Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 78

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #- 78 Session Date- 3/20/24

Time Passed-  4 days (3/20-22, rest 3/24)

Roll Call-  Godhard- C6

2x P1 hench

Finnigan- T3

` Harry- T6

37 Lt Foot

10 Lt Cav

4 Elite Lt Cav

5 Hvy Hobilar

10 Med Cav

16 Kazarian Lt Cav

8 Kazarian Med Cav

8 Lt Cav Bowmen

Adventure Log-  The party considers how to approach North Station and the Mick Jagger Mage after leaving a message to attempt parley outside the station on 3/20.  They consider taking only a small ambassadorial party, but instead decide to take their full complement of troops, partly for security, but also hopeful that should negotiations go well they may get the mage to transport them on the cubic gateways back to Bartertown.    By the time all the troops are mustered and the wagons prepped, and the Kazarian troops assembled it is midday, and they head out, camp the night a few hours away and reach it the morning of the 21st.  The party  approaches North Station with the party members out front and the army in behind, the spearmen staying close to the party as they move forward hopeful to negotiate with the mage.  As they approach, they notice some blockades have been placed across the mall staircase, and a pair of archer blinds have been constructed on each flank of the entrance.  The party calls out for parley about 200 ft from the mall entrance, when a mob of 70 gruff humanoids emerges, many wielding halberds, and some with bows and morning stars.  Finnigan calls out in orcish hoping to try for negotiations, but the creatures push forward menacingly as the Mick Jagger mage and his 2 lackeys take up positions in the archer blinds.  With talks looking unlikely, the party calls for the spearmen to make a wall, and the cav swings to the flanks preparing to possibly charge.  That is enough of a show of force to get the hobgoblins to charge and the archers to fire off a volley of shots.  The hobgoblin sub chief and his 2 bodyguards range forward looking to get at the PCs.  Godhard stops 2 of them with a hold person spell, but the halberd bearers crash into the spearmen and slay 9.  Mick Jagger and one of his lackeys pull out their shiny wand pistols but the shots go wide.  The other lackey marches forward at the rear of the hobgoblins.  The party’s cav and most of the Kazarians sprint far past the hobgoblin mob, hoping to turn about and get off a rear charge on them the following turn.  The majority of the hobgoblins get into melee, and start to take some damage from the party.  The next round the mage begins casting, and his lackey fires off another stun gun shot and Finnigan is stunned for several rounds.  Godhard tries to cast silence on the mage, and the cav crashes onto the rear of the monsters to minimal effect.  Some perish but the mob holds.  Jagger completes his spell and a noxious cloud forms 30 feet in front of him, and he calls out to “Learn the ways of the cubic gates and meet me on the other side! Defeat my man and you will learn the way.”  and with that he turns to run back into the building.  Godhard’s silence spell goes off on him but he resists, so it only affects the area and will not move with him.  The hobgoblin bodyguard manages to get into melee with Jorel the paladin and slay her, and the cav and spearmen manage to kill more hobgoblins, and take some wounds but no deaths.  As Finnigan awakens the melee about him ends with the hobgoblins slain and the human troops fatigued.  Godhard and Roland move to take on the mages lackey, as Harry hides amongst the downed hobgoblins and creeps to the lackeys rear.  The following round his backstab hits something hard, he realizes there is metal beneath the lackeys strange skin.  Godhard and Roland bash him, eventually Godhard lands a headshot and the creature’s head is nearly severed, and it begins to flail at breakneck speed and lash out in all directions, white lubricant spraying from his wounds.  Several party members are wounded in its death throes, but finally it crashes to the ground inert.  After a moment of silence the severed head begins to speak- “begin training Module 1- Motorman skills.”  It begins to ramble a lesson on cubic gate operation.  Finnigan investigates it and sees inside the open mouth several buttons, he is able to figure them to be able to play stop fast forward and rewind the module lessons.  It’s likely it is these lessons that are necessary to utilize the module workbooks along with the training areas of North Station.  With the head figured out, they police up all the treasure amongst the hobgoblin mob and amass 6000gp, 1000cp and 3 gems worth over 1000gp collectively.  Wounded, they elect to leave the battlefield and rest then head back to the Kazarians area to recover and count the treasure.  Finnigan is able to train with Harry, and the party starts to make plans on how to access the North Station to begin training on the modules.  A few days later a scout party is sent out to investigate North Station to see if the Mick Jagger mage is still there.  They find the station empty, it seems Mick had the hobgoblins build some crude barricades to partially block off the lower levels keeping the insects and lizards below ground.  On the upper levels, it seems he and his lackey are gone, most of the things they were piling up on the 3rd floor are gone, and a message left where the party left their original message to “meet me on the other side” is scrawled on the floor. No other trace of Mick is found.  It seems safe to send a party to train at North Station.  Each module takes 2 weeks of training to complete.  End of Chapter 5.

