session with no treasure, which was starting to become a point of tension with the players. In my mind Carcosa was really grim and grotty: rich PCs didn’t make sense to me. In hindsight, I think we could have made it all work. Dark Sun imagines the fighters raising armies and becoming warlords. This was a direction the PCs had started to think about. We could have leaned into that more. Live and learn.
The session was another zany one, with a Godzilla-esque monster destroying a town and escaping into the wilderness. Of course the monster Yog would end up on the wilderness encounter table.
Dion joined late, and caught the end of the mayhem.)
Recap:
The party heads west towards Torok, to investigate it’s relationship with the Slavers.
The trip West is uneventful.
They arrive in the evening, and decide The Bone Crone will play Queen Zelda, the Bone Men henchmen her guards, the rest of the party her slaves.
The towns people are willing to buy her story, and put up their illustrious host in what amounts to a fancy hovel.
The party visits a nearby bar and proceeds to buy boozes for the towns people.
They learn about the strange creature Yog that lives in the centre of town, that it is placated by a steady diet of slaves and the sweet singing of maidens of the village, and that the town buys slaves from the Jale Slavers.
That’s enough for the party to decide it’s time to burn this mother down!
They pay some patrons to get the word out to the militia there are free booze going around at the bar.
They investigate Yog and come up with a plan: they will torch the bar and hopefully a good chunk of the towns militia, kidnap the singing maiden, and book it.
This more or less works out: they are stopped by 6 towns people, but 2 of that group are convinced this whole Yog thing is really dumb, the remainder are vaporized, with one survivor running off into the night.
The party hops the wall and watches Yog destroy the town in the moonlight.
They head back to Invak with two wandering monster encounters worth of complications!
Comments:
Chris P. (2016-01-27 02:57): No XP, right? (Since we didn’t actually get any gold)
Ramanan S (2016-01-27 03:19): Yeah … I need to see what people do for alternate / additional means of gaining XP. I feel like treasure hunting hasn’t really been a focus of the game for a while. Though the initial slaver animosity may have been due to the bounty on their heads.
Gus L (2016-01-27 03:45): I would say Ramanan S that while treasure might not be the game’s focus neither is leveling. The rules are clear, the only thing I’d say is that when we finally sack these town we should get gp value for supplies and useful properties seized.
Chris G (2016-01-27 05:26): How about giving an XP award for discovering a new settlement? Your game has a fair amount of exploring/getting lost.
Chris P. (2016-01-27 20:03): Gus L If the reward for the game has reflected something that is no longer the focus of the game, then the reward should either be removed or changed. If the intent is to stay first level/low power forever, then we should remove all pretense otherwise and eliminate the XP mechanic entirely.
The players decide to head East, further into the territory friendly with the Jale Slavers. The town the players learn about, Joi, may have been lifted straight from an episode of Masters of the Universe. As sessions go this was pretty straight forward. Lots of chatter in town, and then an encounter in the wilderness. It feels weirdly short reading the re-cap below.
At this point I was so far behind on writing my Carcosa recaps that I stopped! I should try and do it retroactively from my notes now.
In town the Bone Crone examines the dead Bone Men bodies, brought back from the snake men ruins.
The party debates for some time on what their next course of action should be, before deciding to leave the snake me ruins alone to explore the slaver friendly towns to the East.
The journey is uneventful: the party makes it to Joi unmolested
They decide to set up a fake camp to lure people out of the town, who they hope to capture.
Sure enough, a group of 10 Orange Men and Women make their way towards the campsite.
The party wait for them to get close, than attack.
Their apparent leader is knocked out in the course of battle, their second in command vaporized. Both leaders are women.
The remaining men are captured, and marched back to Invak.
Notes:
The captured orange men reveal the following: in Joi men are forced to work as slaves in underground mines while the women live in luxury in the beautiful city above.
Comments
Ramanan S (2015-12-29 03:04): Let me know if I am missing stuff please: I waited too long to write this up.
Eric Boyd (2015-12-29 03:16): What did the Bone Crone determine again?
Ramanan S (2015-12-29 03:20): Ah yes, the dead bodies have decomposed to a point beyond what one would expect. They look and smell like they have been dead for weeks, despite being newly dead when they were brought to town. (When you guys were fighting them they appeared some what gaunt, but otherwise seemingly normal looking.)
Chris P. (2015-12-29 03:22): You forgot me. I sad now.
Ramanan S (2015-12-29 03:23): Ah yes: you beat me to my own game.
Chris P. (2015-12-29 03:23): Also, Ramanan S they had the sensation of some kind of bad magic (or the equivalent of some other unknown force) that I had no familiarity with at all.
Ramanan S (2015-12-29 03:24): Yes that’s right: the Bone Crone feels the mark of sorcery over all of this, but is aware of no such ritual.
Chris P. (2015-12-29 03:36): We also found no biological markers inside of the bones or anything, at least not that we could identify. If there was any sort of wound reflecting what turned them into the monsters, it was lost among the many wounds we inflicted upon killing them.
Chris P. (2015-12-29 03:37): Also no more radioactive than anything else.
Eric Boyd (2015-12-29 03:40): Earworms or similar parasites would be really obvious with Bone Men, one presumes.
Chris P. (2015-12-29 03:45): Hmmm, BY JOVE, Eric Boyd you may have it! MUSIC! Ramanan S were they ever humming or moving unusually, like they were rocking back and forth or something?
Beloch Shrike (2015-12-29 03:53): There was a session tonight? I never got an invite.
Ramanan S (2015-12-29 03:53): No this was from last week. I just never wrote up the recap. I’m in holiday mode.
Eric Boyd (2015-12-29 03:56): Chris P. I was thinking literally, not metaphorically: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ceti_eel But you might have something there…
Chris P. (2015-12-29 04:29): Eric Boyd yup, I knew, I just will use any excuse I can get for a pun. (Bonus points if it produces a good lead.)
Ramanan S (2015-12-29 06:47): Music would be cute, but no they were basically totally stationary when encountered.
The previous session the players rolled a 1 on the Hazard Die when travelling back to town. We didn’t want to play out the encounter at midnight, so I told them it’s how the session would start. I had an idea in my head: the blue men the players had saved were actually bandits! The session opened with a fight through the town.
A circle of Bone Men stand watch around ancient Snake Men ruins. They exist in a state of undeath, and will not attack the party, but simply scream when they spot someone.
The Bone Men the players encounter were a magical trap guarding the now reoccupied Snake Men ruins. They surround the ruins and warn the Snake Men when people approach. The Bone Men were those taken from the Castle of Decline. If the campaign ran longer I think the players would have done more with this thread, but as it stands these ruins would remain unexplored.
The lack of treasure in most of this game was a running joke the entire time we played. I wouldn’t change a thing.
The 3 injured Blue Men from last session were in fact bandits!
Their leader Aboye killed the person who runs the towns infirmary, and ran off into the town to try and flee with some supplies and a new weapon.
The party aides in the capture of the bandits, killing the leader.
The town guards execute the other two bandits
You fear the incident may play into the towns already existing rampant xenophobia.
The next day the party decides to head to Invak, but travelling towards the Snake Men ruins first, to investigate the strange bone man sightings.
On the way there, they bump into the Space Alien Strike Force, which has been laying low recently.
It turns out they had been exploring to the East, in the towns the party rarely frequents.
Many towns to the East are friendly with the slavers—someone has to be buying the slaves, after all
They think the party are foolish to be heading towards the Snake Men ruins—they seem to be superstitious when it comes to the Snake Men
The party continues on, coming upon a solitary bone man standing alone.
As they try and move past him they see that there are other such bone men in the distance.
Chongo decides to investigate what’s up with these Bone Men by cutting the first one they saw down.
As he charges the man spins his head around and starts screaming—perhaps they have some sort of supernatural alertness
Chongo kills the bone man, no problem, though even in death the creature seems ‘off’
The party hide to see if anyone comes to investigate the murder, and sure enough a group of bone men sprint out to the scene, and then proceed to sprint off in search of the perpetrators.
The party attack!
In the melee Chongo is killed, but his death is avenged by Normagina!
The Bone men are all butchered in the end, their bodies piled on pack lizards as the party races off to Invak to investigate who or what they may be!
Treasure:
None! Classic Masters of Carcosa.
Monsters Killed:
6 (Mysterious) Bone Men
1 Blue Man Bandit
Post Session Notes:
Some of the Bone Men in Invak, originally from The Castle of Decline, recognize the bodies as their former friends and allies!
The two towns the Space Aliens mention to you in their travels to the East are Joi (an Orange Men village) and Torok (a Bone Men village)
Comments:
Eric Boyd (2015-12-16 01:49): Seems to me it would be easy to bait those Bone Men into a tripwire/pit trap/etc.
Chris P. (2015-12-16 02:57): So how come all of you haven’t all been strung up for murder yet?
Ramanan S (2015-12-16 03:46): They have done enough good stuff for the town people believe their story. (And it would match what the merchants shared the previous previous week.)
I forgot the man himself Daniel Dean also made an appearance during this campaign. This might have been the only session he managed to play, but the nice thing about G+ was people would sometimes drop into games if they happened to be free on a particular night.
Eric and Gus had it in their minds to start building a keep, recruiting an army, and just moving on to a sort of domain type of play as they plan to go to war with the Jale Slavers. They had discovered their hide out in an earlier session. I hadn’t really thought through what that would look like. I made notes to myself to re-read the last OD&D book the Underworld & Wilderness Adventures to see what it had to say on the topic. Not bloody much, but it does tell you how much gold it takes to build a keep.
This session the party returns to the hidden citadel they had spent a few sessions trying and failing to enter, constantly battling Mi-Go in the process. Here they finally came face to face with another faction I had active in the region: the Protector of Truths and his war with the Mi-Go on the other side of Carcosa. This is discussed in my Carcosa-style recap of the session. I hadn’t fleshed out much about what this Mi-Go war was even about, which was good because the players didn’t want to figure it out either.
We ended the session with a roll of 1 on the settlement hazard die. Next session the players would learn what transpired!
The party starts work on a small keep in Invak, recruiting some labourers to gather and repurpose materials.
The speak with the Speaker of all Graces, who agrees to let them recruit in town to form a militia. He fears an assault on slavers is too risky, but will give the idea more thought.
Nick’s Blue Man henchmen (name?) & Mr. Whyte recruiting and training a militia in town.
Hearing rumours about Mi-Go bothering the merchants the party head South to Jahar.
Encounter 3 injured Blue Men in the wilderness.
They heal them and bring them back to Jahar, who are really not too happy to be hosting random Blue Men within their walls.
They return to the citadel, and climb through a large pane window to enter the Castle.
They enter a large dorm style room, which they start to search when 6 Yellow Men walk in.
Another Yellow Man, who appears to be a commander of some sort, and a Mi-Go join the fray.
There is some talking, and then much fighting.
The Mi-Go is killed. The leader flees down some stairs!
6 more Yellow Men join the fight.
More murder, but then a call to stop fighting.
The party meets the Protector of Truths, the person in charge of this Castle.
They are fighting a war against the Mi-Go on the other side of Carcosa.
They travel to the castle via a strange crystal device.
They have been lobotomizing the Mi-Go and setting them free inside a cavern that connects to this castle, because of their leaders beliefs about killing.
They are working with a handful of Mi-Go that are also fighting against this particular group of Mi-Go, for reasons unknown.
He gives the party 1000GP gem as a ‘sorry for all the Mi-Go’ gift.
Treasure:
1 Black Gem (1000GP)
Monsters Killed:
5 Yellow Men
1 Migo
Note:
Wandering monster check at the end of the session means future drama for the party! (I know what it’ll be.)
Some important discoveries this session. The Rainbow Connection finally discover the lair of the Jale Slavers. They had first learned of it after rescuing some slaves in the wilderness. They would begin to plot its downfall starting now.
They meet my Carcosa take on Trap-Jaw. I had written up a Carcosa style He-Man encounters, though I didn’t end up using too many in my game: 16 Encounters on Carcosa & [16 More Encounters on Carcosa][h2]. Master’s of the Universe was meant to be core to the whole game, and I tried to inject littles bits and pieces of that world when I could. I wrote these encounters after reading Richard’s [How Brightly Coloured Should Carcosa Be][color]. This post about Carcosa and Masters of the Universe was one of the biggest inspirations for my game. It’s what got me thinking about Carcosa in a completely different way.
They also discovered that the Castle of Decline was empty. The Bone Men from that town had said they would join them in Invak many sessions ago, but never made it. The party would learn what happened to them for a few more sessions. (Half travelled south to Snake-Men ruins, others were captured by Slavers on route to Invak.)
Finally the players find the Orange Citadel’s former “God”, the Frog Spawn Llothali. They killed the creature so hard I would end up having lots of discussions with them about whether the laser guns in the game were too over powered. Probably, but we never ended up changing any of the rules.
Quiet in Invak, the party head south towards Jahar to inquire about raptor trainers and their staff.
On the way they encounter 11 Blue Men, one shouting about wanting their metal.
They chase them off once they produce their armaments.
In Jahar they learn their staff has the power to summon the evil old one Molkrom: the sage doesn’t know how exactly, but thinks vile sorcerers may.
Merchants are readying themselves for a trip South to Cron.
Head back to Invak to go after some slavers!
No one will join them! Or will they?
The Lawgiver of Winds joins the party after a rousing speech about slavery.
Encounter a group of 12 slavers on the road while looking for the Slaver encampment!
A battle breaks out, of course. The Slavers are aware of the Rainbow Connection and aren’t fans.
Midway through the fight an old crone shows up, ready for battle! It’s Chris P.
This battle is bloodier than most: almost no misses till the every end!
A jerk ass slaver wounds Renoir, and makes his escape with 3 of his friends.
Capture 7 slaver heads and the vaporized remains of another
They find the slaver encampment. As they were told, it is a base built into a hillside. Slaves are chained up outside, and raptor mounted guards are outside.
The party decides now isn’t the time to attack.
They make their way over to the castle of decline, stopping along the way at the former Orange Men citadel.
Continuing to the Castle of Decline, they come to learn it has been abandoned. They aren’t sure where the Bone Men may have went, as Invak seems like the obvious choice.
Meet 4 Red Men on the road back to the Former Orange Men citadel, who they escort with them.
Head back to Invak without incident
Oh, the party also killed the Llothali without breaking a sweat. What?
The players had their home base in Invak, and had a strong relationship with the merchant town to the south, Jahar. At this point in the campaign they wanted to try and unify the region around the common aim of dealing with the slavers. There was a lot of travel between the two towns session, as they tried to negotiate an agreement. This was the session the Space Alien Strike Force finally made an appearance. They had been hinted at over the previous session, and were an entry on my random encounter table for some time. They were looking for whomever desecrated their tomb and stole the armour of their hero. Bad luck for the players: Gus’s character was wondering around in that armour. Had been since they found it. Hilarity ensues.
The players also reconnected with the women who escorted them to Invak at the start of the campaign, Queen of Autumn. Another random encounter roll? I don’t remember anymore.
The party heads South from Invak towards Jahar to learn more about the Staff of Avion and try and set up an alliance.
The Speaker of all Graces seems disinterested in this idea, but doesn’t say no outright.
Along the way they stumble upon the the Space Alien Strike Force: they are caught in a moment of rest.
Gus hides behind a rock because he is wearing the amour they are looking for.
The aliens have him sighted, so he ends up using his Solid Snake skills to sneak away. Meanwhile the rest of his team are friendly, and show the aliens they don’t have the armour. (And in fact saved their friends.)
When they investigate where Gus was, they see no one was there.
The party continues South, while Normangina takes a wide route to avoid the Aliens.
Along the way she stumbles upon a dead body off in the distance, which she decides to avoid as well.
Travelling further still she see a large Insectoid Spawn.
She manages to distract it with her smell squid, and sprints further away.
Finally she makes it back to the party.
They travel back to the dead body, to see if it has any loot.
They quickly learn there are several dead bodies, arranged in a circle head to toe with their arms reaching out to the centre. (So it looks like a spoke of a wheel.)
They take one of the bodies, a Red Man.
Evan’s character is loitering near by, he joins the group—strange. No one mentions it.
In Jahar the party run errands.
They convince the guard guild to recharge their weapons.
Gus’ Bazooka and Evan’s teleportation Ray are fully charged.
Drink with guards ends with crazy mayhem. The guards are even more friendly with the party now.
Chris P’ character steals small change from all the revellers, earning 60 GP
The next day the guards get the party an audience with their leader.
“The One” gives the players a letter saying he will support a military alliance with Invak
the party travels North, actively searching for trouble, but end up finding the Blue Menhirs
They arrive in Invak and give the Speaker of All Graces the letter of support.
Travel East looking for Slavers.
Find Queen of Autumn and the group that had went searching for her led by The Illustrious Prince of the Bone
They had actually just rescued her from a Spawn, which they fled.
The party is looking for trouble, however, so they head back in search of the Spawn they were fighting
Kill that thing so hard. I need laser proof spawn.
Other notes:
Gus puts out a bounty for raptors! And Eric will match that! And a hiring bounty as well!
Eric looking for binoculars, Geiger counter, which will be set aside in Jahar if the merchants find one.
Staff of Avion is left with the Sage. Owed 200GP if he learns anything about it.
Treasure:
1000 GP in Spawn Bounty (200 GP for them, 800 GP split between the party) so that’s 133 XP each
Comments:
Ramanan S (2015-10-13 04:49): The Queen of Autumn tells viewers to admit their mistakes rather than lying to cover them up.
Wait, you guys didn’t learn that lesson.
Gus L (2015-10-13 04:51): Maybe - more lies and a few dead bodies will bury a mistake pretty deep?
As you’ll see in the comments, I had been reading Blood Meridian, and the book and its mood started seeping into the game. I wrote about this a few years ago: A Carcosan Western. The game was meant to be light-hearted Masters of the Universe themed game, and while there was a fair bit of that, the game was probably more cowboys than He-Man. (That said, the Staff of Avion the players find this session is from Masters of the Universe.) The players were wandering the wastelands, having shootouts with bandits.
The dead man they find on the road was meant to be a clue something was amiss at the castle, but maybe not enough of a clue. The Snake Men ruins were another important site in the game the players would ignore. Kheret ils Nu’s Reliquary, which I wrote for the Trophy Gold megadungeon, borrows ideas from this campaign and these ruins my players never explored. The Snake Men would end up freed by the Dominant Reflection. They would restart their war with the Old Ones, so nominally aligned with the players, except to the Snake Men the players were just reagents for spells.
My rules for getting lost seemed to only come up when the party would leave their home base. They were constantly getting lost right next to their home. A little silly, but I kept with it because I thought it was funny.
