13th Age Campaign Session III: Dream Master: a Love Story

13 Age Campaign Session III -- Dream Master: a Love Story

Note: sadly, Teri Hatcher will not be appearing in this session.

The group, in possession of a cart, and twelve rapidly cooling bodies of the Ratsmashers considered how they were going to make their move against the Dream Master.

Dragur’s shadow had done a thorough reconnaissance of the theater and the group knew there were a dozen gang members inside, along with the mysterious Dream Master. A frontal assault seemed unlikely to succeed, especially considering how hurt they were at the moment.

It was at that moment that Alarendel calmly walked up to them “hey guys, wha’d I miss?” And then he saw the bodies. “a lot, apparently.”

“So where were you?” asked Dragur.

“Attending to an important … ritual ... forgive me.”

Cut to a flashback!

And in fact, Alarendel was telling the truth. Upon hearing the risks of becoming one of the undead could be cleansed by the church, he went off with Else to do just that. At the temple he met with Odessa Rilantes, who performed a cleansing ritual, which sadly did not throw off the curse of the undead that was on him. It did something, on the other hand, which Alarendel didn't quite understand.

Elsa walked back to the Mission with him and spoke of the troubles that had been facing the city’s poor recently, including the disappearance of many of those under her charge. Alarendel said he and his friends would look into it.

On returning to the mission, Elsa asked Alarendel to attend her for a moment, and when she returned, she had a cloak with her. The cloak had originally belonged to Tarion Darkbreaker, a paladin of the Order of the Lady of Light. Tarion had gone off to fight against the rise of demons near the great rift, and suffered a sad death alone in the dark. The church returned the body along with it’s gear, which had been buried. Elsa kept the cloak as a reminder of her old friend and the loss of that friendship. She gave the cloak to Alarendel thinking he might make some use of it.

The cloak itself was teeming with the energy of lost and forgotten heroes. While he wore it, Alarendel could remember their sacrifice and draw upon that energy.

And Alarendel gets into the magic item icon-relationship angle. This means only Dragur doesn’t have a permanent magic item from Icon relationships. Alarendel is looking to rid himself of the vampire’s curse, but of course it couldn’t be shaken off that easily. The fact that he was able to interact with a priest of the light says something special about him, though.

Alarendel’s player wasn’t present for session two, so this allowed me to tie up what he had been doing, along with rewarding him with an item from his Icon relationship (the Great Gold Wyrm in this case). The item in question is from the Book of Loot, and gives the user the ability to call upon a fallen and forgotten hero to give them an extra boost. As Alarendel is trying to redeem himself, I thought this would be a good way to start that off: he has a channel to other heroes that he can call on. We’ll see how this plays out story-wise.

By the way, let's not think too much about how this fits in timing wise with the rest of the group, m'kay?

The group quickly got Alarendel up to speed on what had happened. The idea of using the bodies as an in with the Dream Master seemed to be a good one, so the group headed off to the theater.

It was almost showtime.

When they actually got into the area, they could see that the theater was falling down, and considered--and discarded--the notion of accessing the second floor to sneak in. Watching the place for a few minutes, they noticed people coming and going, clients for the Dream Master’s leaf no doubt.

The group briefly considered burning the place down (!!!) but when it was brought up that there were likely innocent people living in the buildings around it, Alarendal disavowed that notion.

It was going to be the bodies. Just before they headed up to the entrance, Molechai thought about what the gang would think about being sold bodies of their friends and former allies.

Dragur pointed out that they were taking money for the dead and nearly dead, so they would likely have a certain moral flexibility. In any case, the ruse of the sale was all they really needed to get in the door.

As Auric looked at the theater, he saw it as it had been in it’s heyday: a beautiful building with elaborate carvings and engravings. The theater had originally been called The Truth of the World.

It was then that the group thought about Auric causing issues with his towering presence. Molechai told him he had just the thing: he could disguise Auric as a skeleton.

“Are there any drawbacks to this?”

“Not at all!”

With a flash, Molechai changed Auric into the form of a giant skeleton, and he hid himself as best he could with the bodies.