Session Notes-  This seemed a natural conclusion to the chapter.  I have always just organically decided when each chapter ends, this one started with the party wondering how the cubic gates work and ended with them having everything they need to start training on the gate modules.  There is no plan as to what the next chapter will be about.  Only session play will tell.  The party now has a new nemesis in Mick Jagger and they may see him again especially if they start messing with interrealm travel as per his challenge.  It was good to run a mass combat-ish session.  We did it simply as a combat at 1:10 scale.  I had the hobgoblin leadership and the androids and Mick fight vs the PCs and hench, and the hobgoblin troops and party mercs fought at 1:10.  The party got pretty lucky only one of their squads went down, a few were wounded but did not drop to 0.  Jorel the hench did die, so that’s starting to be a few charges off the party’s rod of resurrection.  It was probably a better way to introduce mass combat into the campaign as opposed to my origins l plan to have some armies start marching around Bartertown and see if any conflict would arise.  I think keeping it all contained to basically one encounter simplified it enough to see that it could be done without making it a multi session endeavor with a lot of setup.  I picked up a document cam for my dm setup which really improved how well we can see die rolls and minis on the discord cam.  The top down view was a little hard to light, but the separate cam made using my laptop in session a lot easier.  The new setup definitely motivates me to play more.  Running games online I find it is very important to give yourself enough space and set your area up for ease of use during sessions.  

Treasure and XP-  Monsters- 70 Hobgoblins, 3 Hobgoblin leaders 2240xp, Android 540xp. Treasure- 1000cp, 6000gp, 3 gems 7110xp= 9890xp/ 3 PCs = 3296xp each, Godhard gets 2308xp, the 2 hench get 494xp each. Add % bonus if appropriate.

Graveyard-  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)

12 Lt Foot killed by Mick Jagger M/U’s lightning bolt at North Station (session 76)

9 Lt Foot Killed by Hobgoblins at the Battle of North Station (session 78)

Jorel killed by a Hobgoblin bodyguard with 1hp at the Battle of North Station, resurrected with a Rod of Resurrection (session 78)

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 77

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  77 Session Date-  3/13/24

Time Passed-  4 days (3/13-15, rest on 3/16)

Roll Call-  Finnigan- T3

Godhard- C6

Jorel- P1 hench

Roland- P1 hench

20 Lt Foot in wagons

Cavalry escort

Adventure Log-  Kenny spends the downtime casting clairvoyance on the upper level of the North Station complex, one of his viewings shows the 2 men in jumpsuits Harry spied last session working with the Mick Jagger wizard to stack and prep more of the weird science gear in an office/ living quarters.  On the 13th Finnigan and Godhard decide to head back out to North Station to investigate, they consider both delving into the lower levels to take out the bugs and/or the lizards, considering that either or both could have some treasure in their lairs.  They also stay mindful of the Mick Jagger wizard in the upper levels as he is likely working to understand the cubic gates, or perhaps already knows of their secrets.  They arrive that evening and decide to camp a distance away and enter it in the morning.  