[You can contrast the recap that follows with my Carcosa-style hex descriptions.][s14]
Trade has resumed between Jahar and Invak. The merchants are happy to hear you dealt with the cultists.
The Illustrious Prince of the Bone, former head of the Bone Man village in the outpost, has not been heard from since heading South in search of The Queen of Autumn.
Traders speak of wild aggressive Migo wandering in packs to the South, harassing their caravans.
The Black Man rescued from the Cultists is planning on leaving for the Castle he is from to the West. (And wouldn’t mind company for the trip.)
No word from the Citadel of Decline to the West in weeks.
Aggressive group of Space Aliens continue to stop and search travellers to the South.
Plus all the open threads from the open thread thread.
Recap:
The party rests in Invak, having emptied out the (no longer abandoned) space alien outpost.
Black Man “the Speaker of Benedictions” needs help getting home.
Was hunting when captured by slavers.
The party agrees to take him back to his home, being promised a modest reward for their efforts (and good karma, of course)
On the way West they get a little bit lost—par for the course when leaving Invak, apparently.
They wait till the evening to re-orient themselves using the stars.
While searching for a place to camp, they find some ruins of the ancient Snake-Men. The place fills them with foreboding. The leave it alone.
In the morning they head Northward. On the way they encounter a long line of Giant ants heading South West.
They leave the ants alone and continue North.
Further along they find a dead body, a Black Man whose head has been blown clear off (from laser a gun), gear scattered everywhere.
They continue to approach the castle.
The “the Speaker of Benedictions” goes ahead to get the gates opened.
He is promptly shot at by two men on the parapets of the Castle.
Attempts at parlay are for naught, so the Bazooka comes out.
The doors to the castle are blown open.
4 riders on velociraptors ride out, two armed with pistols, two with clubs.
Are long fight breaks out, but eventually the party succeed in driving away the remaining Purple Men who had taken over the castle. (6 flee into the wilderness)
The party capture two of the raptors during the fight and by searching the wilderness for one that ran away.
The party create a pyre and burn the dead Black Men that litter the castle.
They, along with the “the Speaker of Benedictions”, take all the valuables and head back to Invak.
Treasure:
8 Laser Pistols (but “the Speaker of Benedictions” claims two as side arms)
9000 GP = 2250 GP each (since “the Speaker of Benedictions” claims a share of the gold)
“Staff of Avion”
Two raptors (4HD, AC 12, MV 160’), Feathered Orange hide. Immune to poison.
Comments:
Ramanan S (2015-09-15 04:31): Feel like I remember more when I force myself to write them down right away. I should sleep for real now, though.
Chris G (2015-09-15 05:33): Dang! I would have shat a brick when dudes on velociraptors came out of the gate.
Dion Williams (2015-09-15 07:30): Sounds like a great session. Wish I could be making these.
Ramanan S (2015-09-15 12:24): Me too. One day Dion!
Ramanan S (2015-09-15 13:33): This session feels heavily informed by my reading cowboy books right now. (Though now when I look back at all the seasons they start to feel like Westerns.) You guys have good success killing over confident cultists and bandits.
Chris G (2015-09-18 05:25): I remember you mentioning Blood Meridian. What other cowboy books are you reading? I’m on a major Western kick right now.
Ramanan S (2015-09-18 11:22): Chris Geisel I said books I really meant that one, which should count for several. Hah.
Chris G (2015-09-18 23:26): lol, too true. I got excited for a cowboy book recommendation.
Ramanan S (2015-09-19 12:25): Gus can recommend several! There were some Elroy books he had mentioned a little while ago I have been meaning to check out. If you haven’t seen Unforgiven you should go do that now, though. There is a Japanese remake with Ken Wanatabe which is also cool.
Gus L (2015-09-19 16:26): Chris Geisel The cowboy books I’d recommend are actually very limited:
Pete Dexter’s “Deadwood” (1986) is just a great book. It’s the inspiration for the series of the same name, but very different.
Cormac McCarthy “Blood Meridian” is amazing - is it a Western? Mostly. In form certainly, but it’s very surreal at times, and very strange.
As to Elroy, that’s more historically researched hard-boiled pulp detective stuff. The darkest there is. Very good - especially the LA ones about greed corruption and lurid crime. Elmore Leonard wrote a mess of Westerns and I know I’ve read a couple, but they’re pretty standard fare, well written and amusing though in his jaunty style.
Ramanan S (2015-09-19 17:08): I’d actually say Blood Meridan is a post-apocalypse novel. I’m sure someone has written an essay about that.
Chris G (2015-09-20 03:03): Gus L I’ve read Blood Meridian. I’ll check out Deadwood, thanks. There’s a collection of Elroy’s Western stories at a local book store here, do you think it’s worth checking out.
Gus L (2015-09-20 03:17): Chris Geisel I haven’t read a lot of his Westerns, I like the guy’s writing and he’s pretty much at the core of that genre.
Ramanan S (2015-10-07 12:32): I think i’m going to start using my alternate time line re-stocking tables as a way to do rumours going forward. Sort of like meta-rumours, I guess.
Eric Boyd (2015-10-12 03:25): Gus L Beloch Shrike How are we splitting up the haul, here? Two people get velociraptors and a low-charge pistol each, someone else gets the Staff of Avion and four laser pistols? Orange Julia would prefer a dinosaur if we go with that split.
Gus L (2015-10-12 16:00): Well I figure dinos would be based on the mechanics. Normigina has Animal Handling 3 - what’s needed to ride the raptor?
Ramanan S (2015-10-12 19:39): The raptors you have are domesticated enough you can hop on them and ride around. None of you would likely have practice riding them around for a fight, though. Maybe Normangina would be a bit better here? So you would need to practice that. They will likely run away if left unattended. They need to eat 3x the rations you guys do, but will happily eat the lizard meat available in Invak. Gus can try and train them to get used to your troupe so they know to stick around. Or to try and fight on command. Etc. Would probably take more time than a week?
Ramanan S (2015-10-12 19:41): The Staff of Avion is 6’ long and inscribed with runes, clearly of snake men origin to any sorcerers in the group.
This session the players explored the rest of the Space Alien outpost. When the returned I had re-stocked the space differently, because it had been captured. The rooms that they had not explored previously were sealed, so that area was unchanged.
This session feels like some stereotype of an OSR game. The party wakes up all the Space Aliens that manned the outpost, who were in cryropods. Nick decided the best course of action was to knock one out while he was still disoriented, and run away with him. Maybe they were unsure what the deal would be with these particular aliens, and wanted to chat with one of them alone? This Space Alien ended up living in Invak, convinced he had been saved by the party and that all his friends were dead.
The rest of the session is typical Carcosa hijinks. They stumble up on the Frog-God Llothali that they had let loose in the wilderness when they freed the Orange Man citadel.
Spotty attendance after the last game because I moved the session a week, and didn’t create a new event. Once again, my biggest advice for running a long running campaign is playing on a consistent schedule. People will often say this game or that game have the mechanics required for long term play. Fuck that, the only mechanics you need are a calendar and actually showing up.
The party begins in the newly liberated space alien outpost. Before it becomes truly abandoned, they decide to investigate the remainder of the complex.
They recruit a couple Bone Men to act as henchmen, who are a bit wary of exploring this portion of the complex.
Prying open the locked door that leads north from the basement stairs, they find a small corridor, with 3 more doors.
To the East is a room full of pods.
Examining the pods they realize they each house an alien in some sort of stasis.
Renoir attempts to shatter the glass door on top of a pod. His sledgehammer bounces right off.
The party leaves the room, heading to the West most room. Inside they find a room full of strange plant life.
The floors are littered with some dead plants and fruit, but not enough considering no one has been in here for years.
While picking fruit the party sees that various autonomous robotic arms, etc, look to be taking care of the plants.
The party moves to the centre room, the last remaining unexplored room.
There is a large cylinder in the centre of the room that extends down into the ground. It pulses with red light. It’s cordoned off by a circular railing. The room is full of computers, and everything looks to be in working order.
Orange Julia pushes a big red button!
Slowly the pulsing of the cylinder comes to a halt. The lights in the complex turn off, and the sound of doors opening can be heard throughout the complex.
In the dark, the PCs here another sound, the sound of the pods full of aliens opening.
The party waits a beat to see what happens. They hear the sound of an alien retching.
Realizing the aliens might be disoriented from being in stasis for so long, Renoir decides to cold-cock one and kidnap him.
Alien on his shoulder, the party book it out of the complex. Everyone else is milling around outside, confused by the loss of power.
Seeing the party running away, they join in.
Once a reasonable distance away, the two groups of captives head off: the Orange Men to their town to the East, Joi; the Brown Men to the merchant town Jahar.
About half way to Invak the party spot what looks to be a giant frog off in the distance. That’s strange. Could it be the Frog-God Llothali, worshipped by those crazy Orange Men to the North. Yes, it probably is. How many giant-ass toads could there be?
The party decide to take a longer detour to reach Invak.
On the way they startle a group of 4 slavers.
Bargo charges in and completely brains one.
The rest flee post-haste.
The party gives chase, but without more range weapons pursuit seems fruitless. (I should look up the LotFP chase rules, they might have been a better option for that part of the game.)
The party regroup and head to Invak, where they are greeted as heroes.
The Swift and Silent Beginning thanks the players for ridding the world of more cultists, and for helping fight the slavers. (You have more renown in the town.)
Upon learning there is a space alien that was “rescued” from the complex, he asks that the creature be brought to him to be freed.
The party wake up the alien, who has a surprisingly positive disposition.
He is confused about where he is, what the date is, and what has transpired since his last week long shift at the space alien outpost.
The party informs him that they saved him, that the rest of his comrades presumably died years ago.
He decides to stay in Invak for now.
The new bone men also start to settle in to their new home.
The party travels South to Jahar.
Orange Julia’s pack lizard is worn down from all the travel and dies in Jahar. (The merchants will buy his body to be turned into rations for 50GP—I forgot to mention in the session!)
The party sell their weird alien fruit and call it a day.
The Bone Man sorcerer, The Dominant Reflection (AC 16, MV 90’, HD 4, Chaotic) has taken over the abandoned Space Alien outpost, along with a sizeable group of Bone Men cultists. They worship the long dead Snake Men.
I had been teasing Bone Men cultists operating between the party’s home town of Invak, and the merchant town to the South, Jahar, for a few sessions. The Space Alien outpost was between the two towns, and was also home to secret village of Bone Men. It was time to finally scope out what was going on!
I had fun seeing this long running thread from [the start of the game][s1] finally lead somewhere. As I have mentioned earlier, the Bone Man the party freed from a cell in the very first session was actually a dirt bag sorcerer, the Dominant Reflection, imprisoned by the rest of Bone Men that lived in the outpost. While the players were wandering Carcosa, he was gathering up a crew of cultists, who then took over the outpost, making it their base of operation.
The players some how managed to steam roll their way through the outpost, building up a posse as they freed captives. The session concluded with them saving the town. One of the more He-Man sessions in the game. In the commotion the Dominant Reflection escaped! There is chatter in the comments about what happened off camera, whether it was cheesy or not to let the character escape. I thought not, and the players agreed.
The players convince the town’s leader to come back with them to Invak in the post game discussion. We would sometimes play out things like that in post game chat between sessions.
This would end up being the midpoint of the campaign, though I didn’t know it at the time. Kind of fitting we looped back to where we started.
The party travels from Jahar North towards the “abandoned” space alien outpost.
They see that it is guarded by two Bone Men, so they venture in via the radioactive wastes.
The large centre room is filled with 9 bone men, reviewing maps and papers on large tables. The characters surprise the group, and kill a few before they can even retaliate. A few manage to flee to the basement.
A long drawn out fight takes place on the main floor. Bone Men from various rooms join in. The party also encounter Bone Men from the original tribe that were living here, who join them in trying to shake off these cultists.
The characters make their way to the basement, making quick work of two guards below.
Moving forward they make their way to where they believe they will find the leader of the cult.
More cultists are killed, and tribesman recruited, as the party marches forward.
In the middle of the battle, the The Dominant Reflection looks to have made a break for it, his “throne room” sits empty.
The party continue to travel around the basement in search of the sorcerer, but only encounter other former members of the Bone Men tribe, whom they free.
By the time the party makes it back up to the top floor, and out the front door, the sorcerer looks to have fled.
The party rest in the Space Alien Outpost, where they are heralded as heroes.
Notes:
The Queen of Autumn was not amongst any of the people killed or freed. The leader of the Bone Men believes she escaped when the Sorcerer originally returned with his band of cultists to take over the ‘town’.
The leader of the town, the Prince of Bone, gives your characters a 500 GP blood red ruby from the vault you passed when you first entered the basement.
The Prince of Bone reveals that while they have no power over the Spherical Hunter Killer robot, they quickly learned that it can not “see” Bone Men. It completely ignores them. They also confirm your suspicion that it only hunts at night. They leave it alone.
The Prince of Bone reveals that the sorcerer was previously imprisoned by the Bone Men here, because he was crazy-ass-crazy. They don’t know how he escaped, though they think it probably happened around the time Gus and Eric were previously here. He doesn’t put two and two together, because he’s so happy to be free. (You will recall you freed a naked Bone Man from a cell and fed him, before letting him run off into the wastes.)
As before, the Prince of Bone asks that you not reveal to anyone the location of the town.
Treasure:
The heads of 23 bone men cultists, whose bounty will be collected in Invak. (100GP per cultist killed or 2300 GP once you return to Invak)
500 GP gem
173 GP in random coinage from the 23 dead cultists.
One laser gun (Brendan’s character has it)
Comments:
Brendan S (2015-07-21 04:28): For my records: Laser gun has 9 charges.
Ramanan S (2015-07-21 04:28): The leader had several rounds on you guys and ran around and back up the stairs. I don’t think you guys would have been able to catch him and his (now small) crew. How would you have handled pursuit like that? (He was the other 6 I rolled for initiative when you guys were fighting in the basement hall way.)
Ramanan S (2015-07-21 04:30): You guys also managed to kill most of the bone men, which seems crazy. Whenever I read these old TSR modules with giant mobs of monsters I’m always at a loss for how it won’t just turn into a shit show.
Eric Boyd (2015-07-21 04:32): Yeah, that’s tracking, not a chase per se, and you’ve let the party get away in craters and badlands enough times that I’d call this a fair call. We should’ve sent some of the freed captives back around to keep watch…
Ramanan S (2015-07-21 04:47): On the one hand it seems lame to save my NPC, but on the other it seemed dumb to have him just wait for you guys when it was probably clear the tide was turning.
Gus L (2015-07-21 06:05): I’d say this leader needs a talking to. The city to the South of some non-bone men know where his people are, the sorcerer who kicked his ass last time knows where his people are. The slavers will undoubtedly soon know where they are.
We won’t come back and save him next time he gets taken over by a sorcerer - we’ll just bring the town guards and Invakians to kill everyone. Everyone. They won’t be a nuisance to trade anymore. The major power in the area - the one we nominally work for/with is boneman - he needs to bring his people into Invak, and set up a life there - they should be welcoming. We can help arrange that. If not, since he was a dude in a cell recently Normagina will encourage the other survivors to come with us to to Invak and let the crazy leader and the crazy sorcerer fight it out before we come back and murder the winners/survivors with Invak’s militia in a few months.
This should not really be a choice for them, small communities get slaughtered, mutated or taken over by nuts. They are not even a small community now - time to join up with someone bigger.
Also mumble mumble something about strategic hamlets.
Ramanan S (2015-08-07 04:57): Alright!
You can convince this fellow that staying here is a dumb idea. The group is still very suspicious of outsiders, but since you have shown up and saved them from cult-stupidness they are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
The leader and 5 of his followers are going to search for “The Queen of Autumn”, the women who escorted Gus L and Eric Boyd back to Invak during that first session. Everyone else will come with you. (I’ll look up numbers.)
Also I realise I made a mistake with the people you were freeing from the cells. Not everyone is a Bone Man. Some people are captives from the region. They will also come back with you to Invak. I need to double check my notes for where people are from.
This dungeon is basically cleared except for the central locked section in the basement. (The doors to the North when you go down the stairs.) The bone men have also not entered the area, lacking the appropriate pass key. They assume it’s where the power comes from. There is a strange symbol that they say means power embossed on the door.
I should give you guys XP for messing up the cultist faction as well.
Eric Boyd (2015-08-07 04:59): Do any of our assorted key cards open the basement?
Ramanan S (2015-08-07 05:16): Sadly no. It’s the same sort of metal sliding door you see throughout, just locked. You can try and bust it open if you are so inclined. The Bone Men are superstitious about it, but won’t interfere if you want to mess with it.
This is the first session Chris P joined the fight. There were two Chris’s on G+ that were consummate players. Like Eric, they were almost always down to play whenever you would post a game. Players like that make running a poorly organized campaign work.
When I would share invites on G+ for the Masters of Carcosa sessions I would include rumours and news the players had learned. There was also a post on my G+ community for the game where I would keep all the loose threads up to date. For this session the players knew the following:
Trade between Invak and Jahar presumably remains on hiatus for now while Jahar’s merchants waits for this cult to move on or be replaced.
The merchants will travel East to the Citadel of Brown Men known as Lessel.
Deep One sightings at the Lake to the South.
During the session they would learn more about the deep ones, who apparently had emerald belts. (The deep ones in this game were effectively Mer-Man from Masters of the Universe.) This was the rumour the players decided to follow, resulting in a very straight forward session compared to some of the others: kill some cultists, free some captives, find some treasure.
The party finally learned some more rituals, not that it really mattered. The rituals didn’t really match the vibe of the game, even though Chris’s character was a real dirt bag sorcerer. He was constantly trying to learn and find more, and I basically didn’t really want them in my game so was kind of a real dick when it came to having them show up in play. For the most part playing a Sorcerer was just the hard-mode version of playing a Fighter. The classes were the same, but Sorcerers had harder XP requirements.
The next session the players will return to the “abandoned” Space Alien outpost that kicked off the campaign. It’s kind of neat that it happened to happen at what would be the midpoint of the campaign.
The party decides to remain in and around Glom for the time being.
The city is clearly built within snake men ruins, but no one in town seems to know or care—or at least won’t talk to the party about it.
Rumours of emerald wearing deep ones send the party south to the lake.
There they see a group of cultists camped near the statue and pillars visible last session.
They approach closer and start examining the pillars: rituals!
Then they get shot at.
A fight!
The obvious cultists put up a mediocre fight, missing like the cast of G.I. Joe.
The party are victorious after a protracted fight. Captives are freed. New rituals learned. Success!
