Player Perspective- from the player who plays Trotter and ran Atagon’s faction-
What I did on my July-Stein Vacation:
I play in the Nappendixia campaign and like many other places in the summer of stein, we held a Braunstein in July to shake up the status quo. It began as a weekly-orders deal but quickly evolved into something closer to always on.
Report:
In our regular sessions I play Trotter R1 named after what Tolkien almost named Aragorn. We've been taking missions from Atagon NG C9 at the Radiant Tower, a cleric's tower to the SE of the largest safe settlement in the area, Ft. Dawnbreak. Mostly we've been delving a pyramidal megadungeon. But that all changed in July.
I took command of Atagon, his maybe 50 infantry and cav along with the militia of a small village nearby, Cowpens, loyal to the cause led by a F6 named Seth.
Real AD\&D is also a book club. I learned that the original patron player for Atagon modeled him and his tower after the same-named characters in "Changa Nor" a short story by Harold Lamb about Cossacks discovering a mysterious isolated tower in the steppes. It rocked. Never read Lamb before. Easy to see how he inspired Robert E. Howard. Here's the other piece of this. Learning what fiction other players are reading, be they friend of foe, motivated me to plough through this story because it would give me greater insight to the Secondary World we were playing in. And it worked.
Since I've observed in other steins that turtling gets you punished, I decided to be aggressive which was in character with Atagon anyway and seek out the evil brigand fortress to the west. I amassed troops, began plotting the assault and recruiting allies while trying to find a way to harass their supply lines and setting up contravallation to prevent them from sortie against us early.
The macguffin: I practically ignored it initially apart from casting Commune to try and find it. Other players were sweeping over hexes for it. What was it? The Loc-Nar, a la Canadian animated film Heavy Metal, which was spawned by a satanic giant space bear. Not good.
Late the following Tuesday my tower was greeted by a Bandit Raiding party. Yikes. They didn't test the fortifications (Motte and Bailey style) but they posed a problem for me communicating with my forces without.
I sent Gord, R6, out in the night. Fortunately was able to hire a MU5 just before this. We silenced and invisible him and then had him stalk the raider camp at night, killing those who were relieving themselves in the bushes in the most gruesome way possible. SEEN framed this as a vengeful spirit from the swamp and it worked. The raiders bugged out. For now.
We continue preparing the assault on the Brigand fort to the west, however the Brigands return a few days later now with ladders and more men to assault Atagon's Tower.
We elected to run this play by post. I need to reflect on our triage of battles to session docket vs play by post I think we mostly got it right but there was a deeper rhyme and reason for what worked.
Of course, a black dragon appears. My only hope is to slay it. The tower was meant to keep people out from the ground, not from the air, moreover, the villagers (120 laborers and tradesmen) were vulnerable in the bailey. My only real weapon apart from a few pot shot fireballs and an aging ballista is an artifact of Atagon's religion. Waning in power, but it just might do the trick. Just as the first sprays of chlorine gas start billowing down into the village, I blast the dragon sending its husk to the ground. As soon as I can I hit the invading brigands with Insect Plague and seal myself in a secret inner chamber with my trusted bodyguards. When we survey the damage later that day, most of my men and villagers are lost. We retreat by Lamasu (courtesy Godhard of Dawnbreak) to Dawnbreak.
Later in the week a band of goblins assaults Cowpens but my milita there holds them off! We capture several and question them learning not very much. Actually I think a couple of them might be tied up in a barn somewhere still now that I am writing this.
Gnomes (ugh) arrive at the siege camp and agree to help us dig. Atagon and retinue arrives at the siege camp and pays handsomely to have the gnomes forge a perfectly made B# tuning fork of silver. I wonder why?
We draw up battle plans to assault the brigand fortress now that, after our like 5th divination, we think we can take em. The fortress is huge but we have some tricks up our sleeve.
Speaking of divinations, the ref pointed out I was using them as often as Xenophon and that seemed right to me.
Key to the assault are some gunpowder bombs (gunpowder doesn't work in Amber but we're far from it, it seems) made by Kenny the MU, somehow.
We blast the doors and try to take the inner gate. I mistake I made in command that almost cost us the battle--but did cost us time as some of the mass combat slogged -- was not rushing some men, at the expense of free attacks from the brigands, to the gate to open it and allow cav to enter. A wind elemental appeared and wiped most of my light foot before I could Flame Strike it. At that point, the player controlling the evil MU leading the brigands bails and a mano-a-mano fight begins in the inner courtyard against one of their high level Lts. The forces of good prevail but at what cost?
