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DiscipleofBob
2009-02-10, 01:29 AM
Campaign Journal

I thought I'd try out the whole campaign journal thing for the 4e game I'm running. It's a homebrewed world that, while remaining a fantasy setting, has some magitech elements through the natural resource of magic called mana. More story and such to follow.

The Characters

Josephine Clarice Deloria: An Indiana-Jones style aerialist rogue known to the other players only as “Jo.” Formerly of a noble family, Jo takes a great interest in archaeology and takes pleasure in exploring ruins, finding ancient artifacts, and turning them over to a historical society. Despite her background, Jo can’t stand typical noble behavior and takes pains to hide her heritage.

Aramil Dundragon: A human fullblade-wielding fighter, long-term friend of Jo. The country he comes from is the stereotypical “poor” country, but his family is pretty well off as they run an airship business gathering mana. (Mana being a magical natural resource used to basically replace technology on the main continent.) Happy-go-lucky (read: annoying and he knows it) character.

Myreii: Tiefling Feylock. Due to a houserule, she has cold resistance instead of fire resistance, as she reasons her “patron fey” is water-based. It made sense at the time. Very carefree personality. Acquaintance of Jo and Aramil.

Zeldandris Teranus: Eladrin artificer. Eladrin in this world lack the direct ties to the fey, and are instead typical high elves who have some innate arcane abilities, which can translate to the teleportation or some other abilities. On a mission from his home continent to find some missing Eladrin from his house who may or may not have sold a bunch of house property on the black market.

Syn Arl: Dragonborn Beastmaster Ranger with a bear companion: On and off again player, so not really a developed backstory.


Session 1:


Our players begin in the city of Anchorhead in the country of Cape Moon. Cape Moon is a bay filled with an archipelago of diverse, tropical islands, and Anchorhead is the waterlocked city that controls trade from Cape Moon to the rest of the continent. Roads are available but treacherous, so really the best and only safe way to travel out of Anchorhead is by river boat. The halflings control the river trade and will take on passengers in addition to continentally traded cargo.

Unfortunately, Anchorhead is experiencing some trouble, as the gates to the rivers are closed off and no ships are being allowed to leave. Seeking to expedite the process of leaving, our heroes meet at the mayor’s office to find out what’s going on. Apparently, there was a large theft of mana from an incoming ship, and most of the crew was either murdered or brutally injured. The PC’s resolve to investigate the matter and recover the stolen goods (for a small fee of course) so they can leave for better and brighter things.

After a few Streetwise checks and roleplaying where I pull some foreshadowing and introduce some colorful NPC’s, the PC’s get the general idea that they should go see Garro, the head shipbuilder at a warehouse outside the town. After a short walk, they get to said building, large enough to house the construction of an entire ship.

Now, what the players DON’T know is that this is a front for the local thief’s guild. Garro himself is a major player in a criminal society that spans the continent, and that the reason such drastic action has been taken for this one theft is because the goods were stolen without good approval. Garro’s just looking for some cheap labor to deal with the problem and save his reputation. All the players have to do is drop the right names and explain the full situation and Garro will give them his information.

However, the PC’s are unfortunate in their choice of words, telling the guards at the front entrance that they are just here “investigating” setting off the paranoia of the guards while Jo decides to sneak around the side and sneak up a drainpipe. After choosing better words and clearing up some confusion, the PC’s get let in. The guard shows them to Garro, a large, black dragonborn who in turn takes them to the captain’s cabin of the still-in-construction ship. A tiefling woman shuts the door and starts toying with a menacing-looking knife. Meanwhile, Jo has broken into a skylight window undetected and is starting to shimmy down the mast, still undetected, before realizing there’s no safe place for her to dismount without drawing a LOT of attention. Frustrated, she makes her way back up and goes in the regular way.