3/14-  Finnigan elects to sneak in as point man and get an idea of what's going on in the lower levels.  He cautiously moves in and checks the lower level stairs.  The  pernicon lair is still active, 20 or so bugs crawl about the pile of detritus in the NE corner of the first lower level.  He has the opportunity to surprise a group a 3 on patrol, but lets them pass and heads to check the sub basement, likely where the lizards lair.  He gets far enough down the stairs to see it consists of a stone platform with a 4-5’ trench spanning the north and south walls.  In the southern trench, there is a massive metal wagon or closed cart of some kind. It is connected to another car which has been ripped in half, its rear portion missing and a large dark cavern opening up into the side wall.  2 large subterranean lizards lounge on the stone platform, and Finnigan makes a hasty exit before being noticed on the stairs.  He reports all of this back to the rest of the party.  They consider hurling oil at the bug hive (They managed to procure 20 flasks from the Kazarians), but decide to leave the lower levels alone and see where the door Mick Jagger launched his ambush from leads to.  The party and 20m foot move into the mall partition and approach the door, once checked it is opened to reveal stairs leading up to the next level.  Checking that level, Finnigan finds a long narrow darkened room with a strange door set in the side wall, it is metallic and looks to have a mechanism on it.  He calls the rest of the party into the room, in it on the northern long wall is a control panel of sorts and a window in front of the control panel opens into a large room with a large metal circle standing upright at the back of the room, several of the weird bulky white suits.  Wanting to go into that room to investigate, Finnigan check the door with the mechanism on it and finds it to appear to be locked, but really isn’t the door will swing freely if tried.  Concerned there is a trap of some kind, Godhards casts find traps, revealing none.  Assured they move into the next room which is an anteroom of some kind.  The is a door on the western wall that likely leads to the big room with the metal circle.  In this smaller room there are three carrel areas that look very similar to the piloting area of the cubic gates, the secret chamber where the caster casts into.  They gather that they act as some kind of training module for pilots to practice on.  Finnigan check the door to the larger room, it also is metallic with a mechanism on it, it swings with precision and seals tight when shut.  They party moves into the room, leaving the troops to hold the door open while they investigate.  When Finnigan approaches the large metal circle, it engages somehow and the whole center of the circle begins to swirl with a sepia colored silt or static.  From the mass of static 2 man shaped figures begin to form one after the other.  The first one steps through and Finnigan falls back so as not to face the creature alone.  Godhard reacts with a dispel magic spell, and whatever arcane energy was working the circle is temporarily quelled.  The second sepia silt man about to step through the portal is halted when the machine stalls.  His form shimmers for a second then turns into small featureless gold coins, they scatter about at the front of the now darkened circle portal.  The rest of the party turns to face the first sandman, Godhards paladins quickly quaff potions of heroism.  However as the sandman steps forward an aura of magical sleep emanates and both are gripped in sleep and fall over.  Godhard and Finnigan resist and begin attacking the sandman with magic weapons, injuring it.  Finnigan a few rounds later, falls prone from the sandman's touch which causes further sleep.  Godhard takes an attack from the sandman to wake up his paladins, one of whom in turn wakes Finnigan.  Eventually they gain the upper hand and slay the sandman, who also dissipates into a pile of featureless coins.  In all they gather nearly 1500gp in coin, almost 150 pounds of weight which they distribute among the troops to carry.  They check the adjoining room on the opposite side of the circle and it is a mirror image of the other smaller training room with 3 training carrels in it.  There is some paper and other debris on the floor in this room and Finnigan finds a manual titled Training Module 1 and secures it before the party decides to leave and not explore one level higher.  They egress the building and return to Kenny and Harry at the Kazarian camp, arriving on the 15th and resting on the 16th.  

