Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 75

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  75 Session Date-  2/21/24

Time Passed-  7 days (2/21-2/27)

Roll Call-  Godhard- C6

Jorel- P1 hench

Roland- P1 hench

Finnigan- T2

Harry- T6

Kenny- M/U5

Boyo- C3 hench

Mayfly- M/U1 hench

45 Lt Foot in Wagons

10 Med Cav

10 Lt Cav

4 Elite Lt Cav

Adventure Log-  2/21-  The Stigr/Rust party is newly settled in Lancebrass and begins acquainting themselves with the new settlement, checking out the amenities, and securing lodging and stabling.  Rust completes his rest from his near death experience and studies the strange nature magazines he found at B.Dalton’s.  He finds that they will give him the ability to use locate animal and locate plant 1/week, or consume the magazine completely by casting speak with plants or hallucinatory terrain.  Stigr hires 10 porters in preparation for the book recovery mission at N. Station, and Rust visits Jaroo the Druid and secures a training contact.  Godhard, Finnigan, Kenny, Harry and their respective henchmen decide to follow the first group across the Sind Desert in the hopes of meeting up with them in Lancebrass.  They depart about a week after the first group and are set to arrive in Lancebrass on 2/22.  

2/22-  The Godhard party arrives, avoiding the Sphinx location and saving a day of travel, thankfully they do not get lost.  When they reunite with Stigr and party, they recount the events at North Station, the risen building, the shops and books, and they make a plan to bring the whole caravan out to N. Station and recover the books and begin mending and translating them.  Kenny begins to put out requests for a dwarven jeweler or craftsman, and Rust shows some samples of the apparel taken from the mall structure to some Lancebrass officials, curious if they are interested in trading for the wares.  They decline, saying the odd garments are too “new wave”.  