Treasure:
500 GP
5 Gems: 2700 GP
6 wax figurines of deep ones
4 Naginatas (6 grabbed by captives)
Rituals:
Summon Amphibious Ones - This eleven-hour ritual can be completed only on a fog-shrouded night. The Sorcerer must obtain the root of potency found only in ruined apothecaries of the Snake-Men. The sacrifice is a virgin White girl. As her life leaves her body, 10–100 of the Amphibious Ones will coalesce out of the mists.
The Blasphemous Sacrifice (to Bind Amphibious Ones) - This ritual cannot be performed on its own, but only as an adjunct to the SUMMON THE AMPHIBIOUS ONES ritual. It adds an hour to the time required to complete the ritual (thus twelve hours total). The sacrifice is further subjected to an hour of unspeakable tortures before being slain. At the end of the rituals, the Sorcerer will have complete control over the horde of Amphibious Ones for 24 hours.
The Call of Cthulhu (to Summon Cthulhu) - This 24 hour ritual must be cast while waist deep in the polluted waters of Carcosa. Once the ritual chanting and genuflection begins, the sorcerer must drown a Purple Men at the end of each hour of the ritual. All the victims must be a willing sacrifices to the Great Old One Cthulhu. When the life leaves the last of the Purple Men, Cthulhu will rise up from the waters.
I remember this session really well, because it was another weird one. Only Dion and Willie could make it, and they didn’t want to do anything risky. The players travelled with the merchants on their trip South, stopping in the village of Glom. There they met affable Carcosans and got totally wasted. The description for the settlement in the hex is as follows: Village of 310 Ulfire Men ruled by “the Unapproachable
Radiance,” a neutral 6th-level Sorcerer. A lot of the Carcosa book is villages like this. That somehow transformed into what is described in the recap below. I am quite certain that going into this session I thought the players would return to the cavern they had been exploring, and so when they didn’t I had to spin something out from my most meagre of notes. Besides the description in the Carcosa book, the only thing I knew about this town was its name, which I had given it when drawing the initial region map for the campaign. In my notes I had something about Mer-Man cultists worshiping Cthulhu by the lake. I’m pretty sure I came up with the idea of evil Cthulhu lake water as a type of booze, and then just extrapolated everything else from that. Sometimes that’s what you gotta do.
This is the first session Eric missed! There was a mixup because I kept on rescheduling. This is why you need to be consistent when you’re running games!
The party begins the session in Jahar, where they returned with the body of a dead amoured space alien and a Bone Man cultist who attacked them on the road. They learned of the base the cultists presumably operate out of.
Since there were only two players today the group decided to avoid the cultists enclave and head South with the traders.
The party ended up in the city of Glom, the trip South was uneventful.
The merchants stay in a quiet Inn, with no name but a strange ancient symbols etched on its door. Sorcerers will recognize this as the snake man word for Torture Gallery.
The party wanders around town, which seems to be a surprisingly easy going place.
They come upon a louder and more boisterous tavern.
The bar servers two drinks, “lake water”, and a purple lotus concoction.
Asha-Rea samples the lotus drink, Grenn the lake water.
Each gets plastered in their own way.
They wake up the next day back in the original inn. (TODO: make a carousing table!)
The next day they explore the town.
“the Joy-Giver of All the Living” sells tonics and potions made out of the lake water. They buy a “healing potion”
“the Inestimable Fullness” is a tailor that is built like the Kingpin. They buy fancy hats from him, and Asha-Rea buys a set of clothes. They will be ready in a week.
The party decides to trek to the near by lake to collect water for sale to the Alchemist.
This occurs without incident, but the lake gives them a thoroughly creepy vibe. There are rumours it is full of Deep Ones.
They see a monument of statues in the distance, surrounded by pillars. They don’t investigate!
They return to town with two barrels of the bizarre lake water, which they sell for 50GP a pop.
The players had found a Space Alien compass in an earlier session and decided to see where it would lead them. I had decided it would lead them towards the tomb of a dead Space Alien hero. A nearby hex was described in the book like so:
In a pure white chamber is the perfectly preserved
corpse of a Space Alien wearing a suit of reflective armor
that protects against the following types of weapons:
microwave, yellow laser, dysprosium, polonium, nickel,
neptunium, cesium, strontium, radon, aluminum, boron,
mercury, thulium, protactinium, niobium, and helium.
8 Space Aliens (AC 12, MV 120’, HD 3), part of an elite combat squad, pursue a group of Carcosan who have defiled one of their tombs through the badlands. They are armed with laser rifles.
They were first mentioned in the session 7 recap, and I likely added them as an entry on the encounter table for the region shortly after. The players would meet them a few sessions later. As I mentioned earlier, I would sometimes use the recaps as a way to share rumours, and also share news about the off camera world with the players. In the session 8 recap I shared that the Bone Men cultists were taking people back to an Abandoned Space Alien Outpost. The players would eventually return there, but I don’t think it was because of the mention in that recap. This is probably too subtle a way to share what’s going on, but it was a fun all the same.
I also used the other entry from Hex 1113 this session, having the mutant T-Rex show up.
There are no settlements in this hex because of the mutant tyrannosaurus (AC 15, MV 150 , HD 15, Neutral, 30 aura of radioactivity, bulging eyes, transparent skin) that slays anything in its vicinity.
The entries in Carcosa are quite terse, but sometimes that’s all you need for something to be memorable. I got quite used to spinning out whole sessions from a few sentences, both in my own notes and from the book.
The party begins the session in Invak, having returned their from Jahar. They decide to follow the strange alien compass to wherever it may lead.
They venture South towards Jahar, but about 4 hours out of town they stumble upon 6 White Men, presumably slaves, dying in the desert.
The party splits up, with one group heading back to Invak to secure a rescue party.
On the way back the encounter a Spawn, a Blue quadruped with a smooth hide, 4 eyes, and a beaked mouth. They give it a wide berth, and it leaves them alone.
They rescue the White Men without incident, who are now recuperating in Invak
The party heads South again, travelling towards Jahar.
They make it to the town without incident and spend the night.
The next day they head East towards the site the compass is pointing towards.
They discover a small white structure.
Examining it, they discover it looks to like a tomb for a dead Space Alien.
The party takes the alien and his armour.
As it is quite late they camp out in the wastes!
At night a group of bone men wander by, but do not see the party.
They party surprises the group.
The bone man snuff out their torches, and a melee breaks out in the dark.
It is violent, and the bone men are put down. One bone man is captured.
The party returns to Jahar, but as they are about to leave a radioactive t-rex shows up!
It is distracted by the pile of carrion and lets the party move away.
Back at Jahar the party hand over the captured bone man to the merchant caravan guards.
Treasure:
Space Alien Armour - full body and reflective
3 laser guns (from cultists)
Well preserved dead Space Alien
50’ of Rope x 4
10’ of rusted iron chain, with manacles (no key)
One small pouch of Green Lotus Powder
Ceramic short swords, perhaps space alien in origin x 8
6 torches
I was still apparently not confident the game was actually fun, 9 sessions in. Reading these recaps now it’s funny how unsure I was about this game.
Eric Boyd (2015-05-06 01:13): Side note: my character is named Orange Julia.
Ramanan S (2015-05-06 03:45): I added items of note from the dead cultists. They were wearing leather like armour, but that would be ruined from the fight. Green Lotus Powder: A victim of the green lotus powder falls into an unconscious trance for 9-12 hours, then awakens in a state of extreme weakness and sickness. He can do little other than speak sparingly, recline, and eat and drink. The green lotus sickness does not directly cause death, but the body becomes very thin and the mind prone to despair. Eventual suicide is common among victims of the green lotus.
Eric Boyd (2015-05-06 06:24): Is the green lotus powder something we can throw in someone’s face, or is it an ingested poison?
Ramanan S (2015-05-06 09:43): I pictured it like a throw in your face sort of thing, like you make a small cloud. Ingesting works too and is probably a more reliable vector for administrating it.
Chris G (2015-05-06 16:44): I freakin’ love these recaps. One of these Mondays I’ll get off work early enough to join.
Ramanan S (2015-05-06 23:48): The actual sessions are probably less exciting. Hah.
Chris G (2015-05-07 20:46): That sales pitch needs some work …
Ramanan S (2015-05-07 22:03): Once I figure out how to be a good DM i’ll get on that next. Ha!
Eric Boyd (2015-05-07 23:17): Hey, enough with the self-deprecation and imposter syndrome! If you didn’t know what you were doing, we wouldn’t show up.
Ramanan S (2015-05-08 04:09): Fair enough. I think my main problem is everyone I play D&D with also happens to be an amazing DM. Ha! I think I can do a better job if I was like 20% more organized. One day.
… the leader of Invak would pay for the heads of Jale Slavers, and so the game because all about hunting the slavers and chopping of their heads. Blood Meridian, but in Carcosa. (Except the party would actually kill slavers, not any old person.)
Wait, I lied. This session the party does end up killing people and taking them back to Invak to collect their reward. Bad PR for OSR players everywhere.
Were these Bone Men slavers? No, I’m pretty sure they were cultists working for The Dominant Reflection. If you have been following along, in the very first session the players freed a Bone Man they found imprisoned in the Abandoned Space Alien Outpost. He disappeared into the wilderness, but that wasn’t the end of his story. At this point the players had not encountered him or his followers again, but that was soon to change.
The party also some how manage to turn the death of two hirelings they recruited in town into some positive PR, paying for their funerals. Jahar initially had a negative disposition to outsiders, but the group would slowly change that over the course of the campaign.
The main goal for the session was to pilfer Alien technology from the campsite of the lost Space Aliens they had rescued recently. This resulted—once again—in a battle with insane Mi-Go. How many times would I have the players fight Mi-Go? Several: I always listen to the results of the dice!
The caverns the party explore this session were another way I had imagined to get the party out of the region they were in. The Protector of Truths was leading a group of Yellow Men in a war against evil Mi-Go on the other side of Carcosa. The Mi-Go the players would encounter on this part of the world were those lobotomized by The Protector of Truths, so they were more like animals than intelligent adversaries. My notes for the NPC were: disfigured, easy going, idealistic. I made a small map of the caverns that lead to the hidden castle, and then a map of the castle itself. I didn’t figure anything else about this particular thread, or who the evil Mi-Go on the other side of Carcosa were. This was the right call, because this was another thread the players didn’t end up pursuing.
This session was also the first encounter with the race of Space Aliens that made the mistake of exploring Carcosa long ago, who now find themselves trapped on the planet. The players would encounter more Space Aliens as the campaign progressed: the scientists that ran the abandoned output that started the campaign, and the bad-asses of the Space Alien Strikeforce.
This was a funny session, with the party wandering back and forth between the nearby towns and these caverns, where they kept encountering Mi-Go and not making much progress through the caverns.
The party finally visits the merchant town to the South, Brown Man village of Jahar. These merchants were the ones who escorted the players up to Invak in the first session, when the party encountered them on the road. Because the party had gained some notoriety in the region they were able to wander and meet with the people of the town. I’m quite certain I ran this sort of things using reaction rolls. I tracked the groups renown, which I would sometimes use to modify results up or down, but not in a way that I was particularly consistent about.
You can see that once again I was laying it out pretty thick when it came to reasons to explore the Putrescent Pits of the Ameboid Gods. Don’t worry, the players wouldn’t take the bait.
The party travels south from Invak to Jahar.
The trip is uneventful. They travel through the night to make it to the town in one day. They camp outside of town, but encounter nothing.
Unlike Invak, Jahar is particularly xenophobic.
One of the guards is aware of the Rainbow Connection, and lets the players into the town.
Most of the people manufacturing goods in the town, along with the guards, have a fairly negative reaction to the party.
The merchants in town have a more positive disposition.
The party meets the person who runs the “resale items” shop, along with his children. They pick up some random knick knacks.
They meet the sage that lives in town.
For 10 GP he tells them two locations that he thinks feeds the water in the Castle of Decline, which could be the source of the human waste and guts that are poisoning the water
For free he lets the party know their map of the Putrescent Pits of the Ameboid God is probably junk. The story goes that a cult worshiped the god, that lived in an impossibly deep pit to the North. They would feed the beast all the gold and jewels they could find. Another cult came and fought the god and its cultists, culminating in sealing the god underground by building the mountain range on top of it. He lets the party know that mountain ranges form over millions of years, and this story is probably nonsense.
The party learn about a citadel to the North East, hidden out of sight. Some merchants saw it a few days back, but avoided the site. The sage will pay 10GP for information confirming its existence.
The party ventures off in search of the site, which they find without any complications.
It appears to be sealed from the inside. The party doesn’t want to make a noise by breaking down the front door, or a trapdoor in the roof.
A cavern near the Castle is also found, and explored.
The party encounters a group of 6 Mi-Go’s. They kill one and then flee. The Mi-Go’s make a half-hearted pursuit.
The party returns to Jahar, where they let the sage know of their findings.
Treasure:
10 GP paid by the Sage.
Notes:
Provide clue about next complication.
Being worried about the game being boring was a common theme it seems. Once again some planning for the next session takes place in the comments, and I share a little bit more about what the group has learned about the world. Cole suggested I write a follow up review of Carcosa, having run the game for a few months now. That review ended up focusing a lot on how I prepared to start the game, but didn’t talk much about actually run the game.
Ramanan S (2015-03-10 17:13): Sorry for the quieter game. I owe you guys a clue for a haven complication. I’ll also update the campaign map with trade routes from Jahar.
Richard Hawkins (2015-03-10 17:21): Sorry that I missed out on this one, I will look forward to eating brains soon!
Beloch Shrike (2015-03-10 18:38): Nothing to apologize for. I got to kill a Mi-Go. Lets do more of that. =D
edchuk sockmonkey (2015-03-10 20:23): Richard Hawkins Lightly sauté them with garlic and a little lemon. Delicious!
Richard Hawkins (2015-03-10 22:45): Yes… yummy!
Richard Hawkins (2015-03-10 22:45): Beloch Shrike a CoC MI-GO! … Yikes
Ramanan S (2015-03-14 03:41): The merchants reveal the location of towns along their trade routes. To the south they visit: Glom (Ulfire Men village), Lesel (Brown Men Citadel), Brackdor (Bone Man Village), and Cron (Ulfire Man Village). They abandoned routes to the East decades ago because of the Slavers. They stopped trading to the West some time ago, though people can’t give you a straight answer as to why. What do people want to do?
Beloch Shrike (2015-03-21 16:57): I wouldn’t mind returning to those caverns and exploring further.
Eric Boyd (2015-03-21 20:03): Are there trade caravans headed anywhere interesting that need guards?
Dion Williams (2015-03-21 21:34): Either of the option mentioned work for me.
Ramanan S (2015-03-21 22:33): Eric Boyd traders will leave from Jahar heading South to the town of Cron soon. The route they take is as follows: 1 week in Glom, 1 week in Brackdor, 1 week in Cron, 1 week in Brackdor & Glom, 1 week back in Jahar. (i.e. That’s where they’ll be for the next 5 sessions.) If you wait a session another group will leave for Lesel: 1 week in Glom, 1 week in Lesel, 1 week back in Jahar. I’ll figure out how to update the map or something.
cole long (2015-03-21 22:47): Ramanan S you should do a post (or have you done one already?), having DMed several sessions, about what you find Carcosa brings to the table and what you’ve done to make it “yours?”
cole long (2015-03-21 22:50): i feel like it is one of the rorschach-blottiest settings
Ramanan S (2015-03-21 22:51): cole long Good idea. I’ve certainly had to do a bunch of flesh things out.
Ramanan S (2015-03-22 01:06): From the old thread, of note: The merchants reveal the location of towns along their trade routes. To the south they visit: Glom (Ulfire Men village), Lesel (Brown Men Citadel), Brackdor (Bone Man Village), and Cron (Ulfire Man Village). They abandoned routes to the East decades ago because of the Slavers. They stopped trading to the West some time ago, though people can’t give you a straight answer as to why.
Ramanan S (2015-03-22 01:10): Also: the merchants won’t pay you to be guards, they have their own guards, and they don’t think your acting troupe is menacing enough. They are fine with you tagging along on any trip, however.
Ramanan S (2015-03-22 17:52): Event is up. Can do upkeep and haven stuff there.
Ramanan S (2015-03-28 05:54): cole long http://save.vs.totalpartykill.ca/review/carcosa-review-reprise/
The session began with exploration and learning more about the world. This was the first time the party got lost in the wilderness, an important part of the game. My travel rules worked. The party found more caves to explore in the future, and learned of a second citadel that purportedly held a tomb of vile sorceress magic—the best kind. The party would refuse to seek it out for the remainder of the game, of course. The later half of the session was spent getting high with some stoner Carcosans. Dion joined the game this session, and was a fixture in the campaign for a long time to come, playing Ulfire Sorcerer Asha-Rea. His character used the distraction of everyone getting high off their ass to steal some Jale Lotuses to sell later. A quiet session, but they can’t all be loud.
The party is in Invak, returning after vanquishing the cultists to the North.
They elect to escort two of the bone from the the Citadel of Decline back home.
Get lost on the way there, ending up South of Invak.
Encounter Jale Slavers on the road. 17 in total and they look like bad asses.
The party books it, escaping into the wilderness. They are forced to abandon a pack animal to do so.
They spend the night in the wilderness and then head back to Invak.
Once more, the party heads North West towards the citadel.
The trip is uneventful, but on the way there hey find two caves to explore later.
The citadel is as it was before. Lots of sad sack bone men and women.
The party hears a rumour of a citadel to the south the bone men avoided when they stumbled upon this castle many years ago. This other citadel was also abandoned, but covered in sigils and markings that left everyone feeling disturbed. The scouting party who ventured within claimed to see a book of foul sorcery that so terrified them they turned and ran he moment they set their eyes upon it.
The party rests the night and heads towards Invak, stopping at cavern on the way.
It’s home to stoner brown men, who snort Jale lotus and receive visions.
The characters decide to get high with the Brown Men.
Orange Julia learns of a Sunken Temple filled with Amphibious Ones held in Stasis.
Renoir learns of a Forlorn Citadel.
Usha Ray sneaks some Jake Lotus while everyone is busy getting high.
The party returns to Invak.
The apothecary examines water from the Citadel of a Decline, and informs the party that the water is full of human filth and dead humans. He suggests they don’t drink it.
Almost a full month since our last game! The fastest way to kill a campaign is to miss games, and playing every week meant that a missed game had an oversized impact. I’m impressed the Carcosa game managed to last as long as it did, as I was a bit too quick to reschedule when I was a little busy or tired.
Reading the comments I see that at this point I still didn’t have a clear procedure for wilderness travel I was happy with. I suspect I was just using travel times from OD&D and winging it. Before the next session I would settle on Hazard Die based procedures, borrowing from how Brendan ran his games. Earlier that year (2014) Brendan wrote two seminal blog posts: Overload the encounter die and Proceduralism. I joke that I am part of the OSR that is obsessed with Adventure Time, but I’m also part of the OSR that is obsessed with procedures of play. It felt like everyone read Torchbearer, didn’t want to play it, but did want to add procedures and downtime to their games.
