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)
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