2/23-  The party gathers with all of the cav and footmen and heads out the 30 miles over plains NNE to the N. station structure.  The travel is relatively uneventful and they arrive on the morning of the 26th.  In the predawn light they awake and break camp, just barely able to see the outline of the large 4 story structure on the eastern horizon, when a solitary figure walks out of the desert dunes from that direction.  It is a tall bony, wiry, bald humanoid wearing nothing and covered in desert silt.  From a hundred feet away, it scans the massive company and settles its pointed finger at Godhard and his paladins.  He approaches to attack.  Kenny preps a web spell to try to entangle the creature, as the footmen form a spear wall and the thieves prepare missile weapons.  Harry is unable to connect with his wrist crossbow, and when Finnigan connects with his mundane sling bullet it seems to have no effect.  The creature gesticulates at Godhard, and lets loose a beam of sonic vibrations that strike him with a  sonic attack.  He is then entangled with the web spell, and focuses on breaking through the webs 1 foot at a time.  Herry lets fly a few magic arrows and connects with a few, then Kenny decides to fireball the creature.  He notices the creature attempt to resist his magic, but it manages to penetrate, but the wiry creature ducks and covers, reducing the fire damage.  Godhard then moves forward noticing the need for a magic weapon to engage this creature.  He connects with his magic hammer, but so does the creature, grabbing his face and giving a “kiss of death”.  Godhard fails his save and dies instantly on the battlefield at the dune stalker's feet.  His paladins cry out in dismay, but remember Godhard’s rod of Resurrection and begin retrieving it from his pack.  Kenny then takes out his wand of paralysis, and again the creature succumbs to the magic and is frozen in place.  The party members with magic weapons dispatch the immobile creature and slay it while Boyo uses the Rod to resurrect Godhard, who comes back to life fully recovered.  The creature dissipates to desert dust and only a valuable gold necklace that had been around its neck remains, the party claims it and think they hear the creature utter the word “Jagger” before finally disappearing.  They collect themselves from the combat and head to the entrance of the mall dungeon, the cav guarding out front and the PCs and the Lt Foot heading into the main corridor with several light sources.  They quickly spot a large lump poised behind the empty fountain in the center of the corridor, the scaly shape begins moving in the lantern light, revealing a large lizard 20’ long with a  massive maw.  It moves to attack as the party notices the B. Dalton’s has the metal cage bashed in and a scene of gore and aht looks like a lizard nest has been made inside.  The lizard moves to engage the party and several spearmen land hits in response.  The lizard is brought to near death as a second lizard rushes from the B Dalton to also attack.  Volleys of missile fire and attacks from Godhard and the Paladins take it down, but a third lizard clinging to the ceiling, drops unexpectedly in the midst of the party, just out of reach of the spearmen.  It snaps down hard on Finnigan and he is badly wounded and attempts to withdraw behind the spear wall.  It lands another severe wound on one of the paladins, but it is thereafter dispatched.  They examine the B Dalton and find it all but ruined, it would be a lengthy recovery project to try to recover any more books, but the stash of tech magazines they secured in the Orange Julius are still unharmed and they are secured after the combat.  As they are deciding their next move, they notice the lizard tracks head from the B Dalton across the mall and down the left side of the wide staircase lined with turnstiles and descending into the darkness.  They also notice the right side of the staircase is littered with later reveals itself to be insect parts, limbs and thoraxes of cast aside exoskeletons.  They begin to hear a slight buzzing sound as the torchlight seems to have disturbed something, when they are called by a shrill whistle from their rear, at the opening of the mall entrance.  They notice a nomadic looking figure beckoning to them and they leave the mall corridor to parley with him.  He identifies himself as a Kazarian, one of the plains nomads the company encountered many months ago.  The Kazarian says the insects have been disturbed and it is best to retreat to talk about what all is down in the mall dungeon.  The Kazarian brings the party back over a few ridges to a hollow in the desert where 4 other Kazarians sit hidden under camouflage.  They say that they were part of a patrol that went out to investigate the newly risen N. Station.  When checking the shop carrels for goods, they were set upon by 5-6 giant lizards that killed and devoured several Kazarians.  They were forced to retreat to consider the best way to deal with the lizards. They reckon that the rising building structure disturbed a lair of some subterranean lizards, which are now lairing in the N. Station subway and hunting for food on land by night.  They also state that a nest of pernicon, the insects they party disturbed with its torches, also must have been disturbed or somehow given access to the building's understructure.  These pernicon are very desirable, as their antennae can be used as water diviners.  They say they would be very willing to trade for those if the party could procure them.  They immediately begin thinking of ways to conquer both the remaining lizards and the insects, and the Kazarians offer them a place to stay on the plains as they rest and recover from their first delve, and plot how to defeat the pernicon on their next visit.  Finnigan begins training with Harry.

Session Notes-  We are starting to get some traction with our new group of regular players, and we had a long time player come back after the post holiday/winter hiatus.  It was great to get a player return, it’s a first for the campaign despite several former players reaching out saying they will return, but not as of yet.  They seamlessly slotted back in because they took the time to read the last few session reports so knew exactly what was going on in game and didn’t need any lead in explanations.  It’s definitely good to get some positive use out of these session reports, they definitely take time to put out, but are invaluable to keeping your game going.  By putting everything up on my blog and publishing the links to twitter, plus the players who are reading the session reports, my blog is getting a good 20 or so hits a day, mostly reading the session reports, so someone is interested in them.  I also recently have put together a master map of all the major locations in game, but also I’m looking to catalog everything recorded in the session reports by going through them and labeling map points for every lair, location, and adventure hook they have come across in the course of the campaign.  The map I already have is pretty extensive, but it will be really detailed after going through the session reports and getting more of the small events recorded.  

Treasure and XP-  Session 75- Monsters- Dust Stalker 598xp, 3 Subterranean Lizards 1500xp Treasure- Necklace 6000gp/xp= 8098xp/ 4 PCs = 2025xp each. Godhard and Kenny get 1417xp each and their henchmen get 304xp each. Add % bonus if appropriate

Graveyard-   1 Lt Foot and 1 Camp Follower to spitting snakes and 1 Lt Foot to wraiths in the dungeon south of Bartertown.  (session 69)

3 Spearmen to Wraiths in the subway dungeon south of Bartertown  (session 70)

1 Spearman to Sons of Kyuss in the dungeon south of Bartertown  (session 73)

Rust went to Death’s Door by Blood Hawks while crossing the Sind Desert (1wk rest sess. 74)

Godhard killed by a Dust Stalker at N. Station, resurrected with a Rod of Resurrection (sess. 75)

Finished My Collection Room

 Finally got everything set up in the comic collection room.  Got a nice L shaped couch in there for reading too.

