Begin Chapter 7
Nappendixia Campaign Session Report
Session #- 91 Session Date- 8/7/24
Time Passed- 2 days (8/7, rest 8/8)
Roll Call- Harry- T6
Godhard- C7
2x P1 hench
Boyo- C3
Kenny- M/U5
Mayfly- M/U2 hench
Marathon- R1 hench
Rust- D4
Anjar- R1 hench
Stigr- F5
Lucky- F1 hench
10 Spearmen
Adventure Log- The party has been recovering in Bartertown from their extended expedition to the Wizard’s Tower. Finnigan and Mayfly train to their next level, while Godhard cannot find a trainer for his paladin henchmen. He considers taking them back to Lancebrass via the nearest cubic gate but that route is untested. He remembers that a paladin was assisting Papagallo, and asks Kenny to use Clairvoyance to see if his fortress is still under siege. He overlooks the area from above Papagallo’s fort and the nearby cubic gate and there are no Marauders seen and the fort seems in good condition and active with a population. They also finalize their project to construct a ramp so that cavalry can be brought up onto the cubic gate platforms for transport. They come up with a wooden design that can be carried with a few wagons or be transported on the train. They pay for the work and it will be ready in a week. Meanwhile Rust inquires about the strange transformation at North Station, the building and nearby land seems to have transformed into a dark spooky castle as if a different reality has evidenced the area. He recalls all of his cubic gate training and theorizes that it is possible that the reality of another world has bled through from the cubic gate and training technology at the top of North station. He is unsure if it is something that will retreat to its own reality on its own, or if the possibility that the change will persist or even grow. The group decides to arm up with a very large party, equip themselves for whatever threats may be in the spooky castle, and also to drop off Godhard and the paladins at Papagallo’s to hopefully train with the Paladin there. There they can also check on his ongoing war with the Marauders. In addition to the massive party they plan to bring 10 spearmen and Lucky, the newly trained fighter henchman. They take the train on the morning of the 7th and arrive at the Cubic Gate at noon. They fire up the gate and make their first destination to Papagallos, planning on resting there a day and the bulk of the party heading to North Station the next day. Arriving at the gate situated ⅛ of a mile from Papagallo’s fort they spy the walls and begin disembarking from the platform. They notice several guards manning the walls trying to signal to them in an excited manner. They look opposite the fortress, and notice a trench that has been dug into the ground, at its end it grades lightly up to ground level. From the wide trench over 20 light cav emerge and make a bead towards the party, who is all on foot. 6 cav peel off and head towards a large rocky outcropping. The cav is mostly light cav armed with lt crossbows, but 3 better armed sergeant types also ride with them. The party begins fleeing trying to effect a fighting retreat but knowing they can’t outrun the cav. Kenny is injured by a volley of arrows but responds the following round with an effective magic missile as a few others lob ranged attacks. Kenny’s next spell is disrupted when he is injured by a second arrow, but Boyo heals some of his wounds. The sergeants charge into melee with the party and 2 are cut down by Godhard and his Paladins, while Harry takes out one of the lt cav crossbowmen. The final sergeant rallies his troops back, right as the 6 who broke away come into view with the rest of the Marauders who had been hiding behind the rocky outcropping. Many of Humongous' cav and footmen charge forward, accompanied by 2 cars, 2 wood juggernauts, and 2 stone juggernauts. All roll forward fearsomely across the badlands, the party makes a break for the fortress. They realize they will not make it, but Kenny desperately casts Haste out of the spellbook he found on the recovered horses from the fallen. They overload the hasted horses, Harry clutches his stone of diminution and jumps in a saddlebag. They get within 300 feet from the fortress, when a vehicle comes out from the gate, it is Papagallo himself, the vehicle speeds to meet the party, the faster ones running, the slower ones clinging to the hasted horses. Papa begins casting and a 60 foot expanse of blades erupts between the party and the Marauders. More party members clutch the sides of Papas car and the whole crew high tails it back to the fortress, just as the Marauders arrive at the gates, despite the Blade Barrier, and several shots from the ballistas. A blast from the flamethrower mounted atop the walls keeps them back. Inside the walls they reconnect with Papa. He tells them about the trench the Marauders began digging to lay ambush on anyone arriving by the cubic gate. He tells them they number about 150 plus the vehicles and the juggernauts. The Humongous has a magic user and several fighter sergeants aiding him. Papas troops number about 100 with some chariots and a car, and 2 ballista and a flamethrower. He also shows the party how he has finished building the drill and pump, and he can now pump a liquid energy source from the ground that can power the cars and do many other things. They take a look at the working car, and get a sense of what they need to find to complete building their Ford Bronco. They realize that they are under siege, and there will be no expedition to North Station until they can overcome the Marauders that currently have them penned in. They consider several plans, including sending a stealth team back through the gate to rally some reinforcements, and some plans to sabotage the marauders' vehicles. They are unsure how to approach the juggernauts however. They must spend some time planning and laying out their plan, overcoming the Marauders will not be easy.