Session Notes-  It’s getting to the point where I don’t always have a lot to say in these session notes, I’ve said so much after 77 sessions worth of notes.  I’m really glad the campaign continues to move forward, powered by whatever players show up that week, whatever their motivations are at that moment.  I’m glad to have kept doing these session reports, it’s given the campaign long term juice, people are reading it consistently, my blog recently hit 10,000 views.  I’m glad my new job hasn’t impeded things, it’s definitely a tighter schedule for me and less things I do in downtime, but I continue to run no-prep, emergent play games, and they continue to produce fun results.  This was a lower attendance session, and certainly players made decisions based on the PCs not all being present, sort of a save it for later type thing, which I have no problem with, it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the game, plus I can use the downtime to make adjustments to the situation as the party’s enemies are certainly intelligent enough to notice what all they did and respond to it in some way.  We will see for next time I suppose.  

Treasure and XP- Monsters-  2 Sandmen 578xp  Treasure-  1400gp/xp = 1978xp/ 2 PCs= 989xp Finnigan, 693xp Godhard, 148xp each hench.  Add % bonus if appropriate.

Graveyard-  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)

12 Lt Foot killed by Mick Jagger M/U’s lightning bolt at North Station (session 76)

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 76

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  76 Session Date-  3/7/24

Time Passed-  3 days (3/6- 3/8, rest on 3/9)

Roll Call-  Godhard- C6

Jorel- P1 hench

Roland- P1 hench

Harry- T6

Finnigan- T3

Kenny- M/U5

Boyo- C3 hench

Mayfly- M/U1 hench

45 Lt Foot

10 Wagons/Crew

10 Lt Cav

4 Elite Lt Cav

5 Hvy Hobilar

10 Med Cav

Adventure Log-  3/6-  The party and its troops spend their downtime with the Kazarian nomads training and making good relations.  Harry brokers a deal with the Kazarians and receives a small detachment of troops (16 Lt Cav, 8 Med Cav, and 8 Lt Cav Bowmen) to assist with the retrieving of the Pernicon insect parts used for water divining.  Unfortunately they have no footmen who could go into the complex with them.  He makes an impassioned pitch of an alliance with the Iron Company and it is very well-received, relations are very friendly.  The party considers possible plans to draw the insects out of North Station, also considering the presence of the remaining subterranean lizards.  They also confirm with the Kazarians that burning the insects would likely destroy the divining power of their antennae, so mass killing them with fireball is not an option.  They hope to draw them out and run them down with cavalry, and if that fails go in and try to web them and take them out while held.  They travel with all of their troops uneventfully back to North station, arriving with about an hour of daylight left.  They spy 2 dead wild dogs outside the complex, from the wounds it appears they are fresh kills from the lizards.  Bloody drag marks heading into the open mall entrance show more were likely dragged inside for food.  Harry decided to scout inside alone using stealth and invisibility from some dust of disappearance..  He gets into the main mall landing, just before the wide steps leading down with the strange turnstile things lining the 40 foot long stairway down.  He sneaks halfway down the steps and notes the bloody drag marks going to the left, and the accumulation of insect detritus on the right.  He gets low enough to see that on either side of the wide stairwell, they double back and descend to a lower level.  On this level Harry sees a wide receiving area in front of 2 huge closed metal doors that look like they can be raised up.  To the right side of this large chamber he sees the large insect nest and several groups of 4-6 of the 2 foot long locust bodied creatures patrolling around.  One begins approaching the stairs so he retreats back outside to report to the others.  They all decide to have the cavalry make a camp several hundred feet from the mall entrance, and bring the party and the footmen to bivouac inside and hopefully draw the insects up the stairs and spear them in waves.  In the night darkness they assemble with 20 spearmen guarding the stairwell down and 20 in the rear with the party in the center directing things.  As they are about to proceed down to engage the Pernicon, the double doors down the right side mall corridor swing open revealing a strangely dressed man who is just completing the casting of a spell.  A bolt of lightning erupts 3 feet from his hands and rips through the rear guard, instantly killing 12.  At that same moment they hear the chittering of insects coming up the stairs.  Over 20 pernicon are scrambling up from below.  The party quickly reacts and manages to get off a magic missile on the caster, but he pulls out a strange looking wand with a hand grip on it and fires into the crowd of PCs.  Godhards paladin hench is struck and he falls over stunned.  The rest of the party and the troops turns to face the onslaught of insects, as Kenny manages to web about 10 of them in place right as they engage the spear wall.  Several spearmen are also webbed, but the small sized insects are held fast in the web and are temporarily harmless.  The remaining insects not caught in the web are quite effective, many slip past the troops and latch on to the party, Harry, Finnigan, and Mayfly are all grasped by pernicon and their rear pincers pierce their flesh and begin draining their Con as the door slams shut and the mage and whomever he is with are no longer visible.  The party focuses on the remaining insects and a second batch are webbed, and the party rushes to slay the bugs that have embedded themselves into their friends.  They are removed and some healing is given, but it is unknown when, if at all the lost Con will return.  Somewhat battered, they retreat to the outside to join the cavalry and rest, grabbing about 20 pairs of insect antennae before hearing the buzzing of another round of bugs coming up the stairs. Harry asks the Kazarians if the party can have a pair of the diviners when they are properly prepared and they agree.    