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 74

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  74

Session Date-  2/7/24

Time Passed-  8 days (2/7-2/14)

Roll Call-  Stigr- F4

Rust- D1

15 Lt Cav

4 Elite Lt Cav

Adventure Log-  Godhard and party return from their travels on 2/7 and while resting, receive word that MAster has accepted the invitation to negotiations and they make arrangements to meet and exchange the magazine.  Negotiations go well, in light of the different reported troop movements representatives of Auntie and Master agree to pledge some troops to the Iron Co in case there needs to be a response to battle.  Each faction pledges a sizable contingent of troops, mounted, foot, and archers, that the Iron Co could command in the field.  Master also proposes a construction of a railway and locomotive that could travel to and from Bartertown to the nearest Cubic Gate.  The party agrees and the forces of Bartertown are unified.  

2/7-  Stigr and new party member Rust, a druid, decide to set out on a long distance journey to the Sphinx across the Sind Desert the party had encountered once before.  He hopes to ask the sphinx for the location of any places where the books containing the strange tech information may be found.  They gather 15 Lt Cav and the 4 elite Lt Cav, and prepare additional horses to travel as water carriers.  They ask Master if he will assist their expedition, and he provides them with a 2nd level cleric to assist in water creation and healing, in addition to a supply of barrels, rope, harnesses, water and rations.  They prepare to set out the next day.  

2/8-  The party heads out to the NW past the Cubic Gate and across the SInd Desert to the Sphinx, looking for several landmarks they encountered on the last time they journeyed this way.  At dusk after passing the Cubic Gate they are beset upon by hungry Blood Hawks, whose razor talons rip into the party, severely wounding 3 men at arms and dropping Rust to unconsciousness.  He is mended by the Master’s cleric, and Stigr and the troops return the attack to the hawks with a spear wall and impale more than half of the flock of 8.  They endure a few more attacks and are able to finish off the hungry birds.  Rust is revived and the wounds of the men are bound.  The next day of travel goes uneventfully.

2/10-  The party comes across the strange circle of stone wagons they encountered on their last journey.  The cleric advises they should avoid it based on the descriptions of the undead that were encountered last trip.  They give it a wide berth.

2/11-  They come across the oasis that last time was manned by the strange crabmen.  Knowing they are very prone to desiring silver, and become quite affable when offered said silver, they approach the oasis and hail the crabmen.  They produce silver and hand over a piece for each of their men.  They rest for a few hours and refill their water stores and move on when they get the sense the crabmen want them to move along.