In this session the players decided to attack the Orange Man Citadel to the North. They were aware the citadel was an ally of their enemies the slavers, that they apparently ran gladiatorial games. Evan using his teleporting laser gun to teleport the Frog God away was great conclusion to the fight, as it meant the Frog God was now wandering the wilderness alongside the players. I added the Frog God to my encounter table. My encounter tables would slowly grow and change based on the actions of the players each session. Will the frog show up in a future session?
The players found a “strange metal collar with buttons and lights (Treasure #1)”. The players had to figure out what the magic items (or super science) they found did. I had a list of items so I wouldn’t forget. Treasure #1 was a truth collar the space aliens used for interrogation. Will the players figure out what it’s for?
I don’t recall if Nick named his character or not. He was killed this session. His previous character, Horace, was killed in the session 2, the previous game he played. The game was a bit of a meat grinder.
The rainbow connection were resting in the cavernous castle, home to the Ideal of Decline and his sad group of Bone Men. They debate heading North back to the Putrescent Pits, or South in Invak to help start some sort of alliance between the two towns.
The party suggest to the Ideal of Decline that they abandon their crazy castle and come live in Invak.
He is wary of the idea, but sends 6 of his Bone men with the party to investigate the town and report back.
In Invak the party meet with the Speaker of All Graces, and decide that it’s the red moon and they should save those slaves.
The Speaker of All Graces is always down for fucking with slavers, and provides one of his best lieutenants and 40 men to help the party.
Organina recruits another 7 Orange Men from the refugee quarter to help as well.
The party head north to the Orange Man Citadel, home to cultists famous for feeding the winners of their gladiatorial games to their spawn god.
The citadel seems strangely abandoned.
The party does some scouting, and then attempts to scale the walls.
The grappling hooks alert two Orange Men inside.
A crazy fight breaks out—I bet Zak has some rules for mass combat in Vornheim I could have used here.
The Orange Men have laser guns, but are about as good a shot as Cobra.
Things are overwhelmingly going the parties way until the interior doors to the citadel are opened, and the giant spawn god, a huge feathered frog with a beak, lets out a croak that scares most everyone in the battle.
A small number of reinforcements join the fight, but in the end they are also put down quite quickly.
Nick’s character is eaten by the terrible toad.
The Spangled Inquiry had been shooting at the frog with his teleportation ray for several rounds, finally hitting the beast when it was perhaps almost dead. The beast disappeared into the wilderness, and presumably ran off.
Searching the citadel reveals a stash of valuable gems.
The Speaker’s lieutenant gives the party the first 3 gems (100 GP, 5000 GP, 5000 GP). “The Speaker of all Graces would thank you for pushing us to finally finish these slavers off. I will do so in his stead: 100 GP a slaver to your strange troupe. The remaining treasure we split evenly. The money due to the dead will be given to our home Invak. I will keep 35 men here with me to secure the fort these slavers wasted with their idiocy. My remaining men will head south with you and he freed slaves to report to the Speaker of all Graces. Tell him to send word of what he wishes to do here.”
35 Bone Men and the lieutenant stay behind in the citadel, the party returns to Invak the next day.
Strange metal collar with buttons and lights (Treasure #1)
There are 52 people on this adventure: 368 GP each, or there about. 1100 GP for killing slavers split 4 ways is 275 GP. So each player gets 643 GP.
Monsters Defeated:
11 crazy Orange Man Cultists (and slavers)
1 Spawn of Shub-Niggurath, a huge toad
It’s funny reading all the “who will run next week” chatter. This Monday night spot was a hot commodity. You can see I didn’t have any concrete treasure rolled for the citadel, I figured things out retroactively. I was all about just in time prep, which worked until it didn’t.
Eric Boyd (2015-01-27 05:16): Player Notes: We need to write an easy-to-sing ballad about killing slavers, so our motives are clear when we show up in situations like this.
Ramanan S (2015-02-02 02:36): I still owe you guys: loot, a players map of the region, and better rules for wilderness travel!
Ramanan S (2015-02-07 20:59): Still behind on things. I asked to see if Bryan Mullins can run next weeks game as well.
Bryan Mullins (2015-02-07 21:39): Just got out of work, sorry no quick replay Ramanan S. I’ll post an invite for that game (the 9th) tonight.
Ramanan S (2015-02-10 05:24): [Ram figures out the treasure for the session, finally. There is lots.]
Bryan Mullins (2015-02-10T05:38:34.431Z): Damn, thats the one I missed!
Ramanan S (2015-02-10 05:42): They raided that orange man citadel to the north to free slaves, bolstered by a militia from Invak. My notes for that citadel were a small map and stats for the frog God, which is why I didn’t have treasure handy at the time. I wasn’t sure how to allocate it till I saw Courtney Campbell’s post about treasure types today and that seemed like the obvious thing to do.
Eric Boyd (2015-02-10 06:41): clarifying: is the party splitting 10,100 GP of gems four ways?
Ramanan S (2015-02-10 11:03): The party splits their 3 gems worth 1100 GP between the 4 of them. It’s like a bonus or finders free or something. For simplicity we can just assume the Speaker of all Graces in Invak can swap the gems for currency.
Ramanan S (2015-02-10 12:04): My current thinking is that “gold” is ancient super hardy metal coinage from some bygone era. So it all looks pristine and new, and most Carcosans don’t have the tech to mint new coins or mess with the old ones. So they are a good hard to counterfeit common currency. Thoughts?
Ramanan S (2015-02-11 04:55): Bryan Mullins Am I running stuff on the 23rd (normally when my next slot would be), or this Monday (normally your spot, but you covered for me so I don’t know if you need / want a break or not). Let me knows.
Bryan Mullins (2015-02-11 05:05): Um…lets say that I just did you a favor so you could get up to speed? Ultimately, I’d like to see Richard come into the rotation so that I can rest my Monday game more often. Sorry, side track. I’ll be ready and running for Monday the 16th, and you’ll be back on for the 23rd. Sound okay?
The party had been told rumours that there were healers to the south that could heal Gus’s character of his terrible mutations. (You may recall that was his first character’s fate in our first session of the game.) The party ignored those rumours last session, but decided to pursue them this time. Bryan’s character came out of my random generator with a tattooed map on his skin: a map to the mega-dungeon I had imagined I would run, whose name appears in Hex 1109 of Carcosa: On the northern slopes of the mounds are the yawning pits that lead down to the infamous and deadly Putrescent Pits of the Amoeboid Gods.
I would occasionally seed more rumours in the alternate future restocking tables I would create after each session, as part of my recaps. For example, in the recap for this session I wanted to let the players know that another group as aware of the Putrescent Pits of the Amoeboid Gods and would explore it even if they did not:
A caravan makes its way North. The men and women ride lumbering lizards and have several days worth of supplies. They have a map leading to the Putrescent Pits of the Amoeboid Gods.
When I would post the invites to the games on Google+ I would try and include these open threads and rumours so the players had some rough ideas for things they could do. There was no overarching “plot” for the campaign, I was curious where the players would take play. It turned out, not to the Putrescent Pits of the Amoeboid Gods, so I’m glad I only ever drafted the first level.
This session the party learned a little more about the Jale Slavers, stumbling upon some escaped slaves. I created specific encounter tables for the rough regions I had imagined the hexes could be grouped into. Because this area was home to the Jale Slavers, there were entries tied to them. The first session the players had rolled to encounter some slavers after after they had sold off their slaves. This session the rolled and encountered some escaped slaves. They wouldn’t find the slaver’s base till the tail end of the campaign.
The men on standing upon the giant plinths come from the Carcosa book. A couple sentences describe the scene, which I extrapolated from. I love the short pithy hex descriptions of Carcosa. From these men Gus learned his character could be cured by heading far to the North. I had imagined this might lead the characters out of this region, but Gus didn’t even like the character they were trying to cure, so that thread was left alone.
The party discovered The Castle of Decline, home to a group of sad-sack Bone Men. One of the first groups outside of Invak the party would end up befriending. If I recall correctly, they eventually convince the Bone Men to abandon their home and join them in Invak. (Easy enough, since their home sucked.)
The session ended with the briefest exploration of the Putrescent Pits of the Amoeboid Gods. They might have explored a handful of rooms before us having to end the session. They would never return!
The party ventures south west in search of healers for Mr. Smyth
Just before dusk they encounter some escaped slaves, orange men who have fled the slaver city.
They reveal the slaves that aren’t taken to be sold are poorly chained up outside the citadel, beaten and kept in a weakened state, and guarded by men and women who ride dinosaurs.
No one else in town is escaped from the Jale Men’s citadel, so this is a pretty remarkable situation
The party sends them on their way with food and continues south west.
They see a tall pillar reaching out toward the sky. As they get closer they can see a smaller 40’ pillar of smooth poured stone next to the matching larger one. On top of this pillar is a Jale man. The party speaks with him briefly, and he sends them East where a White Man is supposed to be.
Continuing they encounter a Black Man who they speak to briefly. They learn a little bit about his life via Brendan’s character’s ESP.
They ignore all other pillars till the teach the White man. The party pretends Mr. Smyth is a mute, for the fear his mind will be controlled by the mystic.
The mystic can’t cure Mr Smyth’s mutation, but can offer up prophetic visions via dreams.
The party sleeps for the night, and Mr Smyth learns of a dungeon to the North where his cure might be found. He sees the entrance to a dungeon, choked with dead bodies, beyond which lies a Serpent Man.
Fuck travelling to the North for a character Gus doesn’t even like. The party heads back to Invak, and plans to head North to the Putrescent Pits of the Amoeboid Gods.
Along the way they avoid a group of White Men marching away to the East, along a river to the North.
The party heads West and finds a strange citadel full of Bone Men.
The Bone Men seem to be having a shitty time: some of them have recently died due to some issue with their water supply, others from a strange cyborg to the West, and some from capture by the slavers.
The party heads to the Putrescent Pits of the Amoeboid Gods, but only explores it briefly.
They fight a Spawn of Shub-Niggurath and call it a day.
Tressure:
Spawn Guts (to be claimed for reward in Invak)
Monsters Killed:
- Spawn of Shub-Niggurath
At the time I thought the session might have been boring, but reading the recap and thinking back on everything the players managed to do, I have no idea why I thought that was the case. There is some more logistics around who will run something next. I realize now it was Bryan and I trading turns running because Brendan and Nick wanted a break. (Brendan was running his dungeon & rule set The Final Castle, which remains unpublished to this day!) Chris was a new player, who would join our games for a little while, on and off.
Ramanan S (2014-12-24 - 02:09): Sorry if that session turned out boring. My plan is to get organized over the break. I realize now that my biggest road block to being a successful DM is not a lack of rules mastery, but being really boring and/or bad at describing things. I’m having fun anyway. Hah! Brendan S You can run all my Monday games till you are busy again. So the next one (29th) is yours. (Maybe that’ll be the only one you have a chance to run again?)
Eric Boyd (2014-12-24 02:10): My character is Orange Julia — she hails from Fuudkaht.
Gus L (2014-12-24 2:12): Nah it was a great session, the stylites seemed mildly terrifying.
Ramanan S (2014-12-24 02:15): I learned a new word. They are medium tough, but there are 5 of you …. I realize that all these “tough” solo monsters are actually rarely a serious threat due overwhelming numbers on the players side. I don’t think any of the spawn for example have given you much trouble except for that plant one the sorcerer released last session.
Bryan Mullins (2014-12-24 02:42): I feel like 5 to 7 first level characters can do a lot vs pretty nasty monsters. If you account for some attrition… Also. I’m enjoying the game because the feel is that we’re all finding out what’s happening as a group. That’s a feature, not a bug … at least for me.
Brendan S (2014-12-25 22:03): For the 29th, if people are interested I would be down with running The Final Castle rules. Magic would be W&W. Probably some other dungeon though, because The Final Castle main dungeon needs more work.
Chris G (2014-12-31 05:44): When is the next session? I love the hex-key-as-session reports.
Ramanan S (2014-12-31 12:47): Thanks. This coming Monday is Brian’s game, probably. I’ll be the Monday after that. Unless Brendan is running something again. He may be less busy at the start of the term.
Ramanan S (2015-01-03 05:38): Brendan S do you want to run something again on the 12th?
Brendan S (2015-01-03 06:21): The 12th I actually have some other commitments. I might still be able to play, but it is uncertain, so I shouldn’t run that day.
My first session of Masters of Carcosa only included 2 players, Gus and Eric. I was a little worried the game wouldn’t catch on, but the next session included 6 people! This was basically the Pahvelorn crew, along with the lovely Bryan Mullins. Players would change from sessions to session. A true open table! These were all the rage in the early 2010s. The parties home base was the town of Invak, and they were expected to end sessions somewhere safe. This typically ended up being Invak, as its leader and his bounties was one of the few sources of gold in the game.
This session sees the introduction of the parties primary antagonists for the entire campaign, the Jale Slavers. There were lots of factions playing around in the background, but I was far too coy with them in hindsight. I wrote about this a long time ago, inspired by some writing from Vincent Baker: Have Them Act. I had intended to do something different than XP-for-Gold with this game, as in my mind Carcosa wasn’t a setting that fit that adventure framing. What ended up happening was I never figured out a new scheme, the leader of Invak would pay for the heads of Jale Slavers, and so the game because all about hunting the slavers and chopping of their heads. Blood Meridian, but in Carcosa. (Except the party would actually kill slavers, not any old person.) A few sessions latter the party would liberate the settlement mentioned in the note they found on the first slavers they killed. I would try and litter clues about wider world whenever I could. With a hex crawl you want to give people reasons to explore the setting.
The second half of the session saw the players exploring a little dungeon I created, looking for supplies for their towns alchemist. I made several small dungeons to litter the environment with, and I’m pretty sure I just followed to see which weird cave system they encountered.
In the session Evan’s character is shot by a ray gun and disappears. I didn’t tell him his character wasn’t vaporized till the start of the next round of combat, when he found himself on the surface, shot by a teleport gun. The sorcerer that shot him would eventually retreat to the surface as well, ending up dead at Evan’s character’s hands. I originally thought my rules for eating sorcerer brains to gain power predated Evan’s character eating some sorcerer brains, but it was the other way around. He figured a weird bone man sorcerer would eat his enemies brains for power, so I made some rules for what would happen after the fact. House rules from play: that’s the juice.
Eric’s first character was killed this session, to be replaced by the infamous Orange Julia. She would survive till the campaign ended.
The Rainbow Connection, now joined by some new friends from the town on Invak, decide to make some cash exploring the region for Desert Lotuses, which the apothecary The Falling Flower will happily buy.
2 hours out of town, to the North East, the party encounters a band of 5 over-confidant Jale Slavers while looking for Desert Lotus filled caverns.
They initially parlay, but then realizing that slavers without slaves are probably carrying currency decide to attack.
They make reasonably quick work of the slavers, with minimal injuries. They find manifest for 14 sold slaves and 700 GP in the Citadel of ???? to the North.
For their efforts they are rewarded by The Swift and Silent Beginning, the leader of Invak, with an additional 500 GP for each dead slaver and 100 GP for recovering this manifest.
The rest for the day—for no mechanical benefit, harsh Ram—and head out again in search of caverns.
Heading South West they come across a small opening that leads into a bigger cavern. It’s damp and dewy, and seems like a prime candidate for being filled with weird flowers that don’t need light to grow because they are so magical of course.
Venturing South they find an empty camp site, that seems to have been recently used.
To the West they stumble upon an obvious pit trap. Exploring the cavern below they find what they thought were flowers, but turned out to be some strange plant that would knock out those who lingered too long.
Resting in the room with the pit trap after all this exertion, some strange insectoid beasts ambled down off the ceiling.
The party retreated to the North, the creatures uninterested in pursuit.
Heading west the party finds their first Lotus, a blue flower.
Further West still they stumble upon Purple Men cultists, dragging an Orange couple.
There is some arguing, cut short by a blast from a Bazooka.
A purple man sorcerer enters the fray from a room to the West. He shoots Evan’s character with a ray, and he is teleported to the surface.
As the tide turns the sorcerer retreats into back into his room. He frees a giant plant Spawn and then shoots himself with his ray.
The purple men turn to flee. Two manage to escape.
On the surface, Evan’s character and the sorcerer grapple, but Evan’s character is victorious. He feasts on the brain of his foe.
The battle is long and hard, Horace is cut down by a Purple Man, Gux is killed by a strange plant Spawn.
The party explore the sorcerers abode, and find strange alchemical supplies and a ladder and hatch that lead to the surface.
They return back to town!
Treasure:
5 whips (how many did you guys keep?)
5 swords (ditto)
5 pieces of armour (10 x 5 = 50 GP)
700 GP from slavers
600 GP reward for killing them
Blue Lotus - 100 GP
6 White Lotus - 100 x 6 = 600 GP
Dead Spawn Guts - 100 GP
Alchemical Supplies - ???
Reptilean Armour - Looks badass, and grants 16 AC
Teleportation Ray
Unknown number of charges remain, if any.
Unclear if the ray sends someone to the same place, or some fixed distance.
Monsters Killed:
5 Jale Slavers
7 Purple Men Cultists
1 Purple Man Sorcerer
1 Spawn
I’m not sure I’ll always include the comments from the session recaps, but in this case you can see us discussing rules, world building, etc.
Ramanan S (2014-12-02 05:47 UTC): So glad to play with you all. If you have ideas for what I should be doing differently let me know. I’m still trying to figure stuff out. Let me know your characters names, or if there is anything of note I missed in the recap. I will let you guys know what’s on the map Bryan Mullins’s character started with. And I’ll give you the name of the citadel the manifest mentioned. You are all aware of the place: “A castle of Orange Men to the North run a gladiatorial arena of sorts: there are no prizes and the winners of the games are fed to the Spawn of Shub-Niggurath the Orange Men worship as a god.”
Eric Boyd (2014-12-02 05:47 UTC): My dead character was Gux, a ST17 IN7 Yellow Man. New character is Orange Julia, WI17 CO16 and Cell Adjustment. No pic yet.
Beloch Shrike (2014-12-02 06:01 UTC): My new character’s name is Alfred.
Ramanan S (2014-12-02 06:05 UTC): The apothecary will pay 200 for the alchemical supplies, though he already has everything he needs to work with these plants.
Bryan Mullins (2014-12-02 07:34 UTC): Gloss-o-lalia. or Lalia
Eric Boyd (2014-12-02 08:07 UTC): I DECLARE THAT ORANGE PEOPLE ARE OVERSIZED OOMPA LOOMPAS.
