13 Age Campaign Session I -- Arrival at Endolan
If you’d like to see a much more positive review for 5E, head over to Vorpal Chainsword, where Cory may ask you to get off of his lawn.
But let’s keep things light and positive. I’m not sure how many of you out there are familiar with 13th Age: it’s an OGL game (which I like very much) and it’s written by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, who worked on Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons. That means there’s more than a little influence from the “indie” and “story games” movements, but also without the grid and miniatures.
I’m going to do a separate review of the game itself, after I finish with the one for 5E, so you can directly see the differences between the two games.
But, let’s talk about my actual game here since that’s the point of this blog post. When I specifically talk mechanics, I'll format things like so.
The session started with the group telling me how the met and would get together. One of the things I really don't like about how a lot of RPGs start is that the group meets for the first time in a tavern, and so has no reason to stay together. Rather than make something up for them, I said "why do you know each other." With the exception of Dragur, who's player arrived later, we came up with something. I had something special planned for him in any case, so I knew how he would be introduced.
Eldolan
The game is set in the city of Eldolan, some 15 mile north of the Archmage’s capital of Horizon. The Archmage is the most powerful wizard in the world, and Horizon is home to the three biggest school’s of wizardry anywhere. It’s a sort of Hogwarts where the muggles know that magic exists.Eldolan has all of the aspects of a university town that’s been around for centuries: the school effectively runs things, and if you’re not affiliated with it, or useful to it, you’re lower than dirt. That doesn't mean it’s not a nice place to live: advanced plumbing and sewage, well lit streets (lit by magical crystals that a guild of “useful” people operate), access to the best of everything from all over the world.
There are three primary schools of magic in town: the Eldritch Masters, a flashy and dramatic school filled with pretentious elves, Mithril, a school of enchanters and magic-tech gear heads, and the Arcanists of the Hidden Veil, the goth and emo casters who hope to see the truth beyond the illusory veil behind reality.
The adventure really didn't focus a lot on the schools, but once Dragur presented me his Occultist character, I knew I had to take advantage of his "shaping the hidden forces of the true reality" in terms of involvement with the school.
One of the things I like about this adventure is that it gives you a lot of detail that might or might not be useful. In this case, the Hidden Veil is going to be very important. And it's Headmaster is a gnome, which fit one of the characters backgrounds perfectly. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
The Characters Meet
That’s the setting for our adventure in very broad terms. Let’s talk about our heroes protagonists.First there is Molechai Fogwizzle, a gnome necromancer. (See: he's a gnome! Power to the red-caps).
Molechai grew up a poor urchin on the streets of Eldolan. He was going to have a very bad end and a short life when Jarin, headmaster of the Arcanists of the Hidden Veil and fellow gnome, discovered him. Jarin saw potential in the young gnome, and started to mentor him, before Molechai discovered a tome of dark magic in a long forgotten vault beneath the school’s library, and started to serve the Lich King. Soon afterwards, he left Eldolan to join the dark one-eyed master.
Molechai might have ended up as a villain in a low level adventure path, but for the fact that the Lich King’s servants look upon gnomes with utter disdain. A fews years passed, and he started to see that the glass ceiling for gnomes was very low in the undead court, so low that his red cap wouldn't fit on his head under it.
Continuing to explore where he should not, Molechai found information about an ancient dwarfish vault from an earlier Age, and set about setting up a kingdom for himself, where gnomes were welcome to be the CEO, president, and Commander in Chief.
It did not go well. It seems that this ancient vault was considered the property of the King of the Dwarves. Funny thing that, but pretty much everything under the earth is considered his property, but this vault, once opened attracted immediate attention, as it had relics of the last great war with the Underkraken.
As a part of his investigations, Molechai
Auric does not know what he truly is. He is a mechanical construct, but also has living components. He can attack with a whirlwind of spiked tentacles, (!!!) but also strangely influence the minds of those around him. Mechanically he is a forgeborn Commander. His story is going to be a particularly strange one, and his activation according to some, may herald the beginning of the end of the Age.
Auric's player meant for his character to be a 'work in progress', meaning he would gradually come into greater power. He asked me to roll for stats, and I allowed it, telling him that if he rolled less than average (which he did) I'd gradually let him be repaired so as to be at his full function. Magic items and Auric are largely going to be upgrades or repairs to his body.
Auric's background involves the Underkraken, which are dark powers with a C'thulu like nature. So I guess they're going to be a part of the campaign. The group can thank Auric for this, I suppose. The thing is, the Underkraken and their minions are meant to be an Epic level threat, so it will be a long time before they show up. Unless their GM is a real bastard that is.
While lying as low as possible as a gnome and a nine foot tall golem creature can in Axis, the capitol of the Dragon Empire, when he received a message by squirrel. Squirrels are the typical magical messengers of gnomes in the way that Owls or Ravens are for wizards. The squirrel dropped of his message, grabbed a few nuts, and went off.