2/12-  The party arrives at the sphinx, fortunate not to have gotten lost on the long journey.Stigr produces the large sum required to ask a question.  He asks where he could find a library or other location of knowledge for any of this strange sci-fi tech information they have been finding.  The sphinx gives him a knowing nod, and perhaps a sigh of relief as it dismounts from its stone platform perch and dissipates as a shimmering of some magical source spreads across the ground.  Shortly after, the earth rumbles and the stine platform begins to rise.  It rises and widens until it becomes a 3 story building rectangular in shape.  As the party scrambles back from the rising andwidening building, it stops revealing a wide front entrance, and a somewhat twisted metal awning out in front of it.  The letters in large print above the entrance read- North Station Metro Transit Headquarters and Northside Galleria.  The party peers in with their best light sources and sees a wide corridor leading back to a set of wide descending stairs.  They search all around the large structure, it seems to have a few large metal doors that roll up, they are still largely covered with sand, and would need to be dug out to be better investigated.  They also discover that there seems to be an underground tunnel that extends across the rear of the building.  They see metal trusses that likely indicate some kind of underground tunnel going through the building.  They return to the main entrance. Along both sides of the wide corridor are what appear to be merchant carrels, different signage adorning the space above each carrel.  The place is thick with ancient dust and the air is stale.  The party carefully moves forward to read the store carrels nearest the entrance.  They see one called Orange Julius, it seems to be a counter at the front and some kind of kitchen at the rear.  Next to that is Chess King, a store containing apparel, some of it moldy and desiccated, some still wearable.  A store called Mattresses R Us contains bedding of some kind, and they are most interested in a store called B. Dalton Bookseller, a store containing many of the strange books, some of the thin, glossy variety, and many of the thicker, softer paper, more similar to a spellbook.  They take some time cleaning off the dusty glossy magazines, looking for ones that have images of any tech machines on them, especially tech machines with wheels.  They find several and begin making a stack they will keep.  The druid finds a few magazines on nature and gardening, and they realize that they need to move on to a nearby settlement, likely Lancebrass from their current location.  They take more books that they don’t want to carry and stash them in the kitchen of the Orange Julius, and then they find that the store carrels each have a metal cage that can be pulled down at their front, and fortunately the one for B. Dalton freely moves on its track.  They pull it down and secure it with ropes and branches and debris as best they can and head out a mile away in the waning daylight to rest and head towards Lancebrass.  The 13th they reach the plains and have an uneventful day of travel.  The cleric heals a few of the mercs, and Rust rests and regains most of his health.  

2/14-  The party is awakened by a Lancebrass patrol who asks their business, and Stigr speaks as someone who has been here before and they are granted escort into Lancebrass.  Stigr does his banking and begins making plans for the return journey and Rust begins a week of bedrest to recover from the more serious wounds he received from the Blood Hawks.

Session Notes-  So the Iron Cos hard work is paying off.  The players have constructed a barracks, which just finished construction, that will assist them with morale and troop recovery and recruitment.  They have negotiated the peace back with Auntie and Master and have access to troops to add to their own numbers of troops in defense of Bartertown.  They are agreeable to helping build a railway to the cubic gate which would speed travel and avoid random encounters of most types.  They are also toying with the idea of securing one or more of the cubic gates with a palisade and building ramps so horses can be brought up onto the stone platforms.  Overall pretty elite level play from the current group of regular attendees.  The magazines they grabbed- I’ll have to think exactly what kind of info or history can be gleaned from them, and I’ll have to figure out at least a basic layout of this North Station dungeon, and see what if anything is attracted to the large structure that is now jutting from the ground.  There is a map issue in that the current party is in Lancebrass and will still have to reconnect with the other PCs in Bartertown, but with more spell access, there are some ways to achieve long distance communications.  Stigr the fighter did level and did have the option to train in Lancebrass, however, the player opted not to as he didn’t want to spend the time, and also he wanted to train with an Iron Co member.  I’ve been allowing current players to train with former/hiatus players PCs, and then they can reinvest that cash back into Iron Cos expenses.  It’s been many sessions since the PCs have gotten a big treasure windfall, and I think they are starting to get a little light in the coffers.  Their new gem enhancing tech has helped a bit, upping their treasure by about 1000gp this session.  

Treasure and XP-  Monsters  8 Blood Hawks 224xp,  Treasure  5 gems 1560gp/xp, Weird Tech Magazines  500xp= 2284xp/ 2 PCs = 1142xp each  add % bonus if applicable.

Graveyard-  1 Lt Foot and 1 Camp Follower to spitting snakes and 1 Lt Foot to wraiths in the dungeon south of Bartertown.  (session 69)

3 Spearmen to Wraiths in the subway dungeon south of Bartertown  (session 70)

1 Spearman to Sons of Kyuss in the dungeon south of Bartertown  (session 73)

Rust brought to Death’s Door by Blood Hawks while crossing the Sind Desert (1 week bedrest)

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 73

 

Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #- 73 Session Date- 1/31/2024

