Red Frontier Campaign Session Report
Session #- 36 Session Date- 2/10/23 Time Passed- 7 days 2/10-2/16
Roll Call- Ricarda- Assassin 4
Beacon- Cleric 3
Alfred- Fighter 2
Cindy- Fighter 2
Neil Young- Torchbearer
10 Light Foot
Adventure Log- The session begins with the party resting, some are in training at the power station. The people of the Red Frontier have been witnessing the last few weeks the end of the curse of Lamalla, the waters of the land begin receding and the other markers of the curse of Lamalla begin dissipating. The leadership of the power station decides to hold a humble celebration of the end of the curse on Saturday, the following night. All adventurers who delved the Chambers of the Eyeless Void receive an invitation to attend as an honored guest. The evening of the event people gather in the larger receiving rooms of the power station for a fine meal and libations. The prominent leaders of Red Frontier are all in attendance, Lord Rogett, in his usual grouchy self, Glom, who almost single-handedly is maintaining the economy of the land, and the captains and lieutenants who have been maintaining patrols and defense of the power station, are all in attendance. The party, who has been vigilant to find a prominent wizard interested in buying their found magic wand, locate the apprentice wizard who identified the wand in the staging area of the Eyeless Void Chamber, and meet his master. They ask if he is interested in purchasing the wand, and a deal is made agreeable to both parties. Beacon, who brokered the deal, is set upon by a pickpocket who must have witnessed the transfer of cash in the sale. Fortunately for Beacon, his fingers are not very nimble, and Beacon is able to freeze him red handed with a hold person spell. The leadership of the power station is a bit embarrassed, but thankfully Beacon is discrete and understanding not to draw too much attention and ruin the event. The thief is quietly led away to pay for his crime. The following 2 days are the completion of training for a few PCs, and during that time Cindy finalizes the deal to hire the 10 light foot and acquires the leather armor, spears, shields, and helmets necessary to equip them. On Tuesday 2/14 the party assembles fully trained, rested, and equipped in the staging area and delves into the Chamber of the Eyeless Void.
They assemble in the foyer and set up a marching order and light sources. They know the NW corner is the area yet to be explored so they head up the main corridor and to the left when it splits. The first door they come to on the left branching passage is rimmed with blue stones, a color they have not yet discovered and have no key to. No matter because Ricarda deftly picks the lock and opens the door. Upon opening the door and entering the room, a blue light activates around the perimeter of the room, and another of the computer devices, screen and desk control panel activates in the room, this one has a cylinder with antenna attached to it. The screen reveals Boldvay the renegade mage, at a desk inside a massive metallic structure, he’s speaking to some kind of metal creature. When he dismisses the creature he regards the screen from his side and is shocked to see people staring back at him through the screen. He tries to speak to them, but realizes the party can’t hear him, so instead he holds up a finger at the screen to indicate “wait a second”. But the party doesn’t have a second because in the corridor to the north of this room and just beyond that in the room beyond are 2 dried up desiccated piles which upon activation of the lights begins growing and becoming more gooey. Eventually a skeleton erects from the pile of guts and slime and worms forming a most hideous creature, and a second forms behind it from the other pile. Each has putrid green worms crawling out of their mouths and writhing all over them. The sight causes all who view it to be filled with fear and run away, only Cindy is able to bravely resist the fear, and she strikes the creature, then thinks better of things as its return attack nearly gets her with diseased paws and a putrid worm that ejects from the creatures mouth. She retreats and backs away around the corner as the party is regrouping, realizing that running away has removed the fear effect. They poise with plasma pistols and some fire attacks and manage to take it out and fully burn it before it can reform. They hold again, waiting for the rush of the next vile creature, but instead the next thing that comes around the corner is- Boldvay. He hails the party and is holding a black and yellow book that says Windows for Dummies. He explains to the party that the machines in this place are called computers and he is learning about them and how they work with the help of the strange insulting tome. He tells the party he was using his computer in his stronghold to try to find other computers, and when the party activated the computer here, they linked. He was able to get their location from the computer and teleport to the party, thinking that he recognized Ricarda, one of Laurentis’ henchmen from the war with Weir and the orcs. He asks about Laurentis and Laughing Fox, and is told Laughing Fox is still near the party and adventuring. Boldvay says he has a proposal for the party, he has become aware of the activation of the Eyeless Void, and wishes to try to stop it. He has become aware of 2 other worlds that also are being besieged by the Eyeless Void, one the planet Jull-Nar, the spider planet Tethro Jull was marooned on, and Nappendixia, a world that supposedly has an ancient megadungeon to the Eyeless Void that is also awakening. He tells them that he has a stargate, and if that stargate could be placed in Nappendixia, then the 3 worlds would each have a stargate, and Boldvay could change the “settings” of the star gates so they permit travel back and forth to all 3 worlds. With this ability to travel, the places where the Eyeless void is gaining power could be located and eliminated. The stargate must be placed in what Boldvay, and the computer, refers to as a “nexus point”. In the case of Nappendixia, the nexus point is a place that matches the party’s hideout in the Red Frontier. He says he has a way to transport the party to Nappendixia, from there they must find the Eyeless Void megadungeon, find the level that has a structure that perfectly matches the party’s hideout, set up the stargate, and it will send them back through to the original stargate the party found the Tethro went through, now currently the location of Boldvay’s stronghold. They ask how time sensitive this mission is, and Bolday types into the computer and the screen changes. The scene shows the second of those vile guts covered creatures, he is standing in a room likely somewhere in this dungeon. The creature is standing in a room bathed in orange light similar to the other colored light rooms in the dungeon. The creature is reaching out touching a tapestry. The scene on the tapestry is a strange land, dry and rocky with a pinkish brown hazy overcast sky. As he touches the tapestry, the fabric begins changing, becoming more real, as if the scene is becoming real and one could step through the tapestry onto the land. Boldvay tells the party that the creature is a son of Kyuss, an evil cleric that was tainted by the insanity of the Eyeless Void. The creature is presently transporting itself to Nappendixia where it will actively be trying to wake up the Eyeless Void and its subsequent megadungeon. As the tapestry transforms, so does the creature, the flesh reknits together forming a human male with red hair and sideburns. When the transformation is complete he steps through the tapestry into Nappendixia. Time is of the essence if they are to counteract this. Knowing their mission, and knowing how and where they will return, the party takes to negotiating, knowing that Boldvay is probably flush with cash, and is desperate to accomplish this task as he hopes by defeating the Eyeless Void he can remove the evil alignment he has incurred through his actions. They manage to negotiate a pretty sum for each, get paid half up front, and get Boldvay to offer to send a second party over in a week or two’s time should a second party form and want to go. He gifts them with a magic scimitar and a wand of detect magic. He gives them what background information he can on Nappendixia, and tells them that where they will arrive he has scried a town nearby called Bartertown. He gives them an envelope, tells them absolutely not to lose it, it contains the stargate. He then gives them 3 copies of the scroll dispel magic- 1 cleric, 1 druid, and 1 magic user. He says when they get to the nexus point place the envelope on the ground back away and cast dispel magic. The stargate will be revealed and they can travel back to Boldvay’s stronghold. With that he pulls out a magic item, a cubic gate, each side is attuned to a world, he touches the side attuned to Nappendixia, and the party is sent through the cubic gate to Nappendixia.
