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Devacorian
2019-02-07, 12:50 PM
I've decided to keep this campaign journal as a way to organize my thoughts and keep myself accountable to my players. This is yet one more Red Hand of Doom campaign journal, but some of you may find it interesting nonetheless, since it takes place in my Fantasy Wild West setting that I've been developing for a while. Here is a map I've made for the game. (https://orig00.deviantart.net/dbbe/f/2018/072/e/1/borderlands_by_devacorian-dc5svao.png)

Patrick, Paul, Harry, Tanya, and Emily: Should you stumble upon this journal before we complete our game, read no further! This thread contains major spoilers!

First, some notes!

The game takes place in the Borderlands, my Wild West take on the Elsir Vale. Brindol is the fantasy equivalent of El Paso, Texas, and is technically the territory of an Empire based in the fantasy equivalent of Boston. I wanted to draw heavily on that Wild West, early America vibe. Some names have been changed for flavor or to better match the setting. The most important changes are

The Dawn Way is now the Dawn Railway, a train track that runs from the East into the Borderlands.
The human settlers of the region have an intensely antagonistic relationship with the Tiri Kitor. Obviously taking a lot of inspiration from real-world examples of colonizers coming into conflict with native peoples; most specifically stealing ideas from James Cameron's Avatar (more on that later).
The hobgoblins are based off a fantasy troperific interpretation of some ancient Meso-American civilizations. Their dedication to Tiamat is fueled by the belief that she will remake the world with the blood sacrifices the Kulkor Zhul make to her.
Rhest is replaced by the former hobgoblin kingdom of Tiahuatlan, the capital of which was a city built on Lake Rhest.



We play once a week, typically Friday or Saturday night. I'll try to post our campaign journals on Sundays to keep everything moving. There are other important setting-based changes to the campaign that I'll elaborate on as they become important.

PrismCat21
2019-02-07, 05:21 PM
I'm excited to read your entries. I'm in a Wild West type game right now myself, its ended up even better than I thought it would be.

Don't get discouraged if not many people reply after your entries. People will still be reading them and wanting more. Good Luck!

serow
2019-02-07, 08:35 PM
Looking forward to this!

Saintheart
2019-02-07, 08:51 PM
We shall watch your career this game with great interest!

Devacorian
2019-02-08, 11:00 AM
Catching up to where we are now in one long burst. I'll be keeping track of the days elapsed here to make sure I don't mess anything up.

The PCs have already spent an adventure's worth of time together in the setting, and are familiar with most of the major players. The setting is recently post-war, with most of the PCs sympathetic to the losing side, a noble kingdom that was destroyed. The side that won this conflict is an empire in line with the early 20th century Prussian Empire.

A high-level wizard ally NPC has gone missing. He was last seen at Drellin's Ferry, headed toward the bridge to investigate the high levels of goblin activity. The PCs' mutual contact, Lady Kaal (reflavored as a railroad magnate/crime boss), has contracted the PCs to find the wizard and send him to her. The PCs don't trust Lady Kaal particularly, but she opposes Lord Jarmaath. Jarmaath bought his patent of nobility from the Empire, and has subsequently cozied up to the Imperial court to ensure his rank and position. He's a good-hearted guy, but his political allegiance has caused my players to navigate away from siding with him and the power struggle with Lady Kaal.


The hobgoblins sprung their trap without any of the PCs detecting their presence. As his first action, the party druid cast fog cloud to obscure the party. I elected not to have the hobgoblins charge in and start swinging with disadvantage, and instead readied actions and forced the PCs to break their concealment.

The hobgoblin sergeant, reflavored as an "eagle knight" (ornate headdress, body paint, taloned gauntlets and macuahuitl (https://aztecvault.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/20151217_005738.jpg?w=620)), I gave a couple of 4e-inspired abilities that allowed him to act as a better commander to the other hobgoblins. The idea was to instill in the players that once they took him down, the others would have a harder time rallying against the PCs. The got the message, but their rolls quickly went to hell.

The doomhand cleric successfully cast hold person on the paladin, who has the highest damage output in the group, and successfully maintained him there for several rounds. To play up the idea that these hobgoblins were zealous fanatics, I gave the cleric a 4e-inspired ability that let him explode any minion or bloodied ally under his command, including himself. One of the minions charged the group in the fog cloud, shouting "for Tiamat!" in Goblin, and explode with a draconic roar.

The hell hound, meanwhile, was a beast. Setting him loose on the party made them fear for their lives on top of everything else... I almost felt bad. Almost.

Then the paladin saved against hold person and the hell hound was dead within a single round. The two bloodhunter PCs wolf-packed the cleric, who detonated himself with a fanatical fury.

The group found their groove pretty quickly in this fight. Other than their low rolls, they demonstrated decent tactics and thoughtful decision making. I have faith that they may survive the coming conflict.


The group spent day 1 holed up to wait out a storm (random weather generator) and made it to Drellin's Ferry on day 2.

Devacorian
2019-02-11, 02:04 PM
The PCs met the militiamen outside Drellin's Ferry early the next morning. The dragonborn sorcerer attempted to keep her face hidden (dragonborn are illegal in this setting, an idea stolen directly from Matt Colville), but was recognized due to a good roll on the guard's part. Her fears were groundless, however, as the guards (having rolled percentiles for them) were happy to see one of the incorruptible dragon knights this far out on the edge of civilization.

The PCs mentioned the hobgoblin attack, and the guards summarily escorted them to the town proper. They set the PCs up in Delora Zann's tavern, and Captain Anitah over there as quickly as possible.

The group explained their situation (looking for the wizard) and the hobgoblin attack. Anitah pointed them at Vraath Keep and Zann directed them to Jorr for help. They spent Day 2 in Drellin's Ferry, shopping and preparing for their excursion, and slept at Delora Zann's that night.



