Here we are: Born to be Pirate Kings! [Campaign Journal]

[Morph Bark]

Hold that, Playground!

Half a year ago and more I wanted to create a campaign journal. But the day came when my memory kept failing, and I forsook the idea. I could have created a campaign journal detailing two campaigns at once, one where I taught 4E players about 3.5 and one where they taught me about 4E, detailing the many near-death experiences of a half-elf warlock who kept adopting kidnapped children he saved in order to make up for burning down his old orphanage. Sadly, he passed away, telling his paladin cousin with his dying breath to take care of the children.

The paladin died 3 seconds later.

Now that I have started a new campaign with the players from back then, I could once again forsake the idea of making a campaign journal. But not on this day! An hour of unfinished sentences and shattered memories, but it is not this day! This day, I write! So by all that I hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you read, Men of the Net! (Women and Children are also more than welcome. )


Campaign Notes!

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The world is slightly more technologically advanced than the standard DnD setting, rather like Eberron. Pistols and renaissance-era firearms are not completely uncommon, though many still prefer medieval weaponry. Besides that, development of airships, trains and similar is well underway, mainly in the elven lands.

Why so? It is because the elves are prettymuch a race of maniacal scientists who love to cackle and create stuff. They're not nice. They're wanderful, marvelous, fantastic, glamorous, enchanting, terrific, the works. But not generally nice, no. Might have to do with the fact they live right between the Sea of Morning Mist and a large desert - that'd wreck a mind after years. Hence it should be no wonder that they are suspected of wiping out the gnome races, leaving them near extinction, causing the kobolds to rise up from the depths of their homes, causing real kobold plagues in some areas.

Trade is plentiful between continents, which has also attracted many of questionable or poor background to venture out to sea and make their fortune, be it fairly or unfairly - through piracy or otherwise. At one of the centers of the setting is Iratown, a town filled with - a boatload or a score or so - pirates. Built into the side of a mountain, it has several layers stacked on top of one another, all which look out over a large bay. The man in charge there is the Pirate King, but mostly the pirates do as pirates do. In Iratown, a pirate's worth and how much respect he gets is typically measured by how high the bounty on his head is. However, due to the Pirate King having forced a truce (mostly symbolical) between them and the nearby human kingdom of Acia, the kingdom will not attack Iratown directly. Hunting bounty hunters is considered a national sport.

Aside from elves, humans, kobolds and the near-extinct gnomes, the world is mainly populated with goblins, catfolk and human-descended races. Goblins are almost able to claim monopoly on piracy and trade in a way - there is always at least one goblin involved. And where one goblin is, there are more. They have a fierce rivalry with the catfolk though, in spite of them being allies. As for the rest - well, get a human drunk enough and he'll mind not what kind of kids he gets.

Notes given to the players prior to the campaign's start

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Quarterport: A port town by the sea, Quarterport is a relatively quiet town. It is known for being quick to receive news, partially thanks to its local newspaper.
Population: 1500. Government Aligment: Lawful Neutral. Races: humans.

Iratown: A multi-layer city built into the side of a mountain on an island, Iratown has a great view over a bay where many pirate ships are docked. It is a free city-state ruled over by the Pirate King. It has a truce with the human kingdom of Acia, protecting pirates while within the city -- but not outside of it. The citizens of Iratown have a kind of “ranking system” based on how high the bounty is that is put on your head. Hunting bounty hunters is seen as a national sport.
Population: 5000 (estimated). Government Aligment: Chaotic Good. Races: mainly humans and goblins.

Stormport: A port town close to the elven border, it is home to a black market dealing in looted elven items. Ships have reported being attacked by elven pirates in the waters surrounded Stormport.
Population: 2000. Government Aligment: Chaotic Neutral. Races: humans.

Acia: The human kingdom. Has small population of planetouched in the capital.

Elven lands: The make-up of the elven lands is largely unknown to the people of Acia, other than that it borders on the desert. The elves are known for their experimentation with magic and for wiping out almost all of the gnome races.

Goblins: The language of the goblins is used as the primary language among pirates, such is the prevalence of this race in that profession. Goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears commonly live on islands and near the coast.

Catfolk: Few members of this race have found their way to Acia, so all they know of them is that they live across the sea to the west. Goblin traders occasionally bring in catfolk goodies.

Kobolds: Often called a plague by many humans, kobolds live mostly underground, preferably under mountains. They used to be the nemesis of the gnome race until practically all gnomekind was wiped out. Nowadays they’re mostly known for calling other people’s mothers ugly things.