I asked the group how gnome wizards communicated and was told by squirrel. So squirrels it is.
Molechai’s former master from years past had a vision of the city of Eldolan being menaced by dark, shambling forces. In his vision, he was looking through the eyes of some sort of creature who stalked through the streets, dimming the lights wherever they went. Finally, the vision turned a corner to reveal: Molechai. Jarin didn’t know what this vision, but he took the chance to reach out to his friend and asked him to come back and look into it. The two of them could surely determine what the slow, shuffling evil meant for the city and put a stop to it.
Having no immediate prospects, and wanting to put as much distance between himself and the Dwarf King, Molechai and Auric set out for Eldolan.
Along the way, the duo came upon a curious sight: a dark and brooding paladin. The two were about to get into trouble with some of the Crusader’s soldiers when Alarendel drove them off. The Crusaders men are evil, but even they respect a Paladin. Alarendel did not speak much, and seems to have a more than slightly sinister story behind him, what with the tiny bat wings and all.
Right now, Alarendel is one of the most straightforward characters: a paladin, but he has a dark secret: he's a vampire! Man, this group is getting dark. Alarendel's player told me this character is going to be having a story about redemption, so maybe we have a good guy after all. Maybe. Remember, this group is nicknamed "Diabolist Bound."
At present, Alarendel is a work in progress. We're working on whether being a vampire is a Unique Thing, a Race or even a Class. As such, this character may change ... a lot.
When Molechai decided to talk about where they were going, Alarendel surprised them by offering to accompany the duo, which was starting to look like a trio at this point.
A Roadside Encounter
And so the group continued along the road, until they had an odd encounter..A coach approached them, pulled by four coal black horses with one glowing red eye each. Their other eye had been gouged out … clearly the sign of the Lich King.
Serving as the coachman was a most unusual creature: dressed as a jester with rich court finery that sadly had seen better days, the skeletal figure beckoned Molechai forward.
Molechai’s guardian, a skeletal dog, growled, intent on protecting his master.
“That’s a good boy,” the skeleton quipped, and broke off a piece of his own arm, throwing it at the dog to catch.
Molechai’s dog slowly took it all in, trying to consider what to do. (He’s a skeleton, and none too bright).
“It’s okay, go get it boy!” Molechai patted him on the head and let him go get his new favorite thing in the world. While the dog was playing with his new prize, Molechai stepped up to the coach and regarded the coachman. Coming closer, Molechai noticed that the air temperature dropped at least ten degrees, giving a chill in the early autumn air. The horses breath could clearly be seen as they snorted at him.
“Smilin’ Jack, here m-boy! Have something for you.” And with a dramatic flourish, he presented Molechai with a wrapped present. Clearly at one time this had been a kingly gift, but the wrapping had suffered from years of abuse, and the bow that was tied on to it looked as if it would disintegrate when touched, which it promptly did. With the gift was a note, which Molechai examined. It read:
Hey short stuff! Long time no-see. All is forgiven. See you soon.
Hugs and Kisses,
--V
The gift inside was a strange book.
With that, Smilin’ Jack spurred the horses onward, and the coach thundered past the group and back towards Axis.
“What just happened?” asked Alarendel. WIth no easy answer, the Paladin wondered what he had gotten himself into, but at the same time, it seemed like the path he was walking was a part of his strange life.
 |
| Not just for Savage Worlds anymore! |
The group continued on to Eldolan.
Dragur's Shadow has a Night out
Where, the night before, Dragur was resting the sleep of the just in the Halls of the Hidden Veil. Dragur had a secret. Strictly speaking, actually, he had many secrets. The one that was relevant here was that, like many wizards, he had a familiar. Unlike any other wizard, however, that familiar was his own shadow. Sometimes talking to his own shadow made him fit right in with the other Veil Wizards. In fact, his secret knowledge of things man was not meant to know kept him in good stead with the Master of the Hidden Veil: Jarin.Dragur is going to be a very complicated character in play, but I loved his One Unique Thing: as a multiclass wizard | occultist he can have a familiar. He wanted his familiar to be his own shadow, which as an Occultist he has powers over. Sounded good to me. Additionally, Dragur is going to tie into the group through Jarin. The module begins with the idea that the group is meeting a contact, and suggests one option being it's a PC. So we did it that way.
Sometimes his shadow got bored and went out for a night on the town while his master slept. When he does this, images and reflections of what he experienced are relayed to Dragur in the form of dreams. This night was one of those nights.
Moving through the city, Dragur received scattered images of the town: taverns, restaurants, the lady wizards’ school housing… the normal sorts of things his shadow enjoyed, but at a point it started to focus on a group moving through the Commons. The first thing to note was that it was dark, something not all that unusual for parts of the commons, but in these broad streets there should be light.