Bryan Mullins (2014-12-02 08:25 UTC): Lalia kept a whip, she likes the reach as an option. Still, she was obsessed with her battle axe this session.
Ramanan S (2014-12-02 14:37 UTC): I think a few people have whips. Anyway, they are probably a few GP each so they aren’t going to have a big effect on how much XP/GP you end up with.
Gus L (2014-12-02 17:32 UTC): I kept a obsidian sword as a backup weapon.
Gus L (2014-12-02 17:34 UTC): As a possible rules tweak have you considered weapon traits? To differentiate them? Cleave for axes, armor pen for maces etc? It doesn’t really matter, but is an idea.
Mike Davison (2014-12-02 19:52 UTC): Are you open to new players Ramanan S ?
Ramanan S (2014-12-02 19:53 UTC): Yeah, though the people we normally play with would have preference. I’m basically just filling in DM duties while Beloch Shrike and Brendan take a break. Bryan Mullins is doing the other week.
Beloch Shrike (2014-12-02 19:56 UTC): Despite the deluge of players we had last night, attendance on Monday night has been flagging for awhile. We could use a new player or two in the group.
Ramanan S (2014-12-02 19:58 UTC): Not too keen about adding too much in terms of additional rules. I don’t mind if people have weird weapons that are mechanically identical, honestly. One of the things I like about OD&D. Though, could steal rules from 5e about that. (Could also just run 5e really, but I thought it’d be good to run something turbo simple to start.)
Gus L (2014-12-02 20:28 UTC): Yeah totally get that, the question I have though is how does this interact with fumble as weapon breakage? If a broken weapon is functionally the same as a good one how does the fumble work?
Ramanan S (2014-12-02 22:07 UTC): Yes, good point. I mean, in this game Brendan’s weapon just shattered and that was that. Need to think of clearer rules. Was thinking of just stealing from Dark Sun, where some materials cost more and do less or more damage, and are less or more likely to break. Though doing things based on costs seems to scale poorly, people end up with cash quickly. So could probably have things balance against each other. (Bone is +1 to hit, but more prone to break or something.) Need to think more about money in general. Should maybe switch to XP for CP recovered, and keep costs besides room and board the same GP values. So most stuff is rare and very expensive. Not sure if that actually makes sense or would be playable.
Eric Boyd (2014-12-02 22:44 UTC): XP for copper ceramic pieces worked for Dark Sun. You do need a nice big price list with plenty of cheaper items on it.
Ramanan S (2014-12-02 22:48 UTC): Yeah, that’s what i’m thinking. I need to figure out what the rules we are playing with actually are. Then it’s go time! Hah.
Bryan Mullins (2014-12-02 22:55 UTC): I have the same feeling, for the Blackmash game…I’d never used LotFP…but it looks simple. I think by the end, I’ll be running some other system because the LotFP is going to get hacked up pretty bad.
Eric Boyd (2014-12-02 23:23 UTC): We’re all pretty adept at swapping between systems at this point; DMs, please don’t feel a need to cast the rules in stone.
Ramanan S (2014-12-02 23:25 UTC): Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I think we are all used to playing something vaguely “D&D”. It certainly makes DMing much simpler.
Gus L (2014-12-03 01:39 UTC): You could do something like the upkeep rules and carousing I’ve been using. Like basic upkeep is near free and spending more get session only bonuses (rerolls, extra HP, etc) it eats the money of the cautious.
Eric Boyd (2014-12-03 02:32 UTC): I really like Gus’ Apollyon upkeep rule. It scales nicely with level: the 15gp for +1 HP options are awesome at 1st, not so much at 3rd or 4th.
Eric Boyd (2014-12-03 02:38 UTC): [a bunch of math splitting all the gold for XP]
Brendan S (2014-12-03 03:13 UTC): By “stumble upon” I think you mean cleverly find.
Brendan S (2014-12-03 03:15 UTC): For a rainbow connection there’s a lot of yellow going on. I think we need to buy recruit some followers to up our diversity before we are found out as frauds.
Brendan S (2014-12-03 03:18 UTC): I think dCarcosa would overwhelm any mundane weapon differentiation so why bother? Also we will soon all have space alien ray guns. Right?
Brendan S (2014-12-03 03:20 UTC): Thanks for the XP summary Eric Boyd (also: note to self, XP incorporated).
Eric Boyd (2014-12-03 03:50 UTC): Count’s Dolm, Bone, 2x Yellow, 2x Orange after battle casualties. Also I’ve got Telsa the Yellow Woman and Bolgo the Black Man from the funnel still, and Gus has one more surviving funnel dude I think.
Gus L (2014-12-03 04:30 UTC): Yeah Mr. Smyth, the greedy radiation poxed white man in carved wooden demon armor.
Evan Webber (2014-12-09 04:12 UTC): My bone man sorcerer is named The Spangled Inquiry, and I’m wearing that snake armour now, and I didn’t tell anyone about the ray gun though I assume someone would have noticed. And I consumed the brain of the Purple sorcerer and I’m assuming that yields great benefits but you can let me know, Ramanan.
Evan Webber (2014-12-09 04:15 UTC): But since I’m travelling and need to miss the next session someone can borrow the ray gun.
Ramanan S (2014-12-09 04:16 UTC): The teleportation ray? Yeah, i’d assumed people would know it was on the guys person when he died. I’ll think about the benefits of eating sorcerer brains.
When I was running my Carcosa campaign, I would post session recaps on my blog in the form of hex descriptions written as if they came straight from the book. Each session had additional descriptions for each hex the characters explored, and I also included a random ‘restocking’ table. Three of the entries in the table would present alternative endings to the session the players just played, with the forth being the true ending. This was all very cute, but I also kept traditional notes of what happened so myself and the players could refer back to them later. These were posted to G+, where you can still read them today.
Oh wait.
I’ve been meaning to repost these session reports for a while. Nick downloaded my Carcosa community before G+ imploded, and the export has been sitting on my computer for ages as XML & JSON I never had the time to turn into Markdown. But now computers can do a so-so job programming for you, so I have text that’s pretty close to cleaned up Markdown. I’ll take it.
This is the first session of my Carcosa crossed with He-Man campaign. I ran it for a little over a year, playing every other week, give or take. The rules were OD&D, and we all were figuring out how to run a hex crawl as we went. It was a lot of fun. Perhaps the most fun I’ve had running a game?
This was my first time DM’ing since I was a teenager. I was certainly nervous. Brendan took a break from running Pahvelorn, and I took over the spot every other week. (I think Nick might have been running the other week.) Pahvelorn was certainly a hard act to follow. Brendan’s megadungeon campaign was incredible, and really inspired how I ran this campaign.
Carcosa is a hex crawl, and my expectation was players would wander the wilderness session to session. This happened for the most part, but party didn’t stray too far from their home base. The party were called the Rainbow Connection, a travelling acting troupe. (This was rolled up using my crowdsourced “why are we together” table.) During the first session the players explored a dungeon I created, an abandoned space alien outpost. They released one of the main antagonists of the game, a Bone-Man sorcerer. He would get more and more powerful while they were distracted by the faction they would come to hate the most, the dirtbag Jale Slavers.
The Rainbow Connection, a travelling acting troupe, were attacked and captured by a strange spherical robot while travelling through the wastes of Carcosa. They awake outside an alien outpost surrounded by bodies in various states of decay and mutation. Behind them lays a mysterious alien outpost, in front of them more nondescript wastes.
They feel woozy and lethargic. Searching the area they find random knickknacks, but also quickly realize everyone now dead is horribly mutated in some way.
Lacking proper supplies for an aimless overland trip they venture into the outpost.
Opening some large garage doors the party comes face to face with their captor. The robot rests in what looks like a bay of some sort, ignoring them. They back away and leave the robot alone. The second door into the base takes them into a small room.
The base is quiet, and seemingly empty.
There is still something powering it: the hallways are lit, and random computer screens flash strange inscrutable messages.
Venturing further into the base the party finds a large open work area that looks to be unused.
The party quietly explore. A room that looks to be another entry way to the complex contains nice warm furs for everyone to wear, but is otherwise bare.
The next door the group opens reveals a room full of rock specimens: some look to be quiet valuable. They are all stored behind glass, that feels a bit warm to the touch. The greedy Mr. Smith opens up the glass to get a closer look, and suffers a terrible mutation for his trouble: he now stinks thanks to some newly grown boils on his body.
The next room the party discovers is filled with crates, but also a strange Spawn—a blue hexapod with a gaping circular maw. They make quick work of it, and end up with a Bazooka of some sorts for their efforts.
The party avoided one Jale Slime and killed another with fire.
The party released a seemingly mad Bone Man into the wild. He was apparently imprisoned by the other Bone Men, though the party does not know why. He looked to have been left to die: he smelled terrible and was starving when discovered.
The Green Man Greenox was killed trying to grab a weapon from the weapons cache. The room filled with poison gas. Mr. Smith quick closed the door to the room, so the rest of the party was safe.
The alarm that was triggered startled the Bone Men that lived in the basement of this outpost.
the Illustrious Prince of the Bone is the leader of the Bone Men, who decided to spare the party if they put on a show.
The party promised to never reveal the location of the outpost, or ever return.
the Queen of Autumn leads the party from the outpost towards Invak.
a merchant caravan takes party the rest of the way, grudgingly. The party gives them a wide berth, and follows at a distance.
They arrive in the town on Invak late at night.
Treasure:
6 large furs: they are very warm (you can sell each for 15 GP to the traders currently in town).
Bazooka: you don’t know how many charges it has, or what it does, but its clear it still works.
I recently attended a Horus Heresy tournament organized by local gaming group Hogtown 40K. This was a full day of gaming, the most warhammer I have played in quite some time. (My last epic adventure in Warhammer was playing a never ending game of 40K in Lexington, with my friend’s husband before their wedding.) I have been painting my Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness boxed set in slow motion since it was released, so playing in this tournament felt like a nice conclusion to that hobby project.
For those unfamiliar, the Horus Heresy is the galactic civil war that sets up many of the important elements of the 40K setting as we know it: a probably dead emperor of mankind on a golden throne, chaos space marines, demons, etc. The Horus Heresy takes place 10,000 years before the time period of 40K. The game Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness is essentially Games Workshops’ take on Napoleonics. There is an emphasis on treating the game like any other historical, except the history of this game is 100% made up. People will paint armies appropriate for particular time periods of the war. They will make sure their colour schemes are consistent and correct.1 Compared to larger Warhammer 40,000 scene, there is a greater emphasis on the narrative side of the game.
Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness feels like a modern take on retro rulesets. If you played Warhammer 40K prior to its 8th edition, Horus Heresy will feel familiar. You’ll see universal special rules, vehicle facing, blast templates, etc. There are lots of niche rules, which makes for a very flavourful game, but also one that is a bit tricky to keep entirely in your head. You will need at least two (giant) rulebooks to play, with rules for your units spread between both. The game would have felt impossible to play if I didn’t create my army list on New Recruit, which collects all the rules for your units together in one place.
Most of Games Workshop’s games share a lot of DNA, and this game is no exception. You use d6s throughout. You roll to hit, then to wound, then make armour saves. Like all GW games, you often roll a fuck-ton of dice to accomplish very little. There are lots of small differences between Horus Heresy and modern 40K. Armour Piercing isn’t a modifier, you either ignore armour saves or you don’t. When a unit loses a combat, there is a chance they will rout and just be cut down by the opposing side. Similarly a unit that is routing can be killed outright by any unit that manages to charge into it. These changes will lead to faster game play: you just lift models. Some changes slow the game down, but make for fun situations. Melee combat happens in initiative order, like Mordheim: you might be able to kill a few dudes carrying massive thunder hammers before they 100% blow you up. Like most Games Workshop games, Horus Heresy’s turn structure is “I go, you go”. They have introduced a pool of reactions you can make during each phase of the opposing players turn, making the games feel a bit more dynamic, and ensuring both players are engaged throughout each turn. You might shoot back when shot, fire overwatch when being charged, etc. The number of reactions you can make is small and intuitive. It’s a nice addition to the game.
The format for the tournament was cute: each player made a list of 1250 points, a little under half of what is recommended for a full game of Horus Heresy (3000 points); players were paired up and played as a team against their opponents. I was encouraged to sign up for the tournament, even though I had never played a game of Horus Heresy before, because the format of the tournament lends itself to teaching and learning the game. My first partner was someone with a lot of experience playing the game.2 That ended up being the case in subsequent games as well.3 Games that would have been a slog to get through if I was playing alone flew by with ease.
I honestly had no good reason to pick up the Age of Darkness boxed set, but i’m glad I did. Getting into Heresy has been a fun hobby project these last months and years. Getting ready for this tournament, painting my last few minies, was particularly fun. I always find it motivating painting for an event or game, trying to get a unit done under the wire. Up next is getting my Sons of Horus army up to 3000 points.
One thing Games Workshop does well is make sure the lore of their setting allows for maximal creativity when it comes to the hobby of building and painting miniatures. In Horus Heresy, if your Ultramarines are a platoon that turned to Chaos and have black helmets because you like black, that would work. There is space in the setting for this sort of deviation. The scene around the Horus Heresy seems to value people taking the time to think through what they are making, and putting care into their hobby activities. ↩︎
Chris recently shared a draft of a war game set in Bastionland. It’s a simple war game, where he looks to be experimenting with squads of random starting strength and the sort of grotty mood of Turnip28. I thought some of the ideas he was trying out looked interesting, and decided to give the game a go.
I have Warhammer 40,000 miniatures, so I’m going to play a Warhammer 40,000 game.
Necrons awaken to find their tomb ship amalgamated into a Space Hulk, now adrift in the warp. The Sons of Horus have been fighting aboard this ship for weeks, months, years and millennia, all at the same time. The two groups are jockeying for control of a safe haven within the hulk.
I set up a spaceship board with a room in the centre. I had objectives in each corner and one in the middle. The game would end when one side controlled the central objective and two other objectives for two turns in a row, or one side was wiped out.
I needed a few additional house rules for this scenario to work:
Opening or closing a hatch door costs one Order Dice. If the OV of the Order Dice is 4+ you can also move 3" before or after opening or closing the hatch.
Claiming an objective costs one Order Dice. Objectives remain under a warband’s controls until claimed by the other warband.
Here are some highlights from the game:
On the first turn I rolled that no additional Terminators would fill up the 2-man Terminator squad, while one of the Tactical Marines squad had all its units arrive as reinforcements.
On the Necrons turn I rolled a 1 again for reinforcements: the Overlord would be alone the entire game.
On one side of the board a Sergeant and his Tactical Marines were in a firefight with a Royal Warden and their Necron Warriors. The game is quite deadly: if someone shoots at you it’s hard to avoid losing a unit. With reaction dice letting you fire overwatch as a unit moves out to shoot at you, there was a lot of picking off each sides squads. In the end, over a couple turns, the marines came out on top.
In the middle of the board, the Prateor and Terminator were up against a Necron Overlord. The Overlord used a reaction dice to take out the Terminator moving up to try and engage him. The Royal Warden moved up and opened a hatch, shooting and killing the Praetor. He was then killed by the Tactical Squad.
The marines had the central objective and the two on their side of the board. There was on another squad of Necrons, untouched this battle, but they couldn’t get into the fray fast enough. The Space Marines won the game.
The active player has 4 order dice they can spend to perform actions with a squad, the other player gets 2 they can use to react to the active players moves. I would usually focus most of my orders on a single unit, as you can’t move that far if you’re only moving d6 inches. You also need to manage the negative status effects you collect as you move and shoot, which also takes an order. In practice the game felt like it was using alternating activations. The pace and flow of the game is quick. The action moves between the players at a real clip.
It’s very easy to kill units: perhaps too easy. I probably need a board with more cover. Though, perhaps all the death better simulates the closer quarter combat of my Kill Team Space Hulk board.
This is a very early draft of the game. I am curious where it will end up. I’m not even sure Chris will pick this game up again any time soon, he has so many other games on the go. Till then, we have a fun skeleton of a game to play.
Evan and I managed to get together again after quite some time to continue playing some Warhammer. In a change of pace, he designed the narrative mission we would play ahead of time. In the past, I’ve tried to inject a narrative on top of the Open War missions we would randomly generate and play. What he came up with was a lot of fun, and also a lot more narratively interesting.
He tweaked the rules for the Ambush mission described in the core rulebook, adding a lot of narrative flare. Briefly, the Scribeguard (Imperial Guard) had spoke a great heresy against the Emperor of Mankind, and would now have to face the agents of his wrath. The Anti-Heretic Shield Company His Light From Holy Terra (Adeptus Custodes) and the newly awoken Primaris Space Marine Chapter the Blood Marmots were sent to ambush these blasphemers and make sure none would live to speak again. Evan would win outright if he could get half his infantry off the board, and it would be a draw if even one of these blasphemous units managed to escape. The Custodes would win if they could kill all the Scribeguard infantry outright.
My cousin was in charge of playing the Space Marines, so Evan added a twist to the whole battle. Every time the Space Marines fought the infantry of the Scribeguard, they ran the risk of being turned to their side. As Evan descirbed it, “Every time any Blood Marmot unit participates in a fight phase with a Scribeguard unit, roll a dice for each Blood Marmot unit at the end of the phase to test the the Marines’ loyalty. On 5+ their Blood Marmots hear all the proof they need that the Emperor is perhaps actually maybe dead and they turn against the Custodes.”
Evan’s Army had grown since we last played. He now had two tanks and a whack of newly painted and kitbashed models. My army was as follows:
Shield Captain
Vesilus Praetor
4-Man Custodian Guard Squad
Captain in Gravis Armour
Primaris Ancient
5-Man Intercessor Squad
5-Man Hellblaster Squad
Captain Styx of the Blood Marmots gave the order that began the attack. Missiles pummelled the ground from an orbital strike. The sounds of bolter fire filled the air. The Hellblaster squad to his right let loose arcs of molten plasma from their weapons. The tank they hit answered back, obliterating the unit.
After the first round Jana and I were worried this game was going to be a cake walk for Evan. His tanks made quick work of what we had hoped would be our tank-killing unit, the Hellblasters. Evan’s infantry were quick footed and began their sprint towards the end of the board. We were lucky that the orbital strike Jana called in hit both of Evan’s commanders (though no one else!) which meant he couldn’t give any orders to his units that first turn. My Custodian Guards were a bit out of the way initially, as I wanted them out of the view of the tank. I probably could have been more aggressive with their placement.
The Custodian Guard surged forward, tearing through some helpless Scribeguard infantry on their way to the tank that had moments earlier killed their comrades. Their power weapons quickly turned the weapon to scraps. Their rage would not be satiated till all these traitorous heretics lay dead.