Garro explains that he knows where the stolen goods are, and that he has the resources to get it himself, but he doesn’t want to spend the resources when some adventurers will conveniently do the job for free (or even better, on the mayor’s dime). He offers to give the information in exchange for giving him the guy in charge of the heist alive. The PC’s agree, though OOC they’re still unsure of whether or not they’ll follow through on said promise.

The thieves in charge of this particular heist have three ships at their disposal, all docked and in separate ports across the city. The stolen goods are in one of the boats, but which one is unknown. The town guard is paralyzed because if they cause a commotion at one boat, and get the wrong one, the other two will safely sail away even without legal clearance, so some stealth is required.

The PC’s head to the first boat, not picking any one in particular, and find a single guard patrolling the deck and keeping to the side of the boat. Jo jumps in the water to disable the rudder. The artificer also decides to jump in and climb up the side of the boat to get into an eventual flanking position. The dragonborn is keeping watch while the the tiefling pretends to be drunk (actually she still is from getting wasted earlier) to “seduce” the guard. The guard is seemingly more concerned about her safety as two vicious guard drakes are chained to the main mast. The fighter eventually comes to assist the tiefling in the con. Jo disables the rudder, Zeldandris miraculously doesn’t drown by rolling a natural 20 on Athletics, and before the guard knows what’s going on, all of the PC’s are on the boat, the guard drakes are attacking and Aramil knocks the guard unconscious and overboard.

The guard drakes are only part of the problem, however, as some pirates are making their way from below deck. Jo nails the trapdoor shut with the dagger, but it’s a minor delay. The dragonborn, feylock, and artificer take on the drakes with the dragonborn ranger doing a spectacular job of defending, the feylock taking potshots from a distance, and the artificer providing all sorts of wonderful buffs and AoE’s. Jo and Aramil have the pirates bottlenecked, and even their big, shirtless brute couldn’t pose much of a threat while the other non-minion pirate botched a roll and got knocked overboard. The drakes take the longest to kill. After some searching, the first boat’s a dud.

Second boat: Same deal as before. This time the feylock merely knocks the guard unconscious with an eldritch blast. Despite her nonlethal intentions, the drakes now have fresh unconscious meat as they both go for the body. Well, that saves the trouble of two more guard drakes anyway. The pirates are smart this time (as they actually have the captain on board) and simply wait below deck for the adventurers with weapons ready. The ensuing fight in close quarters begins with all three minions taken out by a single AoE from the artificer. Other than that, there’s a soldier pirate, a lurker pirate, and the elite captain wielding a flail. The close quarters mean bottlenecking for both sides, and the dragonborn’s bear happens to be on the front line. Throwing around some racist comments from the pirates just to make them seem more evil, the soldier is effectively disabled by the fighter’s mark. The lurker does quite a bit of damage to the dragonborn, but is eventually taken down, and while the captain does enough damage to down the bear and bloody the dragonborn behind him, he eventually goes down too. So the captain is knocked unconscious and taken back to Garro by the fighter who now has earned brownie points with an international crime organization.

Third boat: No encounter, just story. The party arrives to find the boat in flames and most of its inhabitants murdered. A strange, masked knight covered head-to-toe in armor covered in glowing magic runes slowly walks out. The party quickly recognizes that this isn’t someone to mess with and stands back, watching as the knight jumps into the water and rides away on the head of a sea serpent. Future plot hook? Well, duh!

Anyway, epilogue consists of the group deciding to follow the artificer’s quest hook for the time being and head on the same halfling-chartered riverboat across the continent. They get a free ride as long as they help out with the cargo and defend the boat from any ne’er-do-wells.


Technically, we actually completed our second session, which I'll type up soon enough as well.

Panda-s1
2009-02-11, 12:20 AM
Cape Moon sounds like an awesome setting, and I wish I had thought of it. My world is basically fantasy Earth... but anyway! It seems like you guys had an awesome first session, I really do want to hear what happens next.