Time Passed- 7 days (1/31-2/6) rest on 2/7 

Roll Call-  Godhard C6

Kenny M/U5

Hench- Boyo C3

Mayfly M/U1

Finnigan T1

Mercs- 20 spearmen in wagons

20 Lt Cav

Adventure Log-  1/31-  The party is very eager to try to negotiate a truce between Master and Auntie, as Master has not taken an audience since the magical darkness event.  With all the reports of troop movements in the Nappendixian Badlands, they are eager to unite the troops of Bartertown into one cohesive unit.  The ranger that was sent out to try to get an alliance with Hartford returns.  He reports that as he traveled to the NE to Hartford, he first passed an army of strange filthy humans in black and white face paint marching to the south.  He then, less than a week later, came upon an army of orcs carrying horrific, bloody heraldry and signage, it must be the scalphunter orcs marching to the SW, dangerously on course with Bartertown, should they go that far.  He opted to return and head back before crossing the orcs, not wanting to have 2 armies blocking  his way back home, plus feeling the need to report that important intel.  He reports this all to the senior leadership of the Iron Co.  Over the last few days, Kenny had cast mending and comprehend languages on the strange tech magazine, and transcribed all the strange articles to parchment.  He gathers many articles on construction of all kinds of things, from underwater treasure hunting machines to how to make plastic, to how to construct a centrifugal pump.  This is all the kinds of weird science stuff Master had been asking for adventurers to search for as he was paying top dollar for any finds.  They are hoping to parley that magazine into positive negotiations with Master and getting them allied against whatever forces may be threatening Bartertown in the near future.  They go to the Master’s quarter looking for his underworld guards to see if they can get an audience.  They are not granted any access to Master, he is still cloistered underground, but they do go to the Thunderdome and are able to speak with Dr. Dealgood, a mover and shaker in the quarter, runs the thunderdome contests, and after checking out the magazine agrees to get that info to Master ASAP in the hopes of getting some talks going between him and the party.  They do some gambling, but no one wins anything, and they wait to hopefully hear from Master in the morning.

2/1-  Morning comes and no response from Master, so they decide to head out south to the subway dungeon they know is/was infested with undead.  They have a gut feeling that the last time they ewer there they missed something, perhaps a missed passageway or secret door.  They endeavor to delve it in hopes of finding more weird tech documents or any new revelations on the cubic gate teleport/subway system.  Due to the speed of the wagons it takes 2 ½ days to get there, but they encounter nothing of note save some errant spider webs.  However at the end of their journey, upon reaching the depression that houses the open passage down to the subway dungeon and the newly risen cubic gate, they spy 9 Lg Spiders perched outside the open passage.  They see them from a distance, and the spicers make no move to charge them, so Kenny decides it safest to fireball the poisonous creatures from a distance.  He gets them all in its blast and they are terribly incinerated.  Unfortunately the treasure recovered from the husks of their previous victims are meager, mostly copper and a few platinum.  Having arrived at midday on the third day of travel, they endeavor to enter the wide downward angled passage, deciding to search it diligently from the entrance down.  At the midpoint in the passage, Finnigan uncovers a secret door on the side wall, behind which reveals a small vestibule room with glass panels at its rear.  The glass panels and adjacent glass door connect to a much larger room, mostly empty, but containing a few bulky suits that could fit a human, also on the floor are several long metal tubes snaking across the floor, about an arms thickness.  They investigate and it appears to be some kind of training room, and they remember from the manuals that this station, known in the past as Downtown Crossing, and it was known to be the secondary training site for cubic gate operators.  The main training station they learn was located at North Station.  They begin gathering some documents, and a few laminated placards that seem to be some kind of training exercises.  Kenny casts Comprehend languages and gets the gist of the documents in the minutes the spell lasts.  The documents and training site seem to cater to the Time/palnar travel that these devices offer.  It reveals that on the full moon, the gates can be operated to send travelers to different times to have a variety of adventure experiences.  They learn that normal travel is to a random time, but trained pilots can choose where to go among the following locales/game systems-  1.  Post-Apocalypse Sci-Fi (Gamma World), Wild West (Boot Hill), 1980s SuperHeroes (Marvel Super Heroes), 1600s New England Folk Horror (Cairn), or 1920s New England Gothic Horror (Call of Cthulhu).  They also learn that the original Cubic Gate, the one nearest Bartertown that they first encountered so long ago, is the hub for receiving travelers from other times/worlds.  New arrivals will almost always arrive at the Gate.  After gathering all that info and documenting much of it in writing over several hours, the party departs the training area, ready to move deeper into the dungeon.   They are shocked but not surprised however, to encounter 2 horrific skeletal creatures encrusted with gore and worms scampering up the angled passageway to attack.  From 60’ the party forms a spear wall and holy water is retrieved and prepped for throwing.  Unfortunately as the creatures get within 30’ waves of fear assault the party and mercs and all run in terror save Godhard, Finnigan, and 1 brave spearman.  The creatures engage Godhard and the spearman while Finnigan gathers cast aside vials of holy water from the fleeing men and begins tossing them at the creatures with deadly accuracy.  Godhard attempts to turn but fails, and the creatures launch vile worms from their open mouths and strike with flailing blows.  Godhard uses his staff to cast cure disease on the creature, hoping it will reduce it in some way, and it does- the worms writhing around the creature shrivel and become inactive.  The other creature fells the spearman as it moves forward to engage Finnigan, but misses.  Finally after douses of holy water and blows from Godhards magic hammer the creatures are felled, but not before wounding Godhard badly, and the spearman is killed, one of the worms boring into his head.  The rest of the party at that time recovers from the fear and reenters the dungeon finding the combat just ended.  A gem is recovered from the palm of each creature.  They consult their divine knowledge recalling these creatures are known as Sons of Kyuss.  They exit, it is night and they move an hour away from the dungeon and camp for the night.