Then it felt like things were flipping. My custodian guard charged forward and managed to kill the infantry Evan had sent forward to block their path. They consolidated towards the tank, and were able to kill it the following round. This continued from round to round. They removed a lot of models from the board. The Captain in Gravis armour also made his way towards the infantry and started cutting them up with his power sword. Evan’s army was crumbling, but he still managed to get a couple models past us: a single infantry, and a commander.
Evan also had one more tank, which managed to kill off two of my Custodian Guard. His Augmented Ogryn Bodyguard killed the last one. And just like that things and turned once more. Jana and I really needed that unit alive to shoot the two models that were fleeing. At the back of the board we still had a lot of heavy hitters: Jana’s Captain in Gravis Armour, my Shield Captain, and my Vesilus Praetor. (These 3 units were a little over half the points of Evan’s entire army!) Unfortunately, those units were all either out of range or didn’t have line of sight to the models fleeing.
The last round was full of funny dice rolls. Jana need a 3 to make a charge and failed by rolling snake eyes. Evan’s sole model in one of his units killed himself while shooting overwatch as part of that very charge. Evan almost lost his unit closest to the board because he rolled a 6 when making a morale check. (He used a command point to re-roll, his last one) This same unit then failed to flee because Evan only rolled a 1 when rolling to advance. He ended up getting a draw by having his commander command himself to “move! move! move!”—this let him take two move actions, and allowed him to clear the board.
This was a really fun game of Warhammer. Perhaps the most fun I’ve had since we’ve started playing.
For these walking demigods failure was an impossibility. Shield Captain Casius reflected on this briefly as he watched a commander of the Scribeguard scurry away. If failure was impossible than this must be the will of their long silent master: he wanted them to burn this heretical house to the ground.
My wife’s friend Devlin has been collecting and painting Warhammer miniatures for ages. So naturally we had to meet up to play a game. I let him know I could field just shy of a 1000 points of Death Guard (by using everything I own), and he made two possible armies to face me out of the models in his collection: one of Imperial Guards, one of Blood Angels. Evan let me know he could meet up as well, bringing as many Imperial Guard units as he had kit-bashed and painted thus far. This worked out neatly: Devlin wanted to play using his Blood Angels, so Evan could pad out his army with the extra units Devlin brought with him to The Sword and Board.
The last game Evan and I played had about 1000 points of units on the table. With this game we were each fielding 1000 point armies, so we had 3000 points of units in play. It was such a huge jump from what we had been doing thus far.
My army consisted of all my Death Guard units:
Causarius, Lord of Contagion (Warlord with the Living Plague Warlord Trait)
Putidus, Malignant Plaguecaster
The Noxious Blightbringer
The Tallyman
5x Blightlord Terminators
7x Plague Marines
20x Pox Walkers
Foetid Bloat-Drone
This was a full battalion, so I got 3 extra command points—which I mostly forgot to use while playing.
We were a bit confused about how a 3 player game would work. The rulebook doesn’t have much to say about how to set up a game with an odd number of players. We decided we would roll the dice each round (after the first) to decide the turn order. Otherwise we left the game more or less as-is. I picked what I thought would be a fun objective: there is one marker; units can pick the marker up and carry it around the board; they drop the marker if they are destroyed, the winner is the person whose unit is holding the marker at the end of the game. I thought this would encourage a free for all where we would end up attacking each other as we fought over the objective. (It didn’t quite work out that way.)
Devlin went first, fanning his troops out towards Evan and I. Devlin Death Company moved towards me and shot up my Malignant Plaguecaster, who managed to survive through some good luck for me and bad luck for Devlin. He moved a big Redemptor towards Evan’s troops and also rolled surprisingly bad, killing a handful of units. A unit of his Death Company dropped into the battlefield as close as they could get to the objective, which was set up on top of a floating island. The island wasn’t big enough for another unit to do the same thing, so he took control of the objective (more or less) to start.
I started moving my Death Guard towards the warp gate that would take them up to the objective—the trip would take my slow moving troops several rounds. I pulled one group of pox walkers away from the mass, sending them towards Devlin’s approaching Death Company and my Plaguecaster. With no other pyskers on the board my Plaguecaster could use his abilities without being contested. I made quick work of a few of Devilin’s space marines this way.
Evan began his turn by teaching us the true power of tanks. The punisher canon on one of the Lemun Russ’s decimated a Death Company unit advancing towards him. A posse of guard with anti-tank guns then proceeded to make short work of the Redemptor, leaving it heavily damaged with two wounds.
Devlin was worried he’d be tabled before he got to deep strike more units onto the board, but luckily rolled high and got to go first when we began our second round. (It probably took us over an hour to get to this point!) He deployed his remaining units onto the board—a Sanguinary Guard and The Sanguinor—behind my line of Death Guard. No one wanted to fuss with the tanks. He killed my Plaguecaster (damn it!), most of the unit of Pox Walkers who were nearby, and a few Plague Marines, but I still felt like I was in good shape over all.
On my turn I teleported in my Blightord Terminators and started my retaliation, wearing Devlin down more. I forgot that I also had a Lord of Contagion—the warlord of my army!—that I could have also teleported in at this time. I moved it closer to the table so that I wouldn’t forget it next time, and then promptly forgot about it again.
Evan advanced his troops and took out more of Devlin’s army with his tanks and heavily armed guardsmen. My Bloatdrone took another barrage of fire and was reduced to 4 wounds. Evan also managed to drop a unit near the objective as Devlin had lost the troops that were up there to my army.
We started our third round and tried to race through it quickly to see where things would go: Evan needed to run. By this point we’d been playing for at least 3 hours!
My terminators moved up on to the floating island and killed Evan’s guard, putting them closest to the objective. Devlin’s remaining units were tied up fighting the remainder of my army, and it would be impossible for them to make it up to the objective even if they could miraculously kill everything in their path. Evan’s army was still quite healthy, but he was also too far from the objective now that he had no more troops he could grav-chute in. So like the last game, I won more or less by default.
In hindsight we might have wanted to do turn sequence differently, perhaps some scheme where we alternated activating individual units. A three way game is quite odd: Evan described it like playing a game while also watching a game. The gaps between your turns can be quite long. I’m hoping we can all get together again.
Evan managed to kit bash another weird mini before we met to play a couple weekends ago. His army was now power level 25 (500ish points), which meant I had many more options in what I could bring to the table. It’s like we’re playing some sort of escalation league, but the escalation is based solely on whether Evan is in the city or not and has a cool idea for a mini he wants to build out of the garbage he buys at the Sword and Board.
I had 3 different ideas for armies I could run, but ended up settling on an army very similar to the original list I used when we played our first game of Warhammer 40K:
Causarius, Lord of Contagion
Noxious Blightbringer
7 Plague Marines, including a Plague Champion
10 Poxwalkers
Evan’s army consisted of the following units:
Two Kastelan Robots and a Cybernetica Datasmith.
4 Crusaders
Some number of Imperial Guard
A commander that had this crazy sword
Probably some other units I’ve forgotten
Once again we used the Open War cards to set up our game. This time our objective was to kill as many units as possible, scoring points for the power level of the unit killed. (You got twice as many points for characters, vehicles, and monsters) The game’s twist was that all units could move an extra 2”, and advance an extra 1”. This was a huge boost for my incredibly slow Death Guard. Because Evan’s army was slightly more powerful than mine I also got to draw a ruse. (The one I drew let me redeploy one of my units anywhere on the board, so long as I was 9” away from any enemy unit.) I don’t think I could have asked for a better set up.1
The Plague Marines emerged from the warp and found themselves floating on an island of rock. The warp had left this land twisted. Below them stood the Navigator Endogaurd, but no sign of the robot they had been sent to retrieve. They opened fire all the same.
I decided to go first—having fewer units than Evan meant I got to make the choice. I began the game moving my Pox Walkers, and the Noxious Blightbringer travelling with them, up and around a large floating island in the middle of game board. I teleported my Lord of Contagion in behind Evan’s Crusaders, hoping he’d be able to charge them, and deployed my Plague Marines using the Outflank ruse mentioned previously on top of the floating Island in the middle of the table. This meant they could start firing right away. They managed to take out a few of Evan’s guard doing so. My Lord of Contagion failed to charge, and that was my turn.
Evan decided sticking around on the ground waiting for my Pox Walkers and Lord of Contagion to show up was a bad idea, so his crusaders and guardsmen made a bee line for the warp gate that led to the level my Plague Marines were on. His command squad shot up at my marines, killing one.
Causarius shook back into existence, the teleportatium sending him into the heart of the fight. He was covered in the gore of the Navigator Endoguard’s command squad when the Kastelan robots opened fire.
My Lord of Contagion advanced towards command squad Evan had left behind and then charged: they didn’t survive my turn. The Plague Marines were unable to kill any of the Crusaders with their guns, though did a little bit better in melee.
Evan’s Robot’s were now in murder mode and proceeded to decimate my Lord of Contagion. This put Evan up 14 points, as my Lord of Contagion is my most expensive model at 7 points, and scored him double as it’s a character. His Crusaders resurrected a model using their Act of Faith ability and proceeded to kill another one of my marines.
The Pox Walkers poured through the warp gate and fell upon the guardsmen. The vox caster carried the screams of the endoguard hundreds of miles away to the emotionless man who keyed in the coordinates for the orbital strike.
It was just my Pox Walkers and Blightbringer on the ground along with Evan’s murder robots. I could see how that story would end, and had that mob also run through the warp gate. We ended up with a big mess of minis on the floating Island, everyone ending up in a giant melee. My Pox Walkers net their first kills (ever), taking out 2 of Evan’s Guardsmen.
Evan’s Guardsmen all “affixed their bayonets,” which let them make melee attacks during their shooting phase, as well as during the actual fight phase. The units struggled to harm my marines, however. During the morale phase they would all run away. Evan used this opportunity and some command points to call down an orbital strike, a new stratagem from the new Imperial Guard Codex. All the units within 6” of the downed unit would have to make a save or take some mortal wounds: this included my Noxious Blightbringer, my Plague Marines, and my Pox Walkers, but also his Crusaders. By luck my units all survived, while his Crusaders were wiped out.
The commander became the vessel through which the Plague Marines poured forth their hatred for the False Emperor. His faith would not save him. It would not save any of them.
On my turn my remaining units managed to kill the commander, the last of Evan’s units on the floating island. Our armies were now split between the ground and this island. At this point I was now in the lead when it came to points, and Evan’s Robots wouldn’t be able to make it to me before the game ended. At this point we called the game: victory for the Death Guard!
My cousin Jana arrived just as the game got underway, and would help us look up rules and remind us of when we were probably making mistakes—despite never having played before. We’ll need to figure out how to get him involved in a 3-player game. ↩︎
The Sword and Board was busy with people playing Warhammer. Almost all their gaming tables were being used. We snagged an industrial desert themed one and started moving terrain around. We played in a 4’ x 4’ space as our unit count is still quite low. While we were setting up two more players arrived and borrowed some of our excess terrain to play a Shadow War: Armageddon game. Warhammer seems to be quiet popular since the new edition dropped. (It may always have been and I just wasn’t paying attention.)
Since we last met Evan had built and painted a cool robot to add to his Navigator Endoguard. Since most of the parts for the minis came from the Adeptus Mechanicus he decided to field them as units from that army. His armies power level was now 15, so I could field an additional Death Guard unit this game.
My army:
Noxious Blightbringer
5 Plague Marines, including a Plague Champion
10 Poxwalkers
Evan’s army:
A robot
Who even knows what else?
We bought the Open War pack of cards, which is designed to randomly generate Open War missions. It’s probably more than anyone should spend on a pack of cards, but it was very convenient and generated a cool game to play. The mission we drew had us set up on opposite ends of the table, with 2’ between us. Our objective would join the battle on the 3rd turn, it’s location on the board determined by a die roll. (We used a cool robot Evan had built as the objective.) You also draw a twist with this card set. (The Open War mission in the book doesn’t feature anything like this.) We drew ‘restoratives’, which let us return d3 wounds to one of our units each round. Finally, because my army was underpowered compared to Evan’s I got to draw a secret ‘ruse’. I drew ‘Ambush’, which let me redeploy 3 units in my army anywhere on the board so long as they were 12" from any enemy unit and outside the enemy deployment zone. This let me advance my troops a whole foot up before the game began: this was really a huge boon for my slow moving army. With that we were ready to get started.
The Angarius Machina hurtled through deep space: its message was not safe for the warp. As its destination finally drew near it reflected on all the years it had passed in the silence of space. Why was it programmed to think at all? It only had one purpose, after all.
On the planet below the Plague Marines ambush was in full swing. Their presence a cruel coincidence.
Evan focused all his fire on my plague marines to start off the game. Between all his units I lost 3 of my marines.
On my turn my Poxwalkers and Noxious Blightbringer moved up and then advanced a further 6”. The Poxwalkers are a pure melee unit, so they lost nothing by advancing. The Blightbringer only had a pistol, so it needed to get closer before it could start shooting. My marines moved up and shot at Evan’s robot, accomplishing nothing.
They had been harrying the men of this planet for weeks. This ambush had been carefully orchestrated, yet they were the ones suffering all the casualties? These men had been emboldened by their victories over the Vectorium: they had the audacity to charge the Death Guard.
Evan begins by shooting my Poxwalkers with one of his units, killing 3 of them. His Rangers were within the range for their rapid fire weapons to shoot twice when attacking. They also attacked the Poxwalkers, killing all but one. My marines take another wound from his remaining units, which I assign to my Plague Champion. His units then charge my remaining Poxwalker and the Noxious Blightbringer. The last walker dies during the melee, my
Noxious Blightbringer survives unscathed. (At this point I forget that my Noxious Blightbringer can now fight as well: Evan remembers when I’m fighting on my turn and lets make the rolls for the phantom fight then.)
My marines shoot the units that are sitting on some dunes away from the melee, killing one of them. They then join the Noxious Blightbringer in melee. Between them and the Blightbringer they manage to kill 3 more of models.
The warmth of the atmosphere pressed against its cold exoskeleton. The ground came upon it quickly. The silence of space replaced by the tolling of the Toscin of Misery and the screams of war.
On the third round the objective crashed into the battlefield—and lands right on top of the dunes Evan’s troops were camped on. We were all scrunched up on that corner of the board, so it was a funny bit of luck that that’s where it ended up.
Evan’s troops in melee fall back. At this point the last of my plague marines die from a mix of gun fire and flame throwers—if I recall correctly. My notes from this point on are terse or missing.
Now out of combat, my Noxious Blightbringer moves up and lobs a grenade at Evan’s troops on the dune. (To little effect, but at least I remembered my dudes had grenades this time!) I then had the unit charge up the dune and attack the troops that were stationed there.
The Blightbringer watched as the men fled from his presence. The automata that fell from the sky cowered before him. Somehow he knew it was important, but the bloodlust called him elsewhere.
Evan’s troops that were on the Dune fall back from my Noxious Blightbringer, while his other troops move up and shoot. Lucky for me they can’t score a wound. His robot is more successful, but thankfully the Noxious Blightbringer has several wounds to burn through.
On my turn I lob a blight grenade at the troops that fell back, killing 2 of the models. I then charge the robot located at the bottom of the dune. (I wanted to tie up the robot and the tech-priest-commander-thing that controlled it.) Nothing of note comes from the combat, however.
The Angarius Machina watched as these machines and men fought back the Death Guard. Truly they were worthy of its revelation.
Once again it’s too late for me to win. Evan had more units left and would be able to claim the objective. At the end of his turn he couldn’t kill my Blightbringer, which I will call a minor victory for myself.
Our previous game was over quickly, so we started another game. We kept things much the same, simply rotating the playing field 90 degrees while leaving the terrain alone. Evan fielded the same army, while I swapped out my Blightbringer for a unit of Pox Walkers.
Me:
5 Plague Marines, one of whom was a Plague Champion
10 Pox Walkers
Evan:
Knight-Adjutant—power maul, command shield
4 Knight Adjutant Command Paladins–3 plasma guns and one medipack and pistol
5 Navigator Houseguard–one with hotshot lasgun, two with volleyguns, one with vox-caster and pistol, squire with chainsword and plasma pistol
5 Navigator Houseguard–one with hotshot lasgun, two with meltaguns, one with vox-caster and pistol, squire with chainsword and hotshot laspistol
I had my Pox Walkers lined up just out of range of Evan’s troop’s weapons—by accident. My marines were set up on a building in cover. Evan’s troops were set up in a similar building across from me, with one unit held in reserve once again.
The marines eyed the Navigator Endosquad hunkered down in some ruins ahead. The men had fallen back upon the arrival of the Sons of Nurgle, but clearly the objective was of some value: they weren’t quite ready to just give it up.
Evan began his turn by grav-chuting some of his Navigator Houseguard behind my line. Thankfully their weapons failed to hurt my Plague Marines. (Disgustingly Resilient has saved them so many times.)
My (incredibly slow moving) Pox Walkers advanced, while the Plague Marines behind them stood their ground and returned fire, wounding two of Evan’s troops and causing a third to flee. As starts go I was off to a good one?
The Pox Walkers continued their march, as incautious as they were hungry. There was a frenzy when they saw the men, there steps quickening, but the Navigator Housegaurd held their ground and held them back with a rain of laser fire.
Evan moved his troops up to bring more of his weapons into range, firing on both my Pox Walkers and Plague Marines. I lost one walker and assigned one wound to my Plague Champion, but survived the round largely in good shape.
On my turn I moved my pox walkers once more, and then attempted a charge with them. Lucky for Evan they failed, just an inch short of reaching his men. (Thinking about this now, I wonder if they were in range: you need to be within an inch to fight, not touching bases.) I lost another Pox Walker to overwatch fire. My Plague Marines focused their fire behind them again, but failed to kill the remaining models in the unit.
The Champion watched as the Pox Walkers were felled by the men and their guns. He eyed the chest, the prize he had sent the Pox Walkers to capture, but the sounds of the melta-guns behind him claimed his attention.
The Navigator Endoguard to the rear of my Plague Marines continued to take pot shots with their big melta-guns, but were unable to land any hits. My Pox Walkers weren’t so lucky: the rest of the unit (8 models) fell victim to laser gun fire. They never got to fight! They got in the way, I suppose.
My Plague Marines again focused their fire behind them, which in hindsight was a waste of my time. With only 5 round in this game I should have started advancing on the objective. This unit moves so slowly I should have been on the move as soon as I lost my Pox Walkers.
The loss of two of their brethren stirred the Death Guard to move. This was their true purpose, the unrelenting march.