Though I have to say your "Indiana-Jones style aerialist rogue" totally reminds me of Lara Croft :smallbiggrin:

DiscipleofBob
2009-02-11, 11:52 AM
Very Lara Croft-ish, but without the sluttiness. (Also happens to be the DM's girlfriend. :smallwink:)

Cape Moon is fun and I haven't even finished all the islands inside yet, and it's only one country of (does quick counting) 8 countries, and that's just on the Mainland. Once I get more of the world actually published on the wiki for it, I'll post it in the homebrew section.

Admittedly, the first session is a little blah to talk about, mostly because it was an introductory session with a straightforward mission and easy encounters. The next session, in the poverty-ridden, guild-run country of Newhope, was a LOT more fun to write. Once I get back home today, I'll write up the second one.

FTR, our sessions are biweekly since I trade off games with one of the other players in the party. His game starts this week, is set in the Points of Light setting, and is largely set in the Feywild. Should be interesting, and if it's interesting enough I'll post that one too.

Panda-s1
2009-02-12, 01:15 AM
Very Lara Croft-ish, but without the sluttiness. (Also happens to be the DM's girlfriend. :smallwink:)

Cape Moon is fun and I haven't even finished all the islands inside yet, and it's only one country of (does quick counting) 8 countries, and that's just on the Mainland. Once I get more of the world actually published on the wiki for it, I'll post it in the homebrew section.

Admittedly, the first session is a little blah to talk about, mostly because it was an introductory session with a straightforward mission and easy encounters. The next session, in the poverty-ridden, guild-run country of Newhope, was a LOT more fun to write. Once I get back home today, I'll write up the second one.

FTR, our sessions are biweekly since I trade off games with one of the other players in the party. His game starts this week, is set in the Points of Light setting, and is largely set in the Feywild. Should be interesting, and if it's interesting enough I'll post that one too.

Sounds awesome. How do you go about doing the wiki thing anyway? I wanted to do that for my world just so I have a place to put everything.

DiscipleofBob
2009-02-12, 11:12 AM
Sounds awesome. How do you go about doing the wiki thing anyway? I wanted to do that for my world just so I have a place to put everything.

There are a number of sites that will set you up with a free wiki. Personally, I use wikidot (http://www.wikidot.com/). All you have to do is set up a free account (just need an e-mail address), type in the URL of your wiki, which may take a couple tries depending on what URL you want, and then go from there.

The only real catch is to get others, say, your players, the ability to edit articles and such, they have to register for accounts too, and then you have to invite and give permission to their accounts through wikidot. Little hassle, but totally worth it in the end.

Panda-s1
2009-02-12, 07:01 PM
There are a number of sites that will set you up with a free wiki. Personally, I use wikidot (http://www.wikidot.com/). All you have to do is set up a free account (just need an e-mail address), type in the URL of your wiki, which may take a couple tries depending on what URL you want, and then go from there.

The only real catch is to get others, say, your players, the ability to edit articles and such, they have to register for accounts too, and then you have to invite and give permission to their accounts through wikidot. Little hassle, but totally worth it in the end.

I'll have to try that. Now if only my players were the world building type....

AgentPaper
2009-02-12, 07:20 PM
I'll jump in and recommend Obsidian Portal (http://www.obsidianportal.com/). I haven't used wikidot or any other wiki system so I can't say for sure it's better, but I'm loving it for my current campaign, and it has more direct support of having characters and XP/loot/items/gold etc. You also get a little forum of your own to use, and can stick up a map. You even have your own blog to keep your adventure log in! :smallbiggrin:

DiscipleofBob
2009-02-26, 08:04 PM
Session 2:

Note: This session actually happened about three weeks ago and another session is Saturday. I just haven't gotten around to actually finish this one. Sorry if my writing lessens in quality, I was in a hurry especially around the end.


Before I get started, I will admit a few faults with this session:
1. We were strapped for time as one of our players had to leave around 5-ish and we started at 1 p.m. I wanted to get started earlier, but as gamers we aren't prone to getting up before noon. Sad.
2. I had a dungeon planned out, but no real way to rationalize the players going to it. It's still a new game, and I'm still trying to get the players an objective to work with for future sessions. My goal is instead of me railroading the players, they'll actively pursue the main goal however they see fit and my only job will be to have whatever NPC's, challenges, and dungeons ready that they pursue.