Auric soon found that there were some slight drawbacks: he was now incredibly slow moving and awkward (-5 to Dexterity). Perhaps this was balanced by a feeling of extra sturdiness (30 temporary hit points). Auric was not pleased with his situation, as he was not very agile to begin with.

The discussion that convinced Auric to let this happen was priceless! Molechai has been wanting to use this particular spell for the entire game. How a giant skeleton would be less conspicuous than a mechanical man would have been an interesting question, if the group didn’t already have a cart full of corpses for him to hide in. Ah my players…

The group approached the theater, with Alarendel stepping out of the way behind the entrance doors so as to be able to get the jump on anyone who came out. Molechai and Dragur approached and banged on the door several times.

“Come in, come in,” was the caustic reply from inside after a few moments.

“Hey, we’re dropping off, not picking up!” shouted Dragur.

“We don’t take deliveries!”

“Well, that’s not what I heard, look, we have a dozen corpses out here, and we hear you’re paying top coin for them…”

The door opened, revealing one of the toughs Dragur’s shadow had told them about earlier.

“Oh, just tell the entire neighborhood about that, will you?” the wiry, shifty half-orc was clearly annoyed.

“Oh, you operate a drug house that everyone knows about and you’re concerned about a little thing like a cart of corpses? Don’t waste our time, let’s get with it, man!” Dragur clearly had experience ordering people around, causing the thug to take a look.

Dragur has an Aristocratic background and argued he’d be used to ordering people like this around. He was right!

“Hmmm, looks like they've got something for us…” he seemed ready to take the bait.

“Alright, come in and we’ll settle the price, then” came a voice from inside.

Dragur and Molechai went inside to see the seedy theater’s box-office for the first time.

Sometime, a long time ago, this had been a beautiful theater. This was not that time. A broad staircase rose to the second floor, but was obviously not in use to to the fire damage. A one-time beautiful rug, now tattered and worn, dominated the room. Scenes of famous plays from the Age were painted on the walls, sadly in disrepair.

In one corner of the room was the ticket office. A cigar chomping halfling was in the cage, and he clearly was in change of the transactions. Dragur noticed he had a crossbow nearby him.

There were three other toughs about the area, who obviously were one warning away from a fight.

“So, we've got twelve … products for you. We hear that you’re paying 50 each for them, so that would be 600 gold…” Dragur began, thinking of what he’d do if there actually was that kind of money on hand.

“Not so fast,” the halfling shot back, “that price was a special thing. Price is back to normal, now. So 15.”

“Wait a minute, these are prime specimens, not old skeletons or something.”

“Sorry, no can do…”

“How about 20?”

“Alright, you've got a deal, but only if they’re really fresh. You there,” he pointed to his toughs, “get them inside where I can look at ‘em.”

Louie, our halfling, was modeled after Louie De Palma, Danny De Vito’s character from Taxi. I only wish he could stick around longer. I enjoy doing my cigar chomping accent.

Wow! Louie De Palma was a Fifth Edition Halfling all along. Who knew?

With that the toughs went out of the theater to get their products. Things were going according to plan.

“Hey, I know this guy,” whoops! “oh, snap, he owed me money! Guess I’m not getting that back. Glad you’re dead, dude.” Things were going pretty well, until the thugs grabbed a pair of corpses and headed back to the theater … only to see Alarendel.

“Boss, we got trouble!”

“Yeah, you sure do, you stupid halfling,” said Molechai dryly. The combat was on!

Here were the highlights:

• Things went quickly, since the group got their first Ambush round in the campaign. 
• The toughs were, much to Auric’s relief, not mooks. They were surprisingly durable, however.
• Once two of them were down, the other two broke off and ran Alarendel simply let them go.
• Molechai introduced a new fact about the game: halflings hate gnomes. They do?, I asked him. Yeah, definitely. Those Halflings are just so smug. So that’s a thing now.
• Molechai’s ability to finish off opponents with 5 hit points or less is proving to be an excellent power. He can heal himself, or others with it. It turns out the Halfling had poisoned bolts, so he took quite the injury from the battle.
• Dragur, once again, appeared to be doing nothing, but caused a run of bad luck for the badguys. To an outside observer, he’s cast a single spell (Acid Arrow) and had his familar scout for him, and that’s about it. In game terms, though, he’s been quite effective with his Karmic Rebuke.
• Auric didn’t get beaten up too much in this fight. Turns out that if you aren’t a mook, he’s actually okay. The 30 temporary hit points didn’t hurt either.
• Alarendel took the brunt of the fight, as a Paladin is supposed to. He showed mercy to the two toughs at the end, which has been uncharacteristic of this group.