They arrive at a large stone structure- a flat basin of likely salt water with a high rise stone surface at one end, steps descending and a curious looking carved pillar. They scan the horizon and to the southeast they see the haze and smoke of a civilization likely 20 miles off or so. They make a 2 plus day trek across barren scrub, hazardous badlands, gullies and rock outcroppings. The travel is uneventful but the party stays on guard in this strange land with swirling pink and brownish hazy atmosphere. The second night they come across a small group of wild boar, the party attacks hoping for possible food. They manage to kill one of the males and the rest flee, boar meat is on the menu! Regrouping from the encounter and making sure the boars don’t return, they camp and prepare to enter Barter town the next morning.
Session Notes- This was a turning point session, and I knew the players would be presented with a big choice, but I didn't know how they would respond, and if I should take the reins and force the story into the direction I wanted it to go based on what I had prepared. I knew I had to have Boldvay’s pitch worked out, and it had to make sense to the players and feel like an accomplishable goal. I had no idea how they would respond. Would they not be willing to go based on the danger of the mission, would they be unwilling to leave the Red Frontier? Would they get the story, or would it be too complex to follow, would they find the idea uninteresting? So many unknowns. I was concerned they would outright refuse, saying they don’t trust Boldvay because he is evil. I was wondering if I should railroad the players, just have Boldvay force them to go against their will. Instead the players did what so often players do, the unexpected. They took the opportunity to negotiate a pretty penny from Boldvay for agreeing to the mission. It totally makes sense, but it was not something totally on my radar when considering how they would react. It worked out well, the players drove the negotiations, they were empowered to drive a hard bargain and get a good price for their efforts. I probably would not have railroaded them into going against their will, that feels too “story on rails”, but on the counterpoint, it's also difficult to run a game in someone else's world they created, you don’t want to do things and make decisions that go against that person’s vision. On top of that, generating a game strictly based on the random tables in real time can a) feel a little samey, rolling out wilderness encounters for the sake of rolling out encounters can get old fast, and b) generating all that info in real time without even any pre-rolled out encounters can be time consuming and make the game drag. In the end it worked out great- the players made their own uninfluenced decision, and I got them to a part of the game I'm much more comfortable running. The world of Nappendixia already lives in my head. I can generate content there on the fly with much more confidence, and in between sessions I have time to flesh out whatever aspect of the game the players are currently investigating. After getting them to Nappendixia and letting them know they would be next traveling to Bartertown, I was able to develop Bartertown quite extensively in just an afternoon. Again I was able to use some favorite literature/film characters and settings to develop my world. Why build from scratch what you can appropriate from your favorite stories? I’m a huge Road Warrior fan, and am well versed in its lore. That makes the development of Bartertown so easy. There are so many character and setting references already there you don’t have to come up with a lot on your own. Keep some, change some stuff, make it your own but still heavily flavored by that commonly known IP. It also proved that you don’t have to have things very well-developed at all. You can wait for that aspect of the campaign to become relevant, then develop it between sessions. For example, this session I had not done much thought or development into Bartertown or the lands players would have to travel through to get there. I just used random tables from the Fiend Folio, i knew i wanted to use those more unique monsters to flavor my world, but after the session I was able to think better about what are my current needs, and I was able to develop some random encounter tables more relevant to Bartertown that connected the wilderness to the town. The last half hour or so of the session I was feeling a little lacking in preparation, but during this time I was thinking of all the things I needed to develop in down time to make the next session more packed with stuff, interesting ideas and adventure.
Treasure and XP- session 36- monsters- son of Kyuss, wild boar- 452, Boldvay's stargate mission 1/2 up front payment- 7500 PCs (Cindy, Alfred, Ricarda, Beacon), 2500 Neil Young= 7607xp each PC 2522xp Neil Young.
Graveyard- (Death’s Door)- Robin- brought to -1 by the Caryatid Column, needs 1 week bed rest. #34
3 Mercenary Pikemen killed by a spiked pit trap in the Chambers of the Eyeless void, 1 at death’s door, needs 1 week bed rest. #35
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