Continent Map

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The left half belongs to Nadia, who got that map from her mother, who was a PC in an earlier campaign in the same setting. The right half they found on the ship Nadia arrived on in the second session.

Introducing: The PCs!

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Vido Swiftriver, LE Chaos Gnome Beguiler 7/Mindbender 1: The player sneakily took his last name and town of origin from the very 4E adventure we had been playing not too long before starting on this campaign. He appears to love messing with others and has a hatred for kobolds.

Atrox, NE Kobold Dread Necromancer 8: With a name I can barely remember the correct spelling of, here is the antithesis to Vido. Being born in a tribe revering black dragons and being led by dragonwroughts (which are born from special eggs), his egg was an in-betweener, which caused the other kobolds to allow him to remain in the tribe even after he started necromancing all around. Eventually though, he practically got kicked out and has been wandering ever since.

Nadia Stormclaw, CN Catfolk Warblade 4/Swordsage 1/Warblade +1 {MISSING IN ACTION}: The daughter of this player's previous catfolk warblade character in the same setting, causing her to prettymuch have a ready-made background. Harbours the desire to be the captain of a massive pirate crew one day, just like her mother.

Aaron, NG Whisper Gnome Swordsage 2/Dragonfire Adept 1/Swordsage +2/Shadow Sun Ninja 1 {DECEASED}: This one has the same name as the player's previous character that he played in the same setting, but that one was an aasimar. Aaron is reserved, but deep down has a love for the awesome. Player plans on going Shadow Sun Ninja and do some infinite healing for the entire party in combo with the kobold. However, their alignments may quite clash.

Annie the Pineapple Knight, LE Tiefling Swordsage 8: With yellow skin, green hooves and hair and a barbed spiny tail, Annie does somewhat resemble a very humanized pineapple. Named after "ananas", the Dutch word for pineapple. Secretly royalty.

Boagetash, CG Half-Fey Elf Scout 6/Beastmaster 2: The one name I couldn't bother to remember, the character was the final one done so the concept isn't quite so solid yet. Plans on being skillmonkey mainly and previously considered going for Mounted Combat. He is of a tribe of elves from the forests, so he has little knowledge of his city-bound maniacal cousins (though I may inform him before they get there).


- - - Newcomers:

Tharion, LN Draconic Dragonborn Warforged Crusader 8: Servant of his human necromancer master, now bodyguard to Zetsu under his master's orders. Tank. Replaced Aaron.

Zetsu, Necropolitan Evolved Undead Star Elf Binder 1/Warmage 4/Anima Mage 2: Half-Brother to Boagetash from their father's side, this eye-less old bag of bones is a master of boom who binds forgotten gods and demons to the remnants of his soul. Is curious how his human master has survived for over two hundred years without dying of old age, even after turning him into an undead. Replaced Nadia.

Jim: Jim. Jim has been occassionally used as a fill-in character for players who did not have their sheets with them (primarily Nadia's/Zetsu's player). Jim loves hugs and food and will wrestle anyone to the ground if they resist, resulting in Jim shouting "JIM WIN!" Jim has recently gained the ability to turn Jimself into a bear and throw Jimself at people like a thrown rock. Jim does not like Atrox. Jim likes Boagetash.

Now to see what effect this first-ever-written campaign journal intro will have...

[Grendus]

Subscribed. Looking forward to reading this as it develops.

[Morph Bark]

Slight update: the scout's player told me his name today (he had to look it up due to it being the most complicated), so that has been put in now. The account of the short first session's happenings should be coming soon.


EDIT: Also, miss-remembered the kobold's name. It's Atrox, not Atraxas.

[Tyndmyr]

You had me at "Pirate Kings".

I'm picturing a crazed adventuring party, consisting solely of guys with pirate hats and eyepatches(obviously), storming onto a ship. And then queen will play.

[Morph Bark]

Took perhaps a while, but here is the results of the first session! (The second session has also been had, but I've been both procrastinating and been too busy to finish that entirely yet, and perhaps the first session is too long a read anyhoo.)


The First Session

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Our story starts off in a small and dark room aboard a pirate ship, where five figures sit slumped on the ground, chained to the walls. As Nadia’s player is absent for this session due to a LARP weekend, there is only five players present. Vido, Atrox and Boagetash are chained together decided by random rolling with a d6, to great chagrin of them all - the dormant racial hatred between Vido and Atrox is immediately established. Aaron silently thanks the gods for not being chained any closer to them. Annie doesn’t care much.