Eventually the group, dressed in dark robes (wizards robes?) made their way into a large public square. There were vendor carts and stalls, but this was not a night market: it was clearly shut for the night. In the center was a stairwell that went down to an outlet for the sewers. The figures went down the stairs, some shambling clumsily, and some minutes later two of them returned.
The figures went off, but the shadow continued to follow them. Dragur received bits and pieces which he couldn't quite piece together, but the men eventually went into a large building in the worst part of the Warrens. He didn't know it, but was absolutely certain he would recognize it if he saw it again.
With that, the shadow returned to it’s normal, playful night journeys.
Jarin sets a Meeting and Everyone is Dead Tired
The next morning Jarin approached Dustin and told him that an old associate was coming into town to meet with him about a disturbing vision he had some nights previous. Could he pick him up and bring him to the Halls? Access to the school grounds was restricted and warded, so it would make things much easier if he could escort them.Dragur agreed and headed down to Hawk’s Square. As he approached, it became obvious that this was the very spot his shadow had shown him last night. “See,” it quipped, “I've always got your back.”
The square was full of people, bustling with activity with merchants buying and selling all manner of goods. Dragur looked around and saw a nine foot tall stone golem on the other side of the square. Given how the day was going, this was doubtless the group he was meeting.
Careful to skirt the stairwell, he approached the group, and there he saw that indeed, much as Jarin had told him, there was a gnome wearing a red cap, busily smoking a pipe. Dustin removed the pipe that Jarin gave him to make contact.
“Pardon me, sir, do you have any of the Old Toby?” The gnome puffed on his pipe and looked up at him.
“Never touch the stuff, it’ll rot your brain.”
And so, the greeting was confirmed. This was his contact. Quickly noting that the gnome had a skeletal dog with him, this was getting curiouser.
I asked the group to make up a greeting that gnomes would know and be able to use as a passphrase for meetings, and that’s what they came up with.
The group spoke about the normal pleasantries, with Dustin eyeing the skeletal dog, who still had Smilin’ Jack’s bone on him. Eventually he asked if the group had just arrived or had been in town last night, somewhat nervously eyeing the dog.
When Molechai told them that they had just arrived, Dragur was relieved. “Okay, then something’s about to happen here, I’m sure of it.”
As they had been talking, and Alarendel was finding that being polite to merchants in a bazaar makes on an immediate target, there was something a commotion from the other side of the square.
Two figures wearing pumpkin head costumes were shuffling into the square. A couple of young wizards took to laughing at their great costumes, but told them that the Autumn Spirit’s Ball wasn't for two weeks yet!
Slowly the figures closed on them, and they took to mocking them for being drunk at this hour of the day, when one of the figures punched a student to the ground, and then other viciously bit and tore at his neck!
Dragur warned them that more would be coming from the sewers as well. Combat was joined!
Highlights of the combat were:
- Alarendel’s stopping to keep the two students alive despite their grave injuries (har!)
- Auric's revealing he had a mass of tentacle arms (!!!) that he could whirl and attack with.
- Dragur's nonchalant attitude for the entire battle. It seemed that anyone coming near him had simply the worst luck, and managed to injure themselves, sometimes fatally.
- Molechai had the high point of the battle. After his dog was crushed by a fast zombie that lept from the sewer entrance, he took his beloved pup’s bone and threw it at the zombie saying “Smilin’ Jack sends his regards!” The zombie, confused by a shower of magical energy attacked it’s own comrades and eventually allowed itself to be put down.
The battle had ended, and the group wondered what they would do next.
The battle itself took about 90 minutes and lasted 7 rounds. I expect things to pick up significantly as the players become familiar with the engine.
Some of the group used Daily powers that they later regretted. They're a long way from being able to refresh them without giving my badguys a bonus.
I'd have to say that Molechai proved to be the most effective character in this battle: Alarendel largely spent the combat helping people, so he didn't get into the thick of things until later. Auric was in the middle of the fight but doesn't do strong damage at this point, something that we'll see again in the next session.
I really like how Dragur's powers as an Occultist work. He has a very quick turn where he gathers power, and then takes advantage of what happens on other characters turns. Nice. He didn't use a single wizard spell during the battle, and an objective outside view of things would say he didn't do anything.
Molechai had an ability (Control Undead) that changed the end of the battle to a "mop up phase" when he took over the large zombie and had it tear into the others. I ended the fight by fiat soon after.
One special item of note: Alarendel will receive a bonus silver stone for the next game for being a big-damn-hero in the game and helping out the innocent bystanders. Remember: I'm using the alternate Icon awards from Sly Flourish (see here) and this is part of it).
That's where we ended the session.
No comments:
Post a Comment