We find later that laborers we left in our siege camp have all been killed by what appears to be dragon chlorine gas. Did the black dragon survive?
We pick up the pieces and return to my tower only to find it occupied by brigands! And an undead dragon!
And so begins a new mass combat session. This time scale adjustment helped prevent a slog in addition to realizing when the key elements of a battle were decided and the rest, which matters for unit head counts, could be gamed out by post.
I missed the very beginning of this one due to my children, however, it appears that Atagon and another Pelor worshipper prayed and their prayer was answered by a Solar!
These guys are insanely overpowered. But I had to play them to character. They arrived because the Loc-Nar was there and was a threat.
Actually... the only thing that makes sense is to destroy the very place where the Loc-Nar was being held. The Solar, who for some reason looked like Wolverine, started casting Earthquake (a 1turn spell!) on the Tower to make it come crashing down on the evil occupants.
Seth get's polymorphed (I can't remember how or why) into a Bronze Dragon. His exhilaration at flying through the air is cut short by (I think) a lightning bolt or something and he plummets to the ground.
In vengeance, the undead dragon gets made dead again by a power word.
More craziness ensues but we somehow get the bad guys to retreat and the tower comes crashing down on the rest. The Loc-Nar escapes us though. My tower is destroyed!
We roll to see if Wolverinius the Solar sticks around and he does. But I decide he's just going to loom in the air high above Atagon and daily gate in a Planetar until we have a host of angelic forces just silently hovering in the air like the trailer to Death Stranding.
I send Gord, who now has a cloak of Elvenkind to scout in the direction of the enemy. It appears they have another keep!
No mass combats and a schedule conflict so we decide to grab our level 1 characters and explore the area, especially looking for riches and unplundered-plunder. What we find turns out to be basically a hook from the Good the Bad and the Ugly but the Bad being played by Amazon women turned into giant green ogres. Yikes! I'm sure the Loc-Nar is to blame.
Gord returns to Ft. Dawnbreak, where we have all rebased, and reports that the enemy has a contingent of Crab People armed with magical arm guitar lasers.
Atagon gets a nice tan-- like Carry Grant, not like spray on. This was Wolverinius the Solar granting Atagon the ability to survive in the Positive Energy Plane... if it comes to this.
Gord heads off to find Ted Nugent, who is the leader of a ranger, kind of woods people camp to the west. He and the Nuge become fast friends and talk at length about responsible bow ownership and the virtues of armor piercing rounds. The Nuge and his retinue come to Dawnbreak as scouts start reporting a host approaching.
We prepare for a climactic battle as Atagon's trump card is finally ready-- the tuning fork, a very important material component in Plane Shift.
We set booby traps and what not around the fort. The Nuge hides a contingent of his men in the nearby market village on the hill.
The dragon reappears! And chases off our cav held in reserve. It turns out this was an illusion, but don't count on the Planetars to start shouting that down to you, they have bigger fish to fry. Namely the Crab People and Amazonian Ogres whom they begin Flame Striking relentlessly.
Meanwhile, Atagon and Wolvernius secretly go invisible and the Solar carries Atagon to the vicinity of Diana, Amazon Queen and Holder of the Loc-Nar. I imagine the Solar carrying my aged priest like Shaggy carries Scooby Doo.
The Solar attempts to psionically mass dominate Diana to get her to drop the Loc-Nar (he and his ken will not touch it or use Wish to do crazy things to it directly). But he fails!
A Type IV Demon Appears! And casts Symbol of Discord. This works on the Solar too.
The good guys for now, forget about the Loc-Nar and start bashing Chotic Evil heads.
Wolverninus Imprisons the Type IV Demon. --Hey guys, there's a Type IV demon buried at the foot of the hill where sits Ft. Dawnbreak... and that spell is reversible...
A choir of Devas arrives and telekinese the Loc-Nar into the air (for some reason it was flying away like Thor's Hammer). They hold it in place for Atagon to approach. He casts Plane Shift... but he has to touch it... will he be corrupted like the others? Naw Atagon is rock solid man. He resists and sends the Loc-Nar to the Positive Energy Plane-- my thinking here was if anything the positive energy might destroy it or at least all the beings there would be too Good to do anything but seal it away. I thought about other planes but they just seemed too high risk.
The Loc-Nar passes through a portal that opens. Atagon expects to be pulled in or to have to escort it. But it goes on its own. The portal changes color. The evil space bear makes a speech and the campaign landscape is forever changed.
We need to get the band back together and see where that portal goes!
There's still casualty reports coming in so this isn't even a clear picture of the ending.
Player Perspective- from the player who runs Kenny and ran the Amaon faction-