Session Notes- So it looks like Ch. 7 will start with the party under siege. I’ve noticed lately that the time passed in-session is getting much shorter, 2-3 days instead of 8+ days in former sessions. This is largely due to them using the cubic gates for travel, and avoiding having to chart travel times and roll through all the potential random encounters. This is giving them more time for downtime activities, and is also allowing them to access different features of the map using the railroad and the cubic gates for travel instead of overland travel. They can be more direct in their decisions in game and make better use of session time. Our sessions are on the shorter side, and the freedom to get to a destination without the time sink of managing random encounters gives them more time per session to maximize their goals. Not to say I don’t enjoy random encounters, or fail to see their importance, the majority of this cqmpaign’s content has come from random tables and encounters. It is however nice that the player’s now have the option to avoid that area of the game some sessions. It was starting to feel a little stale, plotting travel and rolling and managing random encounters at the beginning and end of every session. The gates also bring their own surprises, the party never knows who or what will be waiting on the other side, as well as the fact that they haven’t been to all of the gate locations, adding more problems to the mix. For example when they got to the wizard’s tower the gate was not working correctly and they were obligated to solve the problem before they could use it to get back home. There’s definitely still more surprises and adventures connected to the gates. I’m enjoying that the party is into using them, they were motivated to get their characters trained to use them, and their plans are starting to involve the railroad and gates to maximize their safe travel options. They are limited however by the fact that the gates are fixed, and don’t grant accessibility to every location on the map. They still haven’t found an easy route back to Lancebrass for example. The campaign is at a more Advanced level, they have teased out a lot of advantage from the game world and are now approaching new situations with a higher level of analysis, always trying to get the best advantage on a situation. It’s funny though, because the real giant windfalls of treasure still seem to be from those random treasure rolls, which can come up during a random encounter just as easily in conjunction with a well thought out plan. It’s been a while since they have hit some high value jewelry, that column seems to have the most potential for huge xp dumps. Not that the game is lacking xp-wise. The players in the 2-4th level range are advancing pretty regularly, those 5 and over are taking longer as it should. We have one 7th level PC, I’m interested to see how long it takes him to get to 8. The same is true with magic items, they are starting to both show up more frequently, and be better distributed and used by the party. I always thought they were a little neglectful of using their magic items, now they are more mindful. Summer is coming to a close for me, and although I did not pull off something big like last summer’s Escape From Bree-Yark, but we did get 2 special sessions of OD&D with Chainmail which was fun and took a bit of prep for me. One of our players has decided to try a patronage, so that has been fun to start and see what kind of surprises it will add to the campaign. We are also dipping our toes back into Marvel Super HeBros next week as one of the players is running a 1 shot. I’m looking forward to being a player in that next week. After that we will go to an every other week format as we approach session 100! I’ve definitely never participated in a 100 session campaign before, and look forward to hitting that milestone.
Treasure and XP- Monsters- F3 140xp, F3 112xp, F0 15xp. Treasure- 400gp, Cloak of Elvenkind 1000xp= 1667xp/ 6 PCs= 278xp each minus the # of hench shares. Henchmen get 42xp each. Add % bonus if appropriate.
Graveyard-
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