It’s interesting how Ambush works in 13th Age. The group nominates a character as the chief ambusher. They and the character with the highest initiative score get a turn before combat starts. The group seemed to be okay with it, so it works for me as well.

One thing about the map for this encounter: it has the problem that  lot of adventures do: you say an area is inaccessible (our second floor in this case) and then you remove all references from it from the map. I added a set of stairs up to the second floor, and was ready to improvise a viewing area with opera boxes, but the group went right into the theater.

The group’s battle was largely outside, and the things that did happen in the lobby area were over quickly (poor Louie, we hardly knew ye). The group placed themselves at the entrance to the theater and bashed their way in! We were continuing the combat. So this “combat 1.5” was on right away!

Inside the theater there were half a dozen lackeys in the seating area. To either side were the two “wizards” the group had seen earlier, one of whom had a wicked crossbow.

Up on stage was the Dream Master himself. As the group burst into the room they saw him: an older man in clothes that at one time must have been radiant and colorful, but had now seen better days.

“Ah, we have visitors, well don’t just stand there: the show’s about to begin. They say that ‘All the World’s a Stage, and the men and women merely players. The time of your exit from the stage draws nigh!”

In case you’re wondering, the Dream Master looked like a worn down version of Tom Baker as the Doctor in Doctor Who.

Yes, I am a Doctor: Doctor Feelgood!

When Auric came into the room, he saw something quite extraordinary: the Dream Master appeared more solid and real than anything else in the room, more real than anything he had seen in a long time! Thinking it might be his new vision, he switched back and forth between the elegant theater as it had been, and this ruined drug house, but no matter what he did, the Dream Master was there, as if he had always been there. He knew that he had to die. Powers in his frame that had lain dormant for the entire Age started to come to life. We went back into combat.

This was our second combat of the session, and really the wrap up for this part of the adventure. It was a bit of a beast. Here are the highlights:

• Alarendel used his new cloak in conjunction with his Hammer of Fate. He took on the appearance of a dread and powerful warrior (yay, team good guys!) and crushed the group’s foes. The lackeys and one of the “wizards” soon fell to his blows. Go team (anti)paladin!
• Early in the battle, the Dream Master threw a pouch of some substance that exploded into many colors. Alarendel, Molechai and Dragur were all affected, but Dragur’s shadow jumped in front of him to protect his master. Good idea. The colors weakened those it touched, and Molechai proved unable to shake off it’s effects! He felt a strange force tear inside himself, and some of his power to control necromantic energy was ripped from him. Once that happened, he started to see the Dream Master in the same way as Auric did. Something really bad happened!
• Dragur finally got into the thick of things, almost to a fatal result. The Dream Master pulled a hidden lever and a huge sand bag flashed by him, narrowly missing. The wizard with the crossbow fired two bolts into him, which were skeleton bones and drained his life force. Only Auric’s timely intervention where he slowed the entire combat down and gave everyone a breath saved him from death.
• Auric quickly made it to the main stage and faced the Dream Master, who until that time had been trading quips with the group. The moment he found himself faced with Auric, he showed genuine fear! Taking a couple of heavy blows, he shrieked “show’s over!” and escaped through a trapdoor into the basement.
• Alarendel charged the crossbow wielder, who it seemed had had his luck run out. He ran him straight through with his sword. “Death … is only the beginn…” he managed to croak out before dying before them.

So we had two combats in quick succession. Alarendel changed the look of his Hammer of Faith spell to be a dark and dreadul image, using his new cloak to boost its power

Auric really shined in this encounter, mostly because it was much harder than I originally planned, all based on his background. Auric has a sort of favored enemy bonus against special opponents like this: +1 to hit per tier and +1d6 damage per level. He made quick work of the Dream Master, who fortunately had an escape route planned.