That being said, we had a lot of fun this session.

We start off with some roleplay as our heroes charter a riverboat with some halflings. The captain of the boat is Remy Lumere who speaks with a cajun accent and is fairly laid-back. His daughter, Cassandra, doesn't talk, but just lays on the front boat doodling and drawing. Finally, there are the wild and crazy drunken deckhands, Leroy and Jenkins (yea, I went there). The PC's ride for free as long as they do some basic manual labor: moving cargo, defending the boat, escorting deliveries, that sort of thing.

Well, basic roleplay, let the group fraternize with the NPC's and with each other. I have Cassandra give our feylock her crayon-drawn picture of a fairy in blue, even though our feylock is hiding her nature fairly well. When it looks like people are ready to move on, we move on. Next up is the south country of Newhope. Newhope used to belong to a much grander kingdom. The monarchy of said kingdom was overthrown by the various noble families in favor of a Senate comprised of the said wealthy families. This made wealth concentrated in the upper 2 percent of the population of the kingdom, until the masses were so poor they were ready to revolt. Rather than undergo a bloody civil war, the upper class decided to give the majority of the country to the masses so they could run themselves. Well, the new country of Newhope may have its independence, but the nobles still held onto their riches. Newhope is now run by a series of guilds who are forced to deal with their former rulers as a means to survive.

The party is headed to the central city of Newhope: Freeville. Yes, the city is called Freeville. When Newhope achieved its independence, one of the secession leaders (big, dumb, fighter type) decided to name the city Freeville, much to the groans of its inhabitants, who mostly refer to it as the Capital. The Capital is where ambassadors from all the guilds meet to discuss politics and actually run the country. Rarely anything gets accomplished since competing guilds rarely agree on anything.

Now with the background out of the way, the halflings allow the PC's to do as they please, as the captain just has to sell and drop off goods at the dock. They'll leave the next day.

As the group does some exploring, Myreii the feylock feels an “inclination” to head towards the back alleys of the city. The artificer follows, and the two find some slavers carrying a pale green-skinned woman with translucent butterfly wings in an iron-barred cage. One Witchfire on the taskmaster later, and the slavers ran away, leaving the cage behind. The players free the fey and let her go off on her own.

One visit to a local inn later, and suddenly the feylock starts to feel another “inclination” only this one is more like a searing pain inside her head. Following the pain like a dowsing rod, she (along with the rest of the group) is lead to a recently abandoned building.

The building itself is a weather observatory used by airship captains to plot out courses into storms to gather mana. It consists of several observatory towers pasted together on a shabby warehouse-turned-office building with a large tower of lightning rods in the center. It kind of looks like one of Dr. Wily's fortresses without the giant skull in the front.

Well, our human fighter normally deals with the people who work here, but a sign on the electric fence says there's a pest problem in the building and it would have to be shut down for later. Intrigued (and graciously biting the poorly placed plot hook) our players break in and enter.

In the main lobby, our heroes find the place expectedly empty except for part of the security system, an Iron Defender guarding the main door. At this point the players come across a running theme within this dungeon: memos from various employees to other employees on various subjects that prove to be quite insightful on how to get through the place. Apparently, the innocent receptionist had been playing fetch with the Iron Defender and inadvertently programming it to be more of a lovable pet. It even has a small, glowing key in its mouth. It takes some coaxing, but eventually the Rogue figures out the correct commands and gets the Iron Defender to drop the key while the others sneak around it into the employee area.

