Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 81

Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  81 Session Date-  4/24/24

Time Passed-  11 days (4/24-5/4)

Roll Call-  Harry- T6

Godhard- C6

2x P1 hench

Rust- D2

Kenny- M/U5

Boyo- C4 hench

Mayfly- M/U2 hench

40 Lt Foot w/ silver spears

10 Lt Cav

10 Med Cav

11 Shortbowmen w/ silver arrows

5 Longbowmen

7 Crossbowmen

Adventure Log-  The party had several downtime items to take care of, and Rust the druid was not finished training until the 28th, so the session began with resolving downtime activities and some city adventuring in Bartertown.  The party had commissioned a smith to forge a large amount of silver spearheads and arrowheads and that job completes and the weapons are distributed among the troops.  Finnigan, in the course of his training, learns the strange dialect of common that is the language used in the tech documents and magazines they have found about Nappendixia.  Godhard uses the newly set up lab in the stone manor house to use the tech magazine to construct a slide rule.  Kenny and Mayfly finish their project of Mending and Comprehend Languages on any of the salvageable books they extracted from the B. Dalton’s in the North Station mall.  They manage to reassemble the following books-  1984 Encyclopedia Britannica Volume S, Asimov’s Chronology of Science and Discovery, National Geographic Atlas of the World, Dangerous Journey’s Manual by Gary Gygax, The Great Brain, and The Hobbit.  The party checks in on the council of sages that has convened to inquire about the new star in the sky and the seeming energies that have been present since the cubic gates have been awakened.  They hear that the sages are still discussing, but rumors back state that the energies have somehow strengthened the influence of the moon, and this is likely the cause of the increased lycanthropy.  The party confirms this with their recent encounters with wereboars and the werebear.  During this time Harry checks in at the Stone Manor house and all is well, several of the retired PCs maintain the place and the large block of Heavy Foot continue to do a good job of guarding the house, the Iron Quarter and its walls.  He also checks in with Master and delivers all final payments to begin construction of the railroad to the Cubic Gate.  Master confirms that the materials they liberated from the railway depot to the north are beginning to be moved south, and construction can begin on the 28th and will last 2 months.  A large work crew of Bartertowners has been assembled to do the job.  Harry brings the newly made slide rule to the engineers and they are able to reduce the cost and time of construction.  Barring any issues, the project should complete on 6/22.  The last thing that Master reports is that all patrols north and west of the rail yard supply train have stopped.  The last few patrols to enter that area were attacked and many troops were killed.  The survivors report the attacks came by night from large wolf-like beastmen.  Harry reports this information back to the party and they decide to go address this threat once Rust completes his training.  Kenny also manages to triangulate some high altitude clairvoyance spells to get a long distance look at a structure in the wilderness.  A further clairvoyance spell allows him to see it better revealing a long low structure with several out buildings and strange machinery/vehicles in wrecked piles nearby.  The building is severely damaged and covered in drifting sand.  They plot a route and plan to leave the following day.

4/28-  With all training and downtime complete the party gears up and heads out to find this werewolf lair to the north.  They take the cav and wagons and the large block of lt foot.  After the first day of uneventful travel, they realize the badlands rocky cobbles coupled with the nearby Sind Desert’s drifting sands that travel is no longer possible for the wagons, and the horses could be walked or ridden, but very slowly.  They party opts to bivouac the horses and wagons, and march on the remaining distance on foot with the lt footmen.  Fortunately the 2 days of travel go without hostile encounter, and Rust manages to ensure the group does not get lost.  

They arrive within ¼ mile of the structure the night of the 30th and elect to camp before getting any closer.  That night, in the middle of the night, Harry and the others on his watch spy several shapes loping out of the darkness ready to attack, they are slightly impeded by the terrain but are determined to engage.  They consist of 4 furry man shaped monstrous creatures and 2 four legged pets of theirs- direwolves.  The awake PCs and troops call out to the sleeping people, and engage the monsters.  Some attack the bowmen towards the rear of the camp while the dire wolves and 2 werewolves engage the silver spearmen and the alert PCs, hoping to eliminate their silver weapons.  2 spearmen and a bowmen are killed a few more wounded, and a few PCs take some damage, but after several minutes of combat in the torchlit darkness the monsters fall.  A cursory search of their tracks reveals they likely came from the structure.  But are there more inside?  The party is unsure.  They get the remainder of the night’s rest and prepare to assault the lair at dawn.