3/7-  After resting into the morning, they decide to attempt to bypass the bugs and lizards of the lower levels, and use Harry rope of climbing to ascend the roof the the station and try to explore the upper levels, guessing that the cubic gate training information would likely be on the upper levels.  The 7 PCs and hench climb the rope after it ascends one side of the building, they arrive on the roof to see the old stone structure the sphinx used to perch upon.  It appears similar to other cubic gate structures they have encountered.  It is centered on the flat roof, and there is a 20’ wide staircase in the SE corner leading to the top floor of the station.  Harry again decides to sneak ahead this time without magical aid.  He descends the stairs into a darkened room with a set of double doors opposite the stairs.  There are several strange lounge shaped chairs in the room also.  He listens at the door and hears movement, carefully peering out he sees 2 humans moving items from room to room down a long hallway, they do not detect him and he watches them carry some silver tubing and a strange looking bulky white suit into one room.  He hears some muffled conversations about plans to move some items into that room in preparation of something.  He gets a good look at the 2 workers but does not see the third voice.  They are also strangely dressed wearing some kind of jumpsuit.  Harry decides not to push his luck and retreats from the level, going back up the stairs, but not before grabbing a few manual-like books from small pedestals placed next to the lounge chairs.  Upon getting back on the roof, the other PCs have located the secret panel on the cubic gate structure and have opened it to find a fine looking pearl, the gate seems operable.  They leave the roof via the rope of climbing and rejoin the Kazarians and their troops to rest and travel back to the main block of Kazarians.  They plot to assault the station in a few days and hopefully surprise and defeat the magic user that seems to be inhabiting the station.

Session Notes-  So the players have been playing things very smart lately.  Their decision to approach North Station via horse and wagon saved them a lot of hardship.  The presence of the sphinx for whatever reasons was preventing the rising of the North Station complex, so if they had tried to get there via the cubic gate they would have found themselves unable to access that station and would have either had to return back through all of those stations, or forged ahead on foot hoping to find the station.  They also smartly killed the pernicon without fire, and were able to get quite a few antennae which only strengthened their already excellent relations they have made, even gaining a detachment of troops from the alliance.  They also possibly made a good ploy at trying to surprise the sci fi mage and access the building via the roof with use of the rope of climbing, realizing that its the training stuff they want so why waste more time grinding through lower level critters.  However, they have slain a good number of both lizards and bugs, and have yet to harvest any treasure from the lower levels.  This has kept the xp hauls to a minimum these last few sessions, but  a good deal of things have been revealed as to what is in this complex as far as enemies and information and players have been very positive about recent sessions.  

Treasure and XP- Monsters- 23 Pernicon 230xp  Treasure- 1000gp/xp pearl= 1230xp/ 4 PCs= 308xp, Kenny and Godhard get 216xp and each hench gets 46xp.  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)

12 Lt Foot killed by Mick Jagger M/U’s lightning bolt at North Station (session 76)