The players quickly discover that the world has a surprising amount of modern elements. The artificer's player even complained (well, maybe not complain so much as remain confounded about) such elements as: cubicles (apparently putting up wooden slabs for makeshift walls wasn't invented until the 1970's), indoor plumbing (if you consider a bucket with a hole in the floor and prestidigitation charms to keep the place smelling all right indoor plumbing), and electronic locks (powered by socketed mana-filled cardkeys.) The locks require a 3-digit passcode each and are scattered throughout the building. The players can't explore the full building without finding passcodes. Fortunately, the employees aren't very good about keeping secrets, and memos throughout the place give our players what they needed.

I had a LOT of fun writing out the memos for the various rooms, here are a few examples:



To Melanie

Playing fetch with the security system is very unprofessional, especially with the code key.
Please refrain from doing so in the future.

-Sharon



To Steve

I'm going to be out of town Friday. Could you just leave my paycheck on my desk in the observatory? The passcode is 712.

P.S. Don't let management know I gave you the passcode. I don't need another paycut.

-Wellington



To Linus

You still can't remember a 3-digit passcode? Well, write it down somewhere where you won't forget it. No more excuses for tardiness.

-Sharon



To Linus

Don't worry about Sharon. She's just PMSing cause she hasn't got laid since the secession.

-Steve



To Tech Support

For future reference, do NOT fiddle around with the security,ESPECIALLY not the snake things. I'm pretty sure replacing its mana source and making it go berserk voids it warranty. I'll see what I can do.

-Pres. Thaddeus VonLightning



Attn: All employees

For security purposes, it is necessary to have passcode locks on ALL doors outside. This includes balcony doors. Please commit any passcodes relevant to your workstation to memory. Do NOT leave codes written down anywhere, as they constitute a major security risk.

-Mgmt.



ATTN: Employees

If you need a smoke break, use the second-floor balcony. We kind of have sensitive materials all over the place. The passcode to get back in is 937. No, I don't care that we're not supposed to post this information. If someone breaks in, it obviously won't benefit them to read this because they've already broken in.

-Mgmt.



To Nathaniel

Thanks for helping me out. I don't think I would've been able to come if you hadn't agreed to cover on the mana chamber maintenance. The passocde is 174.

P.S. We're building our characters at level 2, right? Rolling or point-buy?

-Orwell



To Melanie

The passcode for Observatory 3 is 247. Bring that sexy nurse outfit from last time. ;)

-Harrison



To Nathaniel

Well, frankly, whether or not Harrison and the receptionist are having an affair is none of my business and is not valid grounds for firing either of them. I will, however, discuss the matter with Harrison's wife to find the best course of action.

-Pres. Thaddeus VonLightning



Anyway, the PC's manage to get to Observatory 1 pretty easily, where they find a much less lovable security system, including an Iron Cobra, two homebrewed homonculus minions, and two Clay Scouts. For anyone who hasn't played with/against them yet, Clay Scouts are mean! Everything else went down pretty easily, but the Clay Scouts were hard to take down if only because they kept redirecting attacks back at the PC's. Well, after looting the room and getting a passcode and a good piece of Warlock equipment, they make their way back to the elevator (simple pulley system powered by mana), except they didn't read the memo quite right. The passcode they got was for Observatory 2, not the second floor, so they get attacked by 4 Iron Defenders, who manage to hold their own pretty well. But Fighter-stickiness and smart use of terrain and tactics won the battle. The artificer has taken to provoking opportunity attacks so the fighter gets a free hit, and the rogue and warlock do a great job staying out of harm's way while still dishing out tons of damage. After a little more searching and turning what was supposed to be a third heavy encounter into a skill challenge (stealing construction equipment that doubled as a new socketed fullblade and tool kit for the Rogue), and the PC's move up to the second floor.

On floor 2, where most of the actual lab work and cartography is done, the PC's explore the second observatory to find 20 of the homonculus minions (small, spheroid drones that mostly just file paperwork and similar small tasks) guarding the room and doing work. One challenge to see who can kill the most the fastest later, and the PC's find the code to get to the third floor. One of the other rooms, in the meantime, is a huge mana chamber where magical energy is stored for use in the entire building. Quaffing some potions of energy resistance found in the labs, they enter the chamber.