They found Jorr's cabin around noon on Day 3. He was ornery and standoffish, but a couple good Persuasion rolls on the PCs' parts got them a helpful companion (statted as a potential replacement PC, and therefore rather powerful... which was fine. They needed all the help they could get). They snuck in to Vraath Keep rather efficiently as a result (pass without trace is just too good in 5e...).

My party is built rather well, as far as combat goes. A CotM druid and two lycanthrope blood-hunters for tanks, plus a paladin and the druid for heals, the paladin and one of the blood-hunters for DPR (the image of a Wild West white-hatted marshal wielding a Colt revolver, glowing white with the power of an active Divine Smite... man, it just gets me every time!), and a mage-hunter with high mobility in the form of the dragonborn sorcerer -- all of it together means that I can safely bump the difficulty of my encounters.

As a result, I had a full contingent of hobgoblins (8), a hobgoblin "eagle knight" (lieutenant flavored with an ornate headdress and macuahuitl instead of greatsword), a doom hand cleric, the goblins, and worgs. I restatted Karkilan as a werewolf bugbear so my blood-hunters had something to make them feel special, and Koth became a specialist in earth-magic. Oh, and the manticore too. My PCs were fighting for their lives, and considered retreat several times, but always managed to pull it out in time to swing the battle back in their favor.

The manticore got away, winging it for the main Horde to report to Kharn. They found communications from Koth to both Kharn and Azarr Kul, as well as a letter from Kharn. Kharn's report was short, clipped, and contained only essential information. Kul's message was full of honorifics and titles, "your eminence's" and all that. My players got what I was angling at: the faction has essentially two leaders, and Koth was a Kul-loyalist and fanatic of Tiamat.

They also found a dozen human prisoners in the dungeon, awaiting a caravan to take them to the Horde, where Azarr Kul would sacrifice them to Tiamat. They were rescued, and made their way back to Drellin's Ferry, where they would later help persuade the town council in favor of the PCs' arguments.

Finally, they found the map, and the references to the "bridge" all made sense. I changed things around to better fit my setting in that Varanthian, now a white dragon bonded to Koth, guarded the bridge. My wyrmlords are all bonded to their respective dragons with empathic links, though it's not a partnership so much as a constant struggle for dominance and control. They knew they would be dealing with "something" named Varanthian, but they didn't know what.

The session ended with them resting in the ruins of the keep, having found the secret treasure and the history of the previous lords of the castle.


The PCs spent Day 2 in Drellin's Ferry, shopping and preparing. Day 3 was spent assaulting Vraath Keep with Jorr, and ended with them sleeping in the keep.

PrismCat21
2019-02-12, 11:42 AM
I'm enjoying the write-ups.
Those familiar with Red Hand of Doom can follow along rather well and understand everything going on. We know basically who everyone is and what to expect. It all makes sense to us.
Those that aren't familiar, I can easily see getting lost, losing interest, or just not understanding what's going on. They won't know who these people are. They won't know why there was a patrol that seemingly attacked the PC's from nowhere or for no reason. A little detail of who/what the NPC's are and what they're doing, and why, would be helpful.

I'm concerned with Varanthian showing up so early. She's supposed to be a super scary and hard fight all on her own. She can easily TPK a party not prepared for her. I know you probably made her more manageable for the bridge fight, but it really does seem like it would be a waste to use her here. The bridge is where the PC's figure out that the hobgoblins are working with a real purpose and has powerful allies. It's where they, hopefully, discover the massive army headed to Drellin's Ferry, and they realize the full scope of what they're dealing with.

I hope you can pull it off having Varanthian there, and that it don't take away from the overall campaign. She seems like she'd be less special at this point in the game.

Good Luck!!

Devacorian
2019-02-27, 12:15 PM
I'm enjoying the write-ups.
Those familiar with Red Hand of Doom can follow along rather well and understand everything going on. We know basically who everyone is and what to expect. It all makes sense to us.
Those that aren't familiar, I can easily see getting lost, losing interest, or just not understanding what's going on. They won't know who these people are. They won't know why there was a patrol that seemingly attacked the PC's from nowhere or for no reason. A little detail of who/what the NPC's are and what they're doing, and why, would be helpful.

I'm concerned with Varanthian showing up so early. She's supposed to be a super scary and hard fight all on her own. She can easily TPK a party not prepared for her. I know you probably made her more manageable for the bridge fight, but it really does seem like it would be a waste to use her here. The bridge is where the PC's figure out that the hobgoblins are working with a real purpose and has powerful allies. It's where they, hopefully, discover the massive army headed to Drellin's Ferry, and they realize the full scope of what they're dealing with.

I hope you can pull it off having Varanthian there, and that it don't take away from the overall campaign. She seems like she'd be less special at this point in the game.

Good Luck!!

I appreciate the feedback, PrismCat! I'll be honest, I'm not really writing this campaign journal as an introductory guide for RHoD. I'm writing it as a campaign diary, under the assumption that my readers either have run or played in the adventure, or are intelligent enough to understand that they're missing a big piece of the picture. Personally, I'm not really interested in going through each NPC and explaining who they are and what their role is. That's what the adventure book is for.

I've changed Varanthian from the way she's written pretty drastically. She's not a half-fiend behir (which doesn't make sense in 5e anyway), but a white dragon worshiper of Tiamat. The absence of the white dragon from the adventure always seems jarring to me, so I inserted my own. As a white dragon, she was the youngest (and most fanatical) of the Red Hand dragons. Plus, Ozzy as a full-grown adult green dragon (complete with a web of schemes and minions) seems far more fitting for the Ghostlord's plotline later on. As for Varanthian, the fight against her went really well! More on that in my next post.