Evan focused all his fire on my remaining Plague Marines, killing two. He had nothing else to shoot at, after all. My Plague Marines finally start to move on the objective—no time to waste! I think it was likely impossible to move all the way up to the objective without some lucky rolls.
I can’t really remember how the last round went. We were in a bit of a rush to wrap up, as Evan needed to run. I have a note that he killed another one of my marines. And I know my Plague Champion didn’t destroy his entire posse of infantry, since I lost the game.
Perhaps next time the Death Guard will find their groove soon!
There is nothing they can do but watch as the Endogaurd flee with the chest. Had the psykers who sent them here known how their story would unfold?
The soldiers they could see poking their heads over the ruins in the distance were of as little consequence to the Death Guard as the objective they had been sent to secure. Still, they marched forward, their sense of purpose unwavering.
Evan and I met once again to play some Warhammer 40,000. Since our last game he did in fact end up selling his Tau army, replacing it with his newly built “Navigator Endoguard”—a heavily kit bashed squad of Astra Militarum. The minis looked great, though he lamented no one would notice just how painstakingly put together his new models were.
He fielded the following army, which (I think) are simply different Imperial Guard units (despite the flavourful names):
Knight-Adjutant—power maul, command shield
4 Knight Adjutant Command Paladins–3 plasma guns and one medipack and pistol
5 Navigator Houseguard–one with hotshot lasgun, two with volleyguns, one with vox-caster and pistol, squire with chainsword and plasma pistol
5 Navigator Houseguard–one with hotshot lasgun, two with meltaguns, one with vox-caster and pistol, squire with chainsword and hotshot laspistol
I returned with my fairly pedestrian Death Guard. I still need pick a name for their vectorium. More important, I need to figure out how best to play them. I ended up fielding two units, because I wanted to match the power level of Evan’s Army (11).
Noxious Blightbringer
5 Plague Marines, one of whom was a Plague Champion (and the true champion of my army).
We set up a 4’x4’ battlefield filled with ruined buildings and walls arranged sort of like a town square. In the middle was a raised platform where we placed a treasure chest, the single objective we would fight over. We were fielding armies more suited for a skirmish game than 40K. Trying to chase and control more than one objective didn’t feel like it would work with our smaller armies.
The marines watched as the troops descended from the sky, their grav-chutes kicking in with a low hum. They quickly set up shop in an abandoned building to the Death Guard’s right and opened up fire.
The battle began with my plague marines marching toward’s Evan’s troops. My first round of shooting was completely ineffectual.
Evan deployed one of his reserve units using their grav-chutes, flanking my Plague Marines. A take aim order was issued, ultimately resulting in my marines taking 2 wounds they promptly shrugged off using their disgusting resilience power. This success was short lived: a second set of Evan’s Endoguard shot the marines, resulting in the loss of two of my Plague Marines in the first round. (And I really didn’t have that many models to lose.)
They could see the objective to their right, but the soldiers cowering in the ruins straight ahead were a far more captivating sight. The marines would have been on top of them if not for the gunfire pinning them down.
My Plague Marines advanced, but then failed to charge. (Evan’s overwatch fire was ineffectual at least.) I probably should have simply moved, shot, and perhaps risked a charge. I might have whittled down a few of his troops.
Evans troops started to move towards my marines, getting some of their fancier guns in range. My blightbriger was brought down by melta-gun fire, ending the round.
The first shots destroyed the Tocsin of Misery the Noxious Blightbringer carried upon his back, ending its incessant tolling. There was a moment of silence before the remaining shots incinerated the Death Guard.
My marines once again attempted to advance and charge, though my Plague champion would be the only model left by the time the unit reached Evan’s troops. The champion killed one solider, causing another to flee.
Evan’s soldiers fell back and wounded the champion with gunfire.
Slow and methodical murder was all the champion knew. His fists pulverizing the solider before him. He could see the terror in the men before him, one scurrying away covered in the blood and guts of his comrade.
The plague champion charged again, killing two enemies with its power fist. Still, I could see the writing on the wall. The troops that had previously flanked my marines advanced on the objective, capturing it. The rest of Evan’s troops fired on my plague champion killing it. And that was that.
The failure tasted like ash in the Plague Champion’s mouth. He could hear the guard all around him as his life slipped away. The objective was lost. His death couldn’t come soon enough.
I need to figure out more missions suited for smaller army play. The default missions in the book seem to assume armies with far more units than ours. I had started sketching out skirmish rules that built on top of the 40,000 rules, but since we were trying to learn how normal 40,000 worked we stuck with that. I suspect you could borrow parts of A Song of Blade and Heroes and cross them with parts of Warhammer 40,000 to produce a pretty cool games.
We had some time before Evan had to leave so we set up for a second game.
Causarius, Lord of Contagion, could hear the gun fire before he saw the ship. The plague marines of his vectorium had already engaged the Tau, the battle taking place around the wreckage of a downed Tau ship.
Evan and I played a low power-level game over the weekend: his battalion of Tau versus my Death Guard patrol. The goal of the game was to learn the rules for 8th Edition. I had “played” two games with Mythilli, if you could call what we do that. I had a rough sense of how the game worked. Evan had experience playing several other editions of the game, so he also had a vague sense of what a game of Warhammer should probably be like. We played at The Sword and Board, and were sandwiched between two other tables playing larger games of Warhammer than us. This was convenient: we occasionally bugged a table of Space Marine players about the rules.
My Death Guard consisted of the following units:
Causarius, Lord of Contagion
Putidus, the Malignant Plaguecaster
7 Plague Marines (one of which was a Plague Champion)
10 Pox Walkers
Evan fielded … an army I will list out here if he remembers what it contained.
Each of our armies had a power level of 27. This is the new system Games Workshop has devised to help you balance to armies against one another. It works well enough, assuming your troops aren’t overloaded with expensive weaponry. All the numbers involved when using power levels are smaller, and you are doing far less addition.
We played “Open War”, the first mission type described in the Warhammer 40,000 rule book. We marked out a 4 x 4 space on the table to play. Our objective was “Domination”, where you score a point at the end of each turn for each objective marker controlled. (As I would soon learn, my army was ill suited for this objective.) I deployed my plague marines on one objective. My plague caster was within close reach of a second. Evan had troops on the other two objectives. The game was set to run for 5 rounds, with Evan going first.
Causarius watched as his pox walkers collapsed before him. The Tau’s weaponry was impressive, wasted on these diseased horrors.
Evan’s drones were able to secure the objectives he controlled while his actual troops could move into positions better suited to engage my army. My pox walkers were the first victims to the Tau’s gun fire. I forgot that like my plague marines, the pox walkers were also “disgustingly resilient” granting them an additional 5+ save when taking wounds. Since their normal saves were 7+ (impossible to roll) I was simply removing them from the game as they took wounds. My pox walkers were all dead by the end of the end of the second round. I also forgot the Lord of Contagion granted a power area of effect ability to each unit in his aura, making the pox walkers even more deadly. Played properly they may have been a far more effective troop. The way I played them they were a distraction and then they died.
The plague marines laid down fire from their vantage point high above the battle field. They would hold their objective at all costs: they had nothing else to live for, after all.
I had foolishly placed one objective at the top of a building. This made it easier to reach for Evan and his Tau army (which was mostly composed of units that could fly) than my slow moving Death Guard. I deployed my Plague Marines on the objective, and there they remained for the entire game. (It would take two turns for my marines to climb down from where they were perched.)
The Malignant Plaguecaster Platidus watched as the energies of the warp ripped apart the Tau’s drones. This would provide no satisfaction: he ventured deeper into the battle.
My plague caster was a solid killer, but one unit spitting out mortal wounds wasn’t going to win this battle. The caster claimed an objective in the first turn, and held it till the 3rd. After I lost all my pox walkers it seemed clear I wasn’t going to be able to claim another objective. I decided I’d just kill Evan’s units instead. I moved the plague caster out to start dealing some death. (The problem with this strategy was that killing units didn’t actually net you victory points in the game we were playing.)
Causarius stalked the Tau leader, the giant mechanized armour staying out of the reach of his plague axe.
On his second turn Evan deployed one of his fancier Tau units behind my Lord of Contagion and Pox Walkers by using its deep strike ability. I had planned to ignore the unit and focus on taking one of Evan’s objectives, but with the death of my pox walkers, capturing the objective seemed unlikely at best. The Lord of Contagion moves so slow I spent the remainder of the battle chasing this unit down. I managed to kill its shield drone after a successful charge roll brought me into combat with the unit. In hindsight, I think I could have moved 3” around the shield drone using the pile-in rules, and then fought the model I was actually interested in killing.
The Tau secured their ship and their people. A shameful defeat for his vectorium. Thankfully Causarius had long since forgotten what shame felt like.
Evan easily won the game. Still, it was a lot of fun. 8th Edition is fairly straight forward a game. We both managed to muddle through without needed to spend much time digging through rule books. The game plays quite smoothly.
The tables at the Sword and Board are amazing. They have lots of cool looking terrain and scenery. The board we played on was some bombed out city scape. (It was much more evocative than playing on my floor with Mythilli’s toys as terrain.) They also have lots of used models and bits you can waste your money on. All in all it’s a great place to go play Warhammer.
I won’t get to fight this army again: Evan sold it all to the Sword and Board for store credit. He finds the clean lines of the Tau boring. So our next battle will be my Death Guard versus his kit bashed probably guardsmen.
Empire of the Petal Throne will feel familiar to anyone who has played Original Dungeons and Dragons. Some of the changes strike me as odd: the standard six stats have been renamed and are rolled up using percentile dice: that’s a lot of variability in your core stats. There are some basic skills and professions that characters begin the game knowing, and can learn as they level up. Thanks to a good die roll my character had a ton of skills: he was a sailor, a ship captain, a tailor, a sail maker, etc, etc. The standard three classes, fighter, clerics and magic-user, are all accounted for, though the later two are further tweaked to make sense within the setting of the game. I suppose that is what really makes Empire of the Petal Throne stand out: its setting, the fantasy world of Tékumel.
Tékumel was created over a life time by professor M.A.R. Barker. He began when he was 10 and it sounds like he never stopped developing his fantasy world until his death at the age of 82. Many people compare it to Tolkien’s Middle Earth in its depth and scope.
James, Brendan, Evan and myself met to play a game of Empire of the Petal Throne over the weekend. James DM’d, and as such had the unenviable task of trying to introduce the world of Tékumel to us. Our adventure began using what I am led to understand is a common conceit for gaming in Tékumel: we played a group of barbarians who had recently arrived in the great port city of Jakálla. We quickly found work evicting some some other foreigners from a tenement: not the most heroic of tasks, but we were new to the city and needed money and friends. I had rolled a 1 for my starting gold (kaitars), so my character was particularly eager to change his financial situation. With no equipment to speak of I pictured him like a character from Final Fight.
Brendan played a magic-user, and we used his characters spells to good effect. Magic in EPT works differently than OD&D. There is a chance of failure when you try and cast a spell. The starting compliment of spells is also higher. That seemed to offset the chance of failure and then some. We scouted out the home we were going to invade using some clairaudience and clairvoyance. I enjoy games with some variability in spell casting. Less reliable magic usually introduces some additional excitement into the game, and makes magic feel magical.
It was a session full of hijinks. EPT seems like it could lend itself to some ‘serious’ play, but at the end of the day you still have poor dice rolls and foolish choices to inevitably lighten the mood. We decided to bust into the tenement via roof, but we were both spotted while climbing it and nearly fell off while trying to hide. We had to punch out a kid who was acting as a look out. We threw a dead body we found on the roof onto the street to cause a distraction. (We found a dead body? Yeah, the house was clearly inhabited by a death cult.) We ended the session fighting zombies and finding a secret passage that looked to lead into the undercity—and future adventure!
I suspect Empire of the Petal Throne might be challenging to run if you aren’t familiar with the game world. Like the Forgotten Realms there is so much canonical material at the point it could be quite overwhelming. In contrast to the Forgotten Realms, Tékumel is very much its own breed of fantasy. It seems to be completely unlike the sorts of vague Tolkien inspired worlds you often find in D&D supplements and fantasy books. It’s a real shame EPT isn’t more popular. If you weren’t previously aware of Empire of the Petal Throne, you should definitely check it out.
I’ve been meeting up with a few of the players from the online game OD&D game I play in weekly1 so that we can play random D&D like games. Playing D&D online is always fun, but playing in person is still a much more enjoyable experience. Most of the games thus far have been run by Evan, who runs Game Peices
Evan made up the rules for his game, which are based around using a 2d6 dice roll to resolve most everything. It’s a strange system. There are no hit points: when you are hit you roll a saving throw (a 2d6 roll) to see if how badly hurt you are. You can spend a ‘hit die’ to add its result to your saving throw. In this way you might have a better chance of avoiding being “Eviscerated”. Thus far the game has had a bit of a meat grinder feel. I’m not sure if it is actually anymore deadly than a by-the-book game of D&D, but it seems that way because a character death feels a lot more binary. I lost my first character in the inaugural session. I lost my second character in our last session, the 3rd game we played. In fact, everyone lost their character: it was a total party kill.
There is something satisfying about a good TPK. My character had been grievously wounded something like 3-4 times during the course of the session. I was basically a walking corpse, unable to do much of anything. I couldn’t even carry my gear anymore. The whole party was in rough shape. We fought monsters we shouldn’t have fought. Were trampled by a dinosaur. Tried and failed again and again to set some giant spiders on fire. It was all a suitable build up for our final trial, fording an underground river. We tied our characters together, because we thought that would be safe. Instead, our characters and henchmen all drowned together. It was failed roll after failed roll: someone makes it across, but is pulled back into the river by someone else who is drowning. So on and so forth till we were all washed away.
The Pahvelorn game has branched in to a few new games. Nick is running an LotFP game dubbed Dungeon Moon, that takes place on a moon that is completely a dungeon. Brendan has taken a break from running Pahvelorn to run something he has dubbed the Finchbox. ↩︎
I wrote this several months ago, but for reasons I don’t recall never posted it. I suppose I thought another play report would be boring. Now its an annotated play report.
My friends and I have been a bit disorganized with our 4th edition home game, so it looks like my participation in Brenden’s OD&D game will be more consistent. I’ve played in three games now and they have all been a lot of fun. Our group is a good mix of impulsive and cautious.1
My second session began with a much more startling start than the first. The very first room we encountered when venturing into Pahvelorn was full of beastmen and body bags.2 We got the jump on them, commanding them to drop their weapons. Sadly, they decided shooting us with crossbows was the way to proceed. After a short fight we discovered we had saved some bandits from certain doom. We returned them to the city and planned to venture back to the dungeon the next day.
We made it a little bit further into Pahvelorn before being attacked once more. Well, we thought we were being attacked. We had actually stumbled on some missing villagers. They too were safely returned to the city. No one spoke of an unfortunate and accidental death.3
It was on our third trip to Pahvelorn that we made it back to the mansion we were exploring in our previous session. Not much looked to have changed. We managed to convince the clerics to hold off messing around with the frozen demon clearly held in place by a magic sword, and so proceeded to explore the rest of the mansion. The first unexplored room we entered looked empty save for a tantalizing jade statue–and then some sort of crystal elemental materialized and killed one of our henchmen. We fled and there was no pursuit: always a good thing.
Moving on we stumbled upon a library in much disarray. The magic-users took the bait and stared rooting through the soiled books in hopes of treasure. My character Satyavati discovered a giant centipede. A failed Save vs. Poison later and I though I’d need to roll up a new character.4 Luckily for me the rest of my party was well prepared for this expedition. Benni, our thief and rat catcher, had some anti-venom he administered posthaste and all was well in the world.
Further exploration led to the discovery of a dissected demon. We found his well preserved body parts throughout the rest of the mansion. We tied up the clearly dead body, and then started replacing its missing body parts. Of course the demon promptly headed itself and woke up. We had a short discussion to determine whether it would kill us or not. The demon decided Benni was our leader, and was now its leader as well. We learned the demon arrived from some other realm to fight the previous occupant of the house and quite likely the rest of the lands of man. As demons go it was quite friendly. We named it Tangle.5
We discovered a trapdoor leading down to a cavern below the mansion. The passage was was next to some incredibly expensive looking fountains we will need to figure out how to steal at some point. We ventured through the cavern, finding and killing a giant white snake hiding in a pool in the process. With that we decided to call it a night.
I now have a much better sense of the layout of the dungeon we are visiting, which greatly helped with my initial confusion during the first session.6 We now have a demon butler and a cavern to explore, which we did in our next session.
I believe Brendan’s original plan when he started his Pahvelorn campaign was to have players drop in and out, so that if one person was busy another person could take their spot. This is apparently how the very first D&D campaigns were run, with a huge pool of players. This is also how a lot of G+ games are run: it’s often not too hard to find someone ready to jump into a game. We play on Monday, which is probably a quiet night for most people. We went a very long time before having to cancel a session, and that was because Brendan was traveling through Europe. My friends and I tried and failed to keep our 4th Edition game going in this manner. I think the trick is to get people to pencil something into their calendars. I know I’m busy Monday nights–and I suppose more importantly my wife knows too. ↩︎
We ended up killing the Wizard that was creating these beast men several sessions later. One of the current characters in the party was that wizard’s apprentice. ↩︎
Brendan doesn’t award XP for killing monsters, so every fight is often more risk than reward. We often start every fight with a meagre attempt at negotiation, unless it’s clear the monsters we are fighting aren’t intelligent. It’s actually kind of funny we ended up killing a villager: that might be one of the few times we shot first, so to speak. ↩︎
Satyavati died a tiny bit after his 10th session: I tempted fate and lost. Brendan discussed this at length in a blog post about character death. He was definitely one of my favourite D&D characters. I’d never play Magic-Users normally, so it was a big change of pace. (This is one advantage of totally random character generation: it pushes people into playing characters they might not normally.) ↩︎
Brendan created this evil demon army that’s clearly attempting to take over the game world. Because we met this friendly and confused demon early in the campaign, all members of this race have henceforth been referred to as Tangles: hardly a name that strikes fear in the hearts of men. We have encountered these creatures several times, and those experiences has never been pleasant. Nevertheless they are Tangles: harbingers of the apocalypse. ↩︎
After a few sessions full of character death and little gold our party left Pahvelorn and has yet to return. I miss all the dungeon delving. We need to get back there. Our characters are beasts now, to boot. ↩︎
A Bone Man (AC 3, MV 60', HD 1+1, Lawful) and a Jale Women (AC 9, MV 120', HD 1+1, Neutral) explore the badlands in search of alien technology for their war tribe.
A party of 2-8 inter-dimensional travelers search for their lost companion. They are armed with turn of the century firearms: pistols & shotguns. They are cautious around and distrustful of any natives of Carcosa they encounter. They will however aid anyone who agrees to help them find their friend.