The mana is contained in a large, spherical contraption. Memos had hinted that their might be elementals in the chamber, but docile ones that wouldn't attack if provoked. That's when all the Arcana-trained characters (everyone but the Rogue apparently), felt a heavy, evil presence which fell into the room, corrupting the elementals within the mana chamber into violent, sentient storms.

Enter several monsters that are basically refluffed versions of the Magma Beasts, plus a few generic minions. The minions were basically useless as the potions completely negated their attacks. The artillery creatures still did damage though, and I homebrewed some tornado-like monsters with an aura that did physical damage. An interesting battle, but not too hard.

Fast-forward to the third floor, the PC's finally get to the president's office, where they find another memo. This one is a threatening note to the president, blackmailing him to vacate the building under false pretenses, set up some sort of ritual on the roof with some mention of a 'Sky Palace' (not sure if the players will remember that bit of information before it comes into play) otherwise he won't see his 'mate' as the note puts it again. The PC's get the final code to the roof and hurry up.

On the roof, an old man (the president obviously) is working on some sort of machine with a bunch of lightning rods and the fey from earlier hooked together. What looks like a red dragonborn is monitoring him closely. After some initial banter in which the dragonborn intimidates the president into completing his work despite help arriving, the dragonborn, now satisfied, casts some sort of bizarre magic, knocking the president unconscious, summoning some sort of Storm Elemental from his body, and summoning some weird imp-like creatures made of lightning from the various lightning rods. Boss battle begin.

The battlefield is pretty small. There's just enough room for the PC's to move around, four lightning rods as cover (which continuously spawn minions if the current ones are destroyed) and the elite artillery of the Storm Elemental is anchored where he is and can't be moved, pushed, pulled, etc. and the minions can fly just off the rooftop. After quickly proving that he was not to be messed with, the red dragonborn (recurring villain) simply stands off on one corner content to watch the PC's do battle. Not worried about a pre-empted BBEG kill here, as that half-level to defense alone makes him pretty impossible to hit, and a powerful aura which does fire damage to enemies in melee range lets the fighter know that maybe he should just concentrate on the elemental. Yay, genre-savvy players.

Well, the fighter and the artificer go to work on the elemental, while the rogue uses her nifty new tool kit to start disabling the lightning rods. Due to the socketed concept, the lightning-socketed tool kit doesn't shock her when she does so. The warlock is alternating between pesky minions and the big elemental. The minions themselves are more of a distraction than anything, as the Storm Elemental has a ton of various push blasts including a rechargeable burst. Several of the PC's have to make saves not to fall off the rooftop, but they make what few they have to deal with. The battle goes pretty well. Not too easy for the PC's, sufficiently epic, and everyone has something to do. They eventually kill the elemental, and the red dragonborn compliments them on their work and disappears in a puff of smoke. The president, a friend of the fighter's father, doesn't wake up however, as it seems he's in a coma that even healing doesn't bring him out of.

During the epilogue, the eladrin artificer and the tiefling feylock of course take care of the innocent green fey, and decide that she really can't make it back to her home forest on her own, taking her with them for the time being. The fighter sees the president to a local healer, where they will try to wake him up, but it doesn't look promising. The good news is he isn't dead or in any real physical danger, he's just comatose. The rogue happily goes back to the hole-in-the-wall library she found out on the town earlier until it's time to leave.

Overall, a fun session. A little poorly executed on my part, as the whole purpose of the dungeon wasn't explainable until the end, but my mission is still accomplished. More plot-relevant stuff introduced, including the BBEG (whether or not the players realize it yet), the PC's finally got some good gear and another level, and got to have a lot of fun running a rather unique dungeon. I think if I go for one thing in my campaign, it's going to be the unique flavor of everywhere the PC's go to. Hopefully I won't use two similar dungeons throughout the campaign.

Next session: Dwarven water parks and Tiefling Capture The Flag Mana Shipment