Nappendixia Campaign Session Reports Chapter 4
Session #- 59 Session Date- 9/13/23
Time Passed- 5 days (9/13-9/16, rest/light downtime activity on 9/17)
Roll Call- Harry- T5
Tomas- F5
Godhard- C5
Kenny- M/U2
10 Lt Cav
Adventure Log- The session begins with a rolling out of a downtime mission. 9/3- Stigr the fighter, Markus the cleric, 17 mounted crossbowmen and their sgt, and their battlewagon with the ballista. They are doing a scouting mission into the jungles south of Bartertown looking for the snake cultists of Resheph the Vile. They seek to find his hidden jungle ziggurat and assess his troops. They make it into the jungle mouth, limited by their battlewagon in the dense jungle. Unfortunately quite quickly, a band of over 70 bandits get the drop on them. We pause there and resolve the encounter in downtime.
9/13- Tomas had spent the previous week seeking new troops, and fortunately found 20 heavy foot with 2 sgt and a capt. He immediately consults with the party and they raise the coin to hire them and equip them in banded mail and halberds. They will be fully armed by the 18th and ready for action at the hefty cost of 3660gp.
9/14- the party decides to head out to check out the Cubic Gate, a nearby landmark that they never fully investigated. They travel swiftly and without encounter, reaching the gate in a day. Upon getting there and resting they investigate it the following day. Harry and some troops begin digging down into the foundation of the thing, a wide flat rectangular stone structure with a wide pool filled with warm brackish water and a tall anthropomorphic statue wind blown featureless by erosion. Many investigations take place, and Kenny pontificates on its arcane connections, but when Godhard casts detect magic it does not radiate magic. He wades into the tepid pool, and is unharmed, but the water is far from refreshing. Meanwhile the crew digging gets about 3 feet deep when Harry’s thief eye spots an odd seem running through 2 of the stone bricks. He pulls the digging troops out and carefully climbs in to search for traps. He finds one a false floor that would have buried him in sand had he not detected it. He blocks it off and moves to safely open the secret compartment, about a 2x2 foot alcove, at the rear they see a strange stone relief carving of an eyeless skeleton holding what looks like an hourglass and a halo or other circular object. Inside the alcove they find 2000ep and a strange scroll of ancient language, some in Common, some unknown. It is one of those esoteric techie type pieces of writing that Master was asking the party to look for, this one is all about gems, and maybe how to find them or how to cut and polish them, Harry tries to read it but is unable to make much out. Kenny makes a rubbing of the eyeless skeleton relief. In the noon sun a group of 9 giant lizards ambles towards the cubic gate likely wanting to sun themselves there. The party assesses the difficulty vs value of the lizard hides, and decides to exit the area before the herd arrives.
9/15- They arrive back at Bartertown and go to visit the sages, choosing the skills of Master’s sage over their loyalty to Auntie. Master’s sage tells them several revelations about cult activity around the area, the presence of a likely chaotic evil god, the secret powers within the megadungeon mountain, and some legends of planar travel and connections in and out of Nappendixia. After visiting the sage and discussing their new information, they discuss what their next move will be in establishing their Iron Company in Bartertown. They decide to send a party to go talk with Auntie.
Session Notes- This was a great session, really a player driven affair. We started the session really casually just chatting about life and such. Then we rolled out that downtime scouting mission, which went sideways and got a lot of laughs. We're still resolving it, the party has been captured, creating the opportunity for a rescue mission potentially. The sort of total absence of DM guidance caused the group to take the reins, they divvied treasure and some magic items, did the whole troop acquisition thing, which is quite significant. Rolling a big block of 20 heavy foot is pretty damn rare, and it was smart for them to grab it. Now they can really have a presence in a mass combat situation, that block of 20 is a nice anchor. Plus it's a great guard unit now that Bartertown has been destabled a bit. Same thing with the cubic gate trip, it was a smart play, enough travel to generate some potential rolls on the random wilderness tables, plus searching a nearby landmark they never took the time to search. And finally we used the sage tables, so really the whole session was generated by player agency and using all the cool stuff out of the DMG. Lately there has been a lot of negative talk about running sessions with Zero Prep, but that is exactly the direction I plan to take the game into the winter. I really want to get into all the guts of the DMG and let that and the monster manuals drive play for a while, the only prep being to read more Appendix N. Right now I’m reading Blood Meridian, which is its own type of inspiration, but I definitely will get back to App N after that.
Treasure and XP- 4000ep (2000xp)/ 4 PCs = 500xp each add % bonus if appropriate
Graveyard-
No comments:
Post a Comment