Dragur had his comeuppance at last in this session. He’s been skating by for the most part, not being attacked since he doesn’t really appear to do too much. Not this time. The crossbow wielding bad guy (who’s name is Paulos) had him dead to rights. Fortunately Auric has the ability to slow the tempo of combat, reducing the Escalation Die by one and allowing everyone to spend a Recovery.

But it was Molechai who was in really bad shape with this encounter. He lost one of his powers to the Dream Master. Auric’s player told him that if they didn’t kill the guy, he’d lose it for good! Not a happy camper at this point.

The group assessed the situation. It looked like they’d either have to break through the trapdoor or take the creepy stairway. Molechai voted to immediately pursue the Dream Master into the basement, as time was a wasting.

“Hold on a moment,” said Alarendel. “What was it with this ‘death is just the beginning’ thing that this one said… sounds like he might plan on coming back.”

The group knew that followers of the Lich King normally continued their service after death, as powerful undead. On investigation, they found that this ‘wizard’s’ body was marked with the sign of the One-Eyed Lord on his chest. What to do?

Auric solved the problem by dismembering the body brutally. “Any other problems? Because if we don’t stop the ‘Dream Master’ he’s going to go beyond all of our reach.”

The group stopped me for a moment and we discussed whether they could just end things and take a long rest at this point. 13th Age has a rule where after four major battles, you can take a recovery and get all of your powers back.

I told them they could do this, but the result would be Molechai’s loss of his power. That was not something anyone wanted to deal with, so they went on.

With that, Molechai bravely let Alarendel lead the way into the creepy basement.

Like all creepy basements, it was dark. There was a drip, drip, drip of water, and it smelled bad. Something had died down there, and something was doubtless still alive there. As if on cue, Alarendel heard a growl from the far side of the room.

Dragur stepped up and created a group of glowing sprites who illuminated the room. Alarendel saw that there were a lot of boxes and crates down there: storage from the theater days no doubt. He could see that the basement was divided into two large rooms, and the second room was still out of range of the light. He stepped down into the room.

And heard the growl again. Two vicious creatures lunged at the group out of the debris strewn about the room. They were jet black, and dog like, with huge fangs and claws.

Yes, I had them fight some minions of Gozor. Gozor was very big in the 12th Age.

Where is Bill Murray when you need him?

In the back of the room, the Dream Master stepped up behind the protection of his beasts. “Sorry folks, have to dash.”

With that, he started to fade out of existence. Strangely, Molechai and Auric saw him gradually becoming more and more real to them. Battle was joined.

Yes, this was a third battle this session. It was also a quick one. I put a die down on the table that was on a 3. The group did not wait to find out what would happen when it counted down. The fight didn't go long. Most of the group were able to maneuver around the dogs and get at the Dream Master. He didn't last long.

Alarendel cleaved mightily into the Dream Master, and he was dead. At his death, countless flashes of light and color emerged from his body, flaring into the air.

A purple stream of light struck Molechai and he was himself again: his power had been returned.

Hundreds of ribbons of multicolored light raced up the stairs and out of the theater. Somehow the group knew that they were parts of people’s souls, returning to their bodies.

Sadly, far too many of the ribbons paused in the air, and eventually exploded into multicolored fireworks. The group knew this meant that the person the energy had been drawn from was dead.

The Dream Master’s work in Eldoran was finished.

And that was where we ended the session.

Note: this showdown with the Dream Master represents a significant departure from the adventure as written. Blame Auric.

Was I really ready to strip poor Molechai of one of his powers? We’ll never know.

Molechai does have the extra benefit of rolling a D20 whenever he recovers his powers after a long rest. We’ll see what happens to him when he rolls a ‘1’.

I think this session went very well. We had a suitable climax to the Dream Master’s schemes, and the group was seriously taxed by the battles. They've earned a full rest now, and we’ll discuss what they’re up to next time. There was some information with the Dream Master, but we’ll let you learn about that for next time.

Until then, Make Mine 20!