2/6-  They awake from their rest and decide to take the cubic gate one station uptown, fire up the gate, and step through to find themselves back at the cubic gate nearest Bartertown.  They orient the path of the gates on the old map and find this gate was called Government Center.  Now they know the orientation of the old map and where it coincides with on the current Nappendixian landscape.  They travel back to Bartertown to rest, arriving that night and resting much of the day on 2/7.

Session Notes-  So it seems a new party dynamic is forming as a new player has joined, and several of the older players who said they would return after the new year have not returned, I definitely have seen anecdotally that players who leave the campaign rarely return after any kind of lengthy absence, despite many actually making contact saying they will return.  No real commentary on this other than it's probably just people who would like to play if real life allowed, but it has happened a significant amount of times.  This is a little bit of an odd time for a new player to join as a lot of long term things that have been brewing in game are coming to a head kind of all at once-  the movements of these armies that have been organically created in game, the learning of how the cubic gate travel things work, and trying to negotiate an re-alliance with Auntie and Master make for sessions with more question/answer/roleplay/revelations than action/ exploration, but this session there was a better balance and it remained all from player choice and random tables.  I didn’t roll the sons of kyuss outright, instead the subway dungeon has already been established as being rife with undead so for that encounter I determined what dungeon level the party had stirred interest from by their meddling in the training room, then used that random monster dungeon level list (in this case I used Fiend Folio) to choose any undead on that list.  In this case I picked dungeon level 4, then referenced that list to find the only undead on the list was sons of kyuss, so I used them.  Also there’s been 2 sessions with a 1st level character mixed with higher level characters and there has yet to be a large xp dump that boosts the level 1 to 2, approaching 3.  One thing about using Fiend Folio is I find there are a surprisingly lot of monsters that are treasure type nil, which inhibits xp acquisition.  This is a good time for a new player to join us, so if you’re someone who has been reading these session reports for a while and have been thinking you may like to join this game, get in touch, we play on Wed nights at 8pm EST on Discord, i can send you the link.  

Treasure and XP- Monsters- 9 Lg Spiders 675xp, 2 Sons of Kyuss 622xp  Treasure- 2 gems 510gp/xp, 9pp/45xp=1852xp/ 3 PCs= 617xp each.  Kenny gets 431xp and the hench get 93xp each.

Graveyard-  1 Lt Foot and 1 Camp Follower to spitting snakes and 1 Lt Foot to wraiths in the dungeon south of Bartertown.  (session 69)

3 Spearmen to Wraiths in the subway dungeon south of Bartertown  (session 70)

1 Spearman to Sons of Kyuss in the dungeon south of Bartertown  (session 73)