3-18 red orbs can be seen floating in the distance.
2 Unquiet Worms make their home in the shade of a disabled alien tank. Within the tank, two dead aliens lay mummified in their spacesuits. Sufficiently intelligent creatures can restore the tank to working order after 2-6 turns of experimentation.
Trails of small insects converge on the rocky husk of a massive dead insect. Within an inter-dimensional traveler to Carcosa lays shackled to the ground. Insects crawl in and out of his body. A sorcerer and his minions are in the middle of casting the ritual Canticle of the Crawling God. They will summon the Crawling God in 1-3 hours.
You may use the following table to restock the hex:
1D4
Hex Description
1
3-18 red orbs lay inert on the ground throughout the badlands. If investigated characters must make a Save vs. Poison or develop a random mutation.
2
The Crawling God crosses the badlands trailed by a sea of insects.
3
2 Unquiet Worms feast on the remains of a small party of adventurers. On the bodies can be found: pistols, shotguns and worthless foreign currency.
4
A Bone Man rides through the badlands on an alien tank. He is accompanied by an inter-dimensional traveller to Carcosa. Within the tank is a small cache of books describing sorcerous rituals and the dead body of a Jale Woman.
My friends and I have been a bit disorganized with our regular D&D 4e game. This meant I was free to play in Brendan’s OD&D campaign, the Vaults of Pahvelorn. He’s been writing about his campaign and OD&D for the last few months and it all sounded pretty fantasitc, so it was nice to participate in a game.
As i’ve said before, rolling up a character in older editions of D&D is pretty quick. For this game things felt even quicker: 3d6 in order for my stats suggested I play a wizard. From there it was random equipment, random spell books, a random retainer and a random background. The only thing that isn’t random about this character is his name, Satyavati. Removing almost every choice from character creation makes the process painless. The whole experience was very stress free.
With that I was ready to game. The other players were regulars in the campaign. As things got going I felt a little bit lost. I had read play reports and Brendan’s own posts about the game, but I didn’t feel like I had my bearings till we were found a section of Pahvelorn that was new to everyone. In our session we explored some old row houses accros the street from a mansion.
The first room we examined was full of bodies in various states of butchery. That’s just not pleasent. From here we found a room containing an empty chest, presumably already looted. I’m always a bit suspicious of empty chests, so I decided to investigate futher. Brendan asked how exactly I do so. Now, at this point I thought my character was going to die in a firey inferno. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case. We found a secret room and an apparently elven magic sword. We call that, “loot.” In hindsight I probably should have devised a safer scheme for examining the chest, but it was late at night and sometimes it’s good to not be so timid.
It’s always funny watching the push and pull between the cautious and the not so cautious. We alternated between busting heads and hiding in alleyways and dark corners. We killed some cultists, some giant rats–of course–and some good for nothing demons. In Brendan’s game you only get XP for finding and spending gold so these fights were purely for our own satisfaciton.
We explored the mansion a little bit, and it was an interesting scene. I had memorized Read Magic for the delve: it’s the only first level spell I know. Seriously. In all our previous fights I had joked about how I had prepared Read Magic and then promptly hid in a corner till the carnage was over. When we enterd the mansion we came upon a room divided in two by runes, presumably of a magic nature. That’s what i’m talking about! A Read Magic later and we learned they were probably sealing some sort of evil inside the mansion.
In the next room we discovered a giant demon frozen in place with a sword through its chest. I’m going to guess it’s evil. It was a tough and anguished decision, but it was decided that pulling the sword out should probably wait.
I rolled up Maria, a Rune Knight from the Dark Capital, for Reynaldo’s Baroviania game a few days ago. Yesterday she got drafted for her first game, the 7th session of the campaign. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It seems like most sessions of Baroviania thus far have been kind of zany.
Things began, as they often do, in a tavern. Maria started the game with 80gp and I spent most of that on a sword and plate mail. Buying the plate was probably a poor decision, since my character doesn’t even own rations or rope or any of the tools of the adventuring trade. I just can’t help myself: the AC bonus for plate mail is insane. Wearing shiny new armour from the Dark Capital I figured she’d be sitting alone. Being so thoroughly broke I figured she’d just be nursing an almost empty drink or eating the fantasy equivalent of bar peanuts. Scattered around the bar was a frogling from the HMS Apollyon, a little gnome, and a battle princess. The gnome approached and offered my hobo of a character some food. And so an adventuring party was born.
This merry scene was disrupted when a person entered the tavern through the window. On the other side of some broken glass were three maids. My character decided the prudent course of action was to munch down as much food as she could before a fight got underway. There was no fight.
A sleep spell later and we had knocked out the person who went through the window, but none of his assailants. This wasn’t what we were going for. Somehow we managed to convince the maids the prudent course of action was to negotiate what to do with our prisoner, who we decided we had captured fair and square. In the end we agreed to hand the fellow over if they agreed to pay the bar for the broken window. (I think they might have been better negotiators than us.) We learned they worked for Sasha, a mover and shaker in Baroviania. We also figured out that they were probably some sort of golem because they were kind of creepy and robotic.1
We followed them as they left with the prisoner, who it turned out looked an awful lot like Wolverine.2 It became clear they were also being followed by another person. We met him when we both ended up outside Sasha’s giant tower. He was working for Sasha’s rival, Azalin, as was the person the dolls had captured. He had decided busting into the tower was too risky, and left to let his master know what was up.3 We were strongly considering busting into the tower, but cooler heads prevailed. You may be asking yourself why we trekked all the way here only to not go in: good question. Due diligence I suppose.
We ventured North to the Eyevalis woods. It was dark when we arrived and pretty spooky. We were about light some more torches and charge in, but decided exploring during the day would probably be smarter. Adventuring in the forest during the day was uneventful. We did find a stump of a tree that opened up into a dungeon of sorts, and that’s where we ventured next.
Our first encounter was with a group of small monsters. Rather than fight we once more tried to negotiate, and once more dice rolls were in our favour. We left the room they were guarding, which contained a statue what was clearly a petrified person, with no one worse for wear.4 Our second encounter involved freeing a prisoner we stumbled upon. His name was Cody, and he looked like he could fight a street fight. He may have thanked us. He definitely ran away very quickly.5 His jailer arrived shortly after, annoyed at the escape. We somehow managed to convince him we weren’t involved. We all exited the dungeon together. Above ground he ran off after the mystery prisoner. We were left to decide what to do next.
D&D is ostensibly a game about break and enters and ultra violence. The game incentivizes two tasks: killing monsters and getting gold. Later iterations of the game got rid of the second incentive, so they are much more combat centric, and still don’t really reward acting nice. This session was funny because we some how managed to avoid every opportunity for adventure and destruction. We didn’t fight the maids, nor the strange little gremlin creatures, despite both of them clearly acting like assholes. We didn’t venture into the dangerous tower or the dangerous forest at night because we decided that would stupid. Our gnome was the group’s pacifist, the battle princess our groups pragmatist. I don’t know if there would have been more violence or looting if we had one player, but not the other. The groups make up seemed perfectly suited for the sort of session we had.
All in all it was a fun time. I need to play again so I get a chance to use my plate mail.
After a short break we continued our delve of Dwimmermount. We were joined by two more players: another magic-user, and the dumbest fighter ever–the poor guy had a Wisdom score of 3–who was played to perfection by Steve Conner. It turns out those two characters were with us all along, of course.
At the foot of the steps down to level two were a set of lifeless bones wearing armour with weapons at their side. That’s certainly unusual. Our cleric tried to turn them to no effect. You can’t turn a bunch of bones, after all. We walked further down the steps and then they sprung to life. (Maybe you saw that coming.) So began an exploration of the second level of Dwimmermount.
We headed South, finding a room with 6 pillars. Each pillar was made out of a unique material, and each had a character inscribed upon it. In a normal game we would have spent much longer puzzling out what this room was about. As we were playing for a fixed amount of time we quickly moved on. This came up often when exploring the second floor. Because this was a convention game we didn’t dedicate as much time as probably would have in a normal game trying to understand what the rooms we encountered were about. There were lots of strange and interesting rooms on this floor we quickly glossed over. Our focus was more survival and gold.
From here we went East, eventually stumbling upons the ruins of a library. Some careful searching revealed a secret room filled with a cache of books we assumed were of some value. The dilemma: there were hundreds of pounds of these books. We each grabbed one, and decided to move on. We would come back for them at some later date. (Well, in our imaginations, I suppose.)
We moved North from here, passing a room with shattered statues and a stone gargoyle we proceeded to shatter ourselves. We were waiting for it to spring to life. Nope. James informed us that room was now completely full of broken statues. Destroying things was a recurring theme with our party.
Further on we found a room with writing on its walls we couldn’t read. The funny thing about this situation was that we had previously had a conversation about Read Magic / Language being a useless spell because no one ever wastes a spell slot on it. Both our magic-users had charm and sleep. We couldn’t figure out what to do about the writing so we decided to make a sketch and back track.
Heading North once more, we came across another set of pillars. There were four of them, each made of glass, and they ran floor to ceiling seemingly beyond this level in both directions. Each contained one of the four elements. We were going to move on, but someone had a pretty great idea: the air pillar was empty, so why not smash it open and jump down to a lower level of the dungeon. (OK: maybe “great” is the wrong adjective to use with respect to the idea.) We got to smashing and eventually broke enough of the pillar we could send a man through. The problem: we had assumed we had found an empty pillar; in fact air was zipping through the pillar very quickly. We spent a fair amount of time throwing things down the hole to see how fast they sped away, and if we could hear them landing somewhere safely. After some scientific research we decided jumping down was probably not a good idea. Steve’s fighter needed to be talked off the ledge, so to speak.
The very next room we encountered contained several large glass tubes, with doors. Guarding the giant empty tubes were hobgoblins. Our magic-user didn’t feel like another fight so he shouted, “sleep!” and that was that. We decided we would carry one hobgoblin with us to interrogate later. The rest? Well we fed them to the dungeon disposal system we had just found in the previous room. They zipped away to places unknown.
We explored a little bit more, and would have continued to explore indefinitely had Brendan not asked, “can we grab all of those books we found in the secret room, head back to town, try and level up, and then come back to the dungeon ’two weeks later'”
And so it came to pass we found ourselves levelling up characters in the middle of a one-shot. James didn’t bother rolling for random encounters, something i’m guessing he would do if this was a normal game. As such our exit was without incident. My character actually didn’t earn enough gold to get to the next level, but other players fared better. (We each were grabbing odds and ends as we made our way through Dwimmermount, hence the disparity.) The hobgoblin we were lugging around was now a charmed hireling known as long hair, because we had fed him a potion of hair growth while he was unconscious. (We learned it was a potion of hair growth when his hair started growing.) With that we headed back into the dungeon, right back to where we left off. Once again, I suspect James skipped a few steps to speed things along.
The very first room we encountered when back in the dungeon was once again full of hobgoblins, but also a metric ton of treasure. God damn it! If we had explored one more room before heading back to town we all would have definitely gained a level.
From here we once again encountered a series of strange rooms we didn’t have time or energy to investigate fully: a triangle painted on the ground, probably magical; a room full of statues of gods with their heads replaced, and finally a locked door. We could hear what were probably horrible monsters behind it, so it was probably for the best the doors were locked.
We were running short on time. We back tracked to the start of the level and made our way East. We replaced one charmed hobgoblin hireling with another, after the first was killed in battle with the second. We pressed on, but ultimately our search for a way to the third level wouldn’t be fruitful. No one can say we didn’t try.
The game was a lot of fun. James wasn’t to fussy about a lot of the more tedious rules one would probably pay more attention to in a typical dungeon crawl. We weren’t really tracking time, how long torches last, etc. I think these things can be an important part of the game, but if you are only playing for 3-4 hours, there are much better things to focus on. James also drew the map of Dwimmermount as we explored. (I made my own copy, as I knew I’d want to write about this game later.) This all helped the game run quickly and smoothly. I felt like we accomplished so much in such a short period of time.
This game was probably the highlight of my time at OSRCon. I felt like we had a good group, and that we all had a good time. If you have a chance to play in a game with James I recommend you take it.
As I mentioned in my previous post on OSRCon, I got to wander through the dark halls of Dwimmermount on Saturday morning in a game run by James Maliszewski. What follows may ruin the surprise of some of the rooms in the dungeon: you have been warned.
We began with 5 players. We rolled up characters using the original D&D rules, and for a change my rolls weren’t half bad. Strength was my highest score so I decided to play a fighter. We used Brendan’s random equipment lists to pick items, so this whole process was very quick. Buying items is probably the slowest part of the character creation process in D&D. I think we all had characters ready to go in about 10 minutes. The bulk of that time was probably spent trying to find the saving throws tables in the old D&D books.1 When all was said and done we had three fighters, a magic user and a cleric ready to go. We also brought two hirelings with us: Mary the Torchbearer, known for her ability to carry a torch, and a porter of no real repute.
Like all good one-shots ours began at the foot of a dungeon. Our group had marched into Dwimmermount in search of gold, presumably. The stairs into Dwimmermount entered into a room with 5 statues. Thankfully they weren’t booby trapped. Neither was the room. When playing the previous day in Ken St. Andre’s Tunnels and Trolls game, our group spent a very long time trying to get into the dungeon. It’s possible that in James’ actual Dwimmermount game this room is full of machine guns, but if you only have a few hours to play it probably doesn’t serve you well to kill all your players a few minutes into your game. We had 4 doors to choose from, one for each direction, and we chose to go East.
I was ready to just walk into the next room, but Brenden, a more patient and prudent player, thought we had a better chance with this dungeon crawl if we proceeded a bit more cautiously. From this point on every door we opened (that had a circular pull) was opened by looping rope through the pull and tugging the door open. Before we ventured into any room we’d listen for noise first. In this fashion we ventured East till we came across a circular room with a set of masks hanging on the wall. One mask was missing, and in front of where it should have been there was a long dead man, now just a pile of bones. I know what you’re thinking: it’s a trap! And you’d be right. Examining the skeleton revealed the missing mask. There wasn’t any indication on his body that he’d been hit by some sort of projectile. Looking at the wall we could see a small hole where the mask would have sat, so we guessed there was some sort of poison gas trap protecting the masks. Now I was ready to just move on, happy I’d avoided the booby trap. Smarter and/or greedier heads prevailed. We decided to carefully loop our rope through the eyes and mouths of the masks and then tug them all off the wall from a safe distance. Sure enough we could hear the room filling up with gas as the masks hit the floor. Our first “loot”: who wouldn’t want creepy death masks from a dungeon?
From here we ventured South. We ended up on the Eastern edge up of a long corridor. There were plenty of doors to open. We ignored the double doors to the East: never trust double doors. The first set of doors to the South eventually led us to the stairs down to the next level. We weren’t quite ready to head down yet.
We walked back to the long corridor and checked out the next room to the South. We found a library with some books and maps that looked like they might be of value. More loot!
Further South was another door behind which we could hear the muffled voices of something, we couldn’t be sure what. One of the other fighters and myself got in place, and we busted that door open. We encountered a bunch of monsters, who looked monstrous and maybe vaguely dwarven. They were small, anyway. We shouted, “surrender!” but they weren’t having any of that. Myself and the other fighter made short work of the first wave that approached us. The rest started to flee. The magic-user in the group thought we just weren’t speaking the right language. He shouted “surrender and join us”, but this time in dwarven. That didn’t go over too well. The ones that were fleeing ran back, angrier than they already were. Lucky for us we were wearing plate mail.2
At this point we could have continued South. We had heard some noises coming from that direction. Maybe we would have encountered more of these crazy definitely-not-dwarves. We decided the best course of action was to start making our way down as deep as we could into Dwimmermount. We were being a bit too cautious for a convention game. I mean, I hadn’t even named my Fighter.
And this play report is already longer than I thought it would be, so you’ll have to wait for the excitement of level 2!
James has a very slick hardback version of the little brown books that he built using his copies of the old Wizards of the Coasts PDFs and Lulu. I was surprised and how good the hardbacks Lulu produces are. It made me want to print up some PDFs. ↩︎
It costs next to nothing in OD&D. I think by the time you get to 2nd Edition it’s thousands of GP. ↩︎
I created Osrik, an (Essentials) dwarf paladin, to play at D&D Encounters this week after the untimely death of my deep gnome cleric Gretzlyn. I was thinking this Paladin would on the tail of his friend the cleric. I won’t get a chance to flesh out his story, because I managed to kill this character as well. Two deaths in two weeks? For shame.
I’m enjoying D&D Encounters, but the last couple battles have been hard. I don’t have any of the D&D Essentials books, so I also don’t understand what’s up with the Essentials versions of the characters I’m playing. The cleric couldn’t turn undead, or do half the things I thought clerics were all about. The paladin couldn’t heal. At all. What kind of paladin can’t do a Lay on Hands?
All is not lost. I have a felling a Kobold Warlock is going to wander into this mess and start doing some avenging. And I know how to play a warlock. In theory, anyway.
At today’s D&D Encounters session my poor cleric Gretzyln was vanquished by those most evil of elves, the Drow. He was supposed to be a hardboiled deep gnome ex-dungeoneer turned fanatical cleric of Pelor, the sun god. I thought it was a cute idea: a guy who spends his whole life living underground leaves that life behind to worship the sun.
Gretzyln was not alone in his fate: it was a total party kill. I didn’t think this blog would earn its name so quickly.
There were 5 people playing at session today: two wizards, an avenger, a vampire, and my cleric. It’s probably not an ideal mix for a party, but that’s always a possibility when you play in these sorts of pickup games. I didn’t think it was particularly out of whack. We were facing off against some sort of Drow necromancer, her henchmen, and some skeletons she animated during the course of the fight.
I’m not completely sure what went wrong. The monsters were all higher up in the initiative order then us, so we did spend a lot of time reacting to them rather than getting out there and messing them up. I had to heal two of our party members (back from death’s door) very early on in the encounter. The skeletons, though there were a lot of them, never really gave us any trouble. Our wizards were well suited to deal with them. We probably could have done a better job trying to avoid the Drow and all their ranged attacks, but I didn’t feel like we were ceding that much of the fight to them. Then our DM started rolling like a man of fire, and our attempt to chase down the Drow and finish them off ended in ruin.
Dungeon’s Master has a more detailed write up of the week 3 encounter. In the game he DM’d the party of 6 players defeated the Drow, but barely survived. That DM is a player in my game, and he mentions our defeat at the bottom of the post. He felt our lack of ranged attacks and a defender were the two biggest obstacles we failed to overcome.
Still, it was fun. And all is not lost. No doubt next week another of Pelor’s followers will wind up chasing down some Drow to avenge their old friend and companion, that foolish cleric Gretzyln.