5/1-  They make to the structure itself and begin ordering the troops into formation, but the scary pallor that has come over this whole area over the last day causes them to refuse.  Godhard pleads to his most holy troops, and only 6 are willing to volunteer to go inside, and only under the aura of the paladin’s protection from evil.  Harry decides to scout ahead inside, the long rectangular structure has 2 entrances, the one to the right is largely covered in desert sand, so he enters the left entrance, the corrugated steel door hanging limply from its hinges.  He manages to sneak quite deeply to the back/left side of the structure, where he hears snarling and heavy breathing, likely more dire wolves, possibly more werewolves.  Turning to leave, he makes too much noise and is noticed.  He starts booking it for the entrance, and calls out to the party to be prepared.  They enter into the main corridor and this is where the scrum begins.  2 dire wolves engage the party and they respond in kind, setting spears and doing damage against their charge.  Just when they think they have a handle on the dire wolves however, a section off wall near where Harry was noticed comes smashing apart and 2 werewolves emerge ready for a fight, and 2 more directly behind them.  With excellent tactics and spell selection the horde of wolves are taken down but not before 3 more silver spearmen fall the the bites of the wolves.  During the melee, Harry moves forward to see where the dire wolves had come from, and he sees a kennel area caged off with metal wire fencing, rusted and picked apart but mostly intact.  Inside the fencing he sees a strange object.  A metal tank with a tube extending to a wand-like handle and trigger mechanism.  Having seen enough of the strange tech magazines, he has a guess as to how to operate the device and hurries back to the melee.  When he returns he sees the last werewolf standing, watching his other comrades fall and being moments before its own end.  It starts to quiver and make an inhuman, non-animal noise that unnerves the whole party.  Soon after the skin of the creature buckles and prickles and 6 large and many small tentacles burst from the skin.  It then pulses out a wave of blood that covers nearly the whole party, some of which it gets in their mouth and eyes.  U deterred, Harry spies a wick at the tip of the wand-like part, and a release valve on the tank.  He releases the valve, hears a hissing and lights the wick with his tinder box.  The party yells out Torch It! As fire erupts at the monster just as its 6 large tentacles go ripping towards the party.  The blast from Harry’s flamethrower does almost enough to take out the monster, but it staggers out of the fire about to attack, right when the remaining silver spearmen douse it with their remaining vials of holy flaming oil.  The creature is singed to a crisp.  After resting and healing, and setting a triage list for cure disease and remove curse, they search the werewolf compound finding 500pp and a strange plastic and glass box with buttons that has the words Chess Wizard printed on it.  They reconnect with the bivouacked cav, and head back to Bartertown for 5/5.

Session Notes-  In this session the party opted to burn some days in downtime to both get stuff done, like the slide rule, required some extra days to complete if Godhard was to be available for the session, as well as Rust who was needing a few more days to train to be available for the session.  This is still true to 1:1 time because A) the players did resolve a lot of downtime stuff at the beginning of the session, and B)  they still have to pay the time economy fee because they burned 4 days in downtime, their session stretched to 11 days, meaning when we play next week, all of these PCs won’t be available.  It’s a trade off, and they couldn’t do this every week, as it would keep making PCs unavailable for future sessions.  

Treasure and XP-  Monsters- 8 Werewolves 2320xp, 4 Dire Wolves 560xp, Blood Thing 363xp.  Treasure- 500pp/2500xp= 5743xp/ 4 PCs= 1436xp each.  Godhard and Kenny get 1221xp, and their hench each get 215xp.  Add % bonus if appropriate.

Graveyard-   1 Lt Foot- killed by the Werebear at the rail supply depot NE of Bartertown (session 79)

2 Silver Spearmen, 4 Kazarians, 4 Shortbowmen, 3 Hvy Hobilar- killed by wereboars and wild boars 1 day outside of Bartertown. (session 80)

5 Silver Spearmen, 1 Bowman- killed by by werewolves and a weird blood thing at Outpost 31 North of Bartertown (session 81)

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 80

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  80 Session Date-4/10/24

Time Passed-  13 days (4/8-18, rest on 4/19)

Roll Call-  Stigr- F4

Finnigan- T4

15 Shortbowmen

7 L. Crossbowmen

20 Lt Foot

4 Mounted Crossbowmen

5 Longbowmen

10 Med Cav

10 Porters

2 Sappers

14 Lt Cav w/ Elites

5 Hvy Hobilar

Adventure Log-  The group that headed across the Sind Desert began that journey on 4/8.  They estimate it will take 10 days, ¾ of which over desert terrain.  They have several days of uninterrupted desert travel, when on day 4 they encounter a herd of camels, and choose to ignore them.  They make it the rest of the way across the Sind uneventfully, save noticing a new star in the sky, adjacent to the North star.  The sky shimmers a bit on the night they notice it.  They enter badlands terrain, and at one point come across a pack of wild boar.  Again they give the wild animals a wide berth as the archers fire a few warning shots at them.  Towards the end of the journey, on day 9, just before the terrain around Bartertown becomes familiar, the party is set upon by that same pack of wild boar, as they rove behind the party then push forward for a charge.  They party’s rear; mounted guard respond to the threat and several boar are skewered on the set spears of the hobilar.  A few boar make vicious attacks back and a few hobilar fall.  Then suddenly from the darkness on the flanks of the party appear several wereboars, 87 in total.  The party is limited on available effective weapons, as they realize they only have access to 20 silver tipped spears, and a few magic weapons.  3 wereboar attack the PCs and some of the lt foot with silver spears, and 2 attack the Kazarians, and 2 attack the shortbowmen.  Several Kazarians fall, as well as several silver spearmen and shortbowmen, and Stigr amounts an offensive with his magic sword.  Finnigan cleverly uses silver coins to pelt the were creatures from a distance on his horse.  Casualties are heavy, but the silver and magic take down 2, and the Kazarians douse several in holy flaming oil, incinerating them.  The 2 fighting the bowmen are eventually taken down, and Stigr mounts a final combat against the supposed wereboar leader, who is strangely laden with a heavy pack.  Stigr takes some wounds from the creature, but eventually takes it down and the combat is over.  The troops are briefly unnerved, but Finnigan lightens the mood and they begin tending to wounded and policing up the dead.  Surprisingly Stigr finds the wereboars pack to be laden with over 4000cp, why he is unsure.  The party finds a nearby lair and locates over 5000sp and a fine box that serves as a potion holder filled with 7 potions, all quite useful.  They rest a bit and make it back to Barterotwn on 4/18 very tired and in need of rest.  Several PCs prepare to train and several from last session are also in training.  

Session Notes-  This session was just getting the remainder of the party the didn’t take the gate back to Bartertown back to Bartertown.  It was kind of an extension to last session’s super logistics heavy events.  It was cool to have the PCs dispersed all over the map and interacting in 1:1 time, but it’s also nice when things are a little more settled, and there’s more of a large stable of PCs all in the same settled area, giving more access to variety, and simpler record keeping.  We will see how things progress, I’m definitely enjoying letting the procedural stuff straight out of the AD&D core books sort of run the game.  I don’t feel obligated to pre-roll things out, there’s a good enough of a flow, and I’m quick enough with rulings to really let the random tables fully take over and not add hardly any wacky story stuff.  Although things like Mick Jagger and all the 80s sci-fi references are fun and I’ll continue to add them in a bit, there’s really cool things that come just from the random tables.  For example, the wild boars and the were boars, the were completely random rolls, no finessing or anything.  It was only natural to combine them into one big encounter. It was a pretty epic combat, then rolling random treasure, and doing xp in real time kind of made up the whole session and we had fun through the whole process.  It’s much more back to basics, and I like it.  

Treasure and XP-  Monsters- 7 Wereboar 2723xp, 4 Wild Boar 532xp  Treasure- 4100cp(41xp), 5600sp(280xp), 7 Potions 3400xp= 6976xp/ 2PCs= 3488xp each, add % bonus if appropriate.

Graveyard-  1 Lt Foot- killed by the Werebear at the rail supply depot NE of Bartertown (session 79)

2 Silver Spearmen, 4 Kazarians, 4 Shortbowmen, 3 Hvy Hobilar- killed by wereboars and wild boars 1 day outside of Bartertown. (session 80)

Nappendixia Campaing 2.0- session 79

 Nappendixia Session Reports Chapter 6

Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #- 79 Session Date-  4/3/24

Time Passed-  12 days (4/3-4/3, rest 4/14)

Roll Call-  Godhard- C6

2x P1 hench

Rust- D1

Harry- T6

Kazarian Cav

4 Lt Foot

10 Lt Cav

3 Hobilar

7 Wagons and crew

Adventure Log-  The session started with resolving some downtime activities.  Stigr had been in Lancebrass for several weeks and in that time recruited the following troops-  15 Shortbowmen, 7 Crossbowmen, 16 Lt Foot, 4 Lt Crossbow Horsemen, 5 Longbowmen, and 8 Sappers.  The majority of the active party remained with the Kazarians where Harry Trained Finnigan up to 4th level.  Also Godhard, Rust and a unit of Lt Foot traveled to North Station to begin Motorman training, so play began with PCs in 3 locations, and with several locked in training.  

4/ 5-  Harry and Finnigan took the troops remaining with the Kazarians to Lancebrass to rendezvous with Stigr and help pay for and equip them. They arrive on the 6th and begin arming the new troops.  On the 7th they head out for North Station to catch up with Godhard and Rust who are soon to end their training.  Surprisingly, with all of that travel, the lands of Nappendixia are absent of random encounters.  

4/8- Godhard and Rust finish their training, only to realize that the training coincides with the New Moon cycle, thus granting the motormen navigators access to some new powers.  This date is also when Harry and his Kazarian riders arrive, having split off from Stigr and Finnigan who opted to caravan the remainder of the troops, the cavalry and most of the wagons, across the Sind Desert back to Bartertown, knowing they would not have any way to get horses up onto the Gate’s stone top.  When Harry arrives, Godhard and Rust tell him of the training where they used the practice carrels and the suits in the big room to simulate a strange ethereal soupy materium that they could sort of swim through to guide the travelers through the gates to different locations and planes.  They decide to utilize the newly gained motorman power of being able to go to any cubic gate station when used on a New Moon phase, as the 8th just happened to coincide with.  Godhard, Rust, Harry, 20 Lt Foot and the 2 Paladin hench travel through the gate and choose to arrive at the original Cubic Gate not far from Bartertown.  They arrive that evening and when they arrive at the new location, the ethereal materium seems to travel up into the heavens.  They follow the vision up and to the North, and realize something- a new star, faint, but near the North Star has appeared. The dissipating etherealness seems to reveal this new star to them all.  They take the 2 day foot travel to Bartertown and when they arrive find that other sages and wise folk and nature oriented folks have also noticed the new star.  Many of them have cloistered themselves in seclusion to contemplate what the new star's arrival may mean.  They spend some time trying to ascertain if there has been any alterations to their time or reality, and think the world is as it was before.  After arriving in Bartertown, they seek and audience with Master letting him know they have a few new tech magazines to share.  They are actually granted an audience, and Master is excited to get the magazines.  He also reminds them of the potential plans to build a railway to the Cubic Gate.  He tells them it could take 20,000gp in materials and tech to do and he would like to split the cost.  However that price will only work if the party helps liberate an ancient store of railway materials up to the NE.  He tells the party that all scouting parties and work caravans get brutally attacked in the night by an unknown force.  The party decides to take the job, but does some intel first.  They pay the caster Beirut to cast Clairvoyance and Contact Outer Plane.  With those spells they are able to spy a distant forest of scrubby Joshua trees at the center there is a huge dome shaped structure with a wide arched opening.  They see piles of wooden ties, piles of sand and gravel, and long straight iron rail lines.  They do not spy any fortifications or large troop presence.  They also learn that there is not an undead presence, and there are multiple creatures that threaten the area.  They head out with the intel and arrive on the 12th.

4/12-  Harry stealths forward into the forest, but is a little noisy.  It almost immediately arouses the dusk time roving of 3 Brown Bears, Harry tries to flee back to the party but is swiped by a bear on the retreat.  The combat is fierce and the halberd men are effective against the large creatures.  Rust casts Entanglement on the bears right when their leader- a true and fearsome Werebear, emerges from the flank and tries to maul through the halberd men to get to the party.  One lt foot falls dead, and the paladin strikes the were creature with a mundane weapon, doing no damage.  Harry follows him in charge but misses with his magic weapon.  The combat readjusts and the bears are slain as the party pulls back from the werebear and the troops shower it in holy anointed oil, incinerating the creature in a hail of fire.  It collapses dead and the railway materials depot is liberated.  They search the innards of the silo and find the corpses of a few adventurers and liberate some treasure and magic items.  They rest a bit and head out for Bartertown and arrive on the 13th and rest all day the 14th.  Harry and 1 paladin hench are badly wounded by the werebear, and Godhard preemptively casts Remove Curse on them to prevent lycanthropy. 

Session Notes-  This was definitely the most time/place intensive session the campaign has seen to date.  We had downtime things to resolve at the beginning of the game, and had relevant PC in 3 different locations, some had just come back from training, and some started the session locked in training time.  It was a bit overwhelming at first due to the fact that we’ve been playing on a “set it and forget it” style of play as of late, my work has been busy and it the only way the game is continuing to flourish, it’s great for me to know that a successful session can be pulled off with no prep.  The players were great in helping unwind where everyone was and when trainings were going to end, so that’s helpful when players chip in and are invested in the 1:1 style play.  Also the PCs wanted to try to cast Remove Curse on the werebear, to see if they could return it to a human.  The rules for lycanthropy in the DMG were pretty ponderous, we could not get a quick answer, but as I read it a remove curse would only work after the creature was slain, the rules were quite muddy.  I allow anyone who wants to research the rules deeper to present their thoughts in future sessions, I’m always agreeable to hearing players interpretations of the rules.

Treasure and XP-  Monsters- 3 Brown Bear 1422xp, Werebear 1185xp  Treasure- 5x Jewelry 6200gp/xp, 2x scrolls, Scroll of Prot. from Elementals 1500xp, potion of Clairvoyance 300xp, Incense of Meditation 500xp= 11,107xp/ 3 PCs= 3702xp each.  Godhard gets 2592xp and the paladins get 555xp each.  Add % bonus if applicable.

Graveyard-  1 Lt Foot- killed by the Werebear at the rail supply depot NE of Bartertown (session 79)