They’ve been held prisoner on the ship for at least three days now, with Boagetash being occasionally brought to the deck to help with rowing as they lack one man. He therefore knows there are thirteen crewmembers (the ship’s main sail is even emblazoned with a bloody red “13”) plus a passenger: a bard who seems decently armed.

After the group next receives their meal, Annie decides that she’s bored with being on this ship and picks the locks on her cuffs and attempts to free the others as well. Boagetash immediately falls to the floor and begins to search for a way out, away from the kobold and gnome who drive him so mad with their bickering. He finds that in a corner of the room some of the planks have rotted and there is a small hole. He breaks it further open and crawls down to the lowest part of the ship. There he moves around trying to find more holes to get out, but instead finds some slits between the wood where light falls through and he can see the captain of the ship talking to the bard. He makes note of the captain’s particularly fancy hat and chair and the fact that his eagle wild cohort is locked and chained by the leg in a cage. Boa silently swears revenge on the captain for doing that to his birdy buddy.

He sneaks back and they all formulate a plan to break out when suddenly there is noise at the door. They all hurriedly put back on their shackles and pretend nothing has happened. The bard opens up the door and sends down Jim, an orc who is the ship’s strongarm. He frees up Boagetash and takes him up to shackle him to his rowing position and the other four are left behind. They quickly get out of their shackles again and go down the hole, go further to the back of the ship and punch a hole in the ceiling there. Crawling up through it, they find their gear, along with the hammocks of the crew and the cargo. They proceed to go up the stairs and enter the kitchen, easily subduing the cook and tying him up. Atrox takes a sniff of the meal the cook was preparing, but considers it too be un-kobold for his tastes.

Meanwhile, Boagetash talks to Jim in a friendly tone and asks him politely to release him from being chained to the rowing block so that he has more freedom to move. An easy Diplomacy check later, Jim complies, gullible that he is. Boa still has his hands in chains together, but is no longer chained to something else.

They sneak down and back to their cell again where they start making some noise, causing the bard to come over and check what’s going on. Looking down from the top of the stairs into the dark room, he sees little, so he descends the stairs and is promptly assaulted by a zombie that Atrox had summoned (“Summon Undead I, yeah!”) along with the others, who had pretended to still be in chains. Before he is killed, he manages to shout a warning to the others, which Boa hears and immediately he tries to escape. Jim hears the warning as well and immediately drops on top of Boa, keeping him down with his weight - shame for Boa his grapple modifier isn’t high enough to escape! However, his Diplomacy modifier is and by the time the others arrive on deck, Boa has been freed from the sweaty shirtless orc.

It is at this point that we ended the first session, which had been rather short, mostly due to needing to still stat up Annie and Boa for the most part. Hopefully it wasn’t that long to read, considering the session was about 2 hours of actual play!

[dsmiles]

I...I...think I'm in love.

Very well-written, Morph Bark. I''ll be watching this thread.

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[Morph Bark]

Glad you enjoyed the read! I'm on my way to finishing the write-up for the second session, so that should be up later today after I get done cleaning hell.

[dsmiles]

Glad you enjoyed the read! I'm on my way to finishing the write-up for the second session, so that should be up later today after I get done cleaning hell.

All Nine Hells, or just one?

EDIT: I kind of wish I was in this campaign. I've been waiting for someone to want to run a pirate campaign. FOR. EVAR.

E to the D to the IT: Are your pirates the singing and dancing version?

[Morph Bark]

E to the D to the IT: Are your pirates the singing and dancing version?

The bard was. Sadly didn't last long though, and I've only once had a DMPC tag along with a party of two that was a bard. They ended up accidentally killing him with a botched spell that collapsed a cave on top of him and a friendly NPC.


By the way, at the start of the second session Annie's player told me she hadn't really figured anything out backstory-wise, so Annie prettymuch functionally has amnesia with regards to her past. Still need to work out how far back she can remember things, but this means I got stuff to play with. Any ideas?

[Otherworld Odd]

Ah, this brings me back to a small sidequest I did once that involved an abandoned ship and going down into the water-filled hull to combat zombies and a vicious half-orc druid/necromancer... thing. Alas, that one ended with me sacrificing myself to Gorum via crossbow bolt through the brain. >.>

[Morph Bark]

I lost two-thirds of my typings for the second session due to not having saved that when my computer decided to "hey, let's restart for some updates!" So for now here's just Part 1 of Session 2.

The Second Session - Part I

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We begin where we left off, starting right with combat! Atrox going first he summons another zombie, which frightens the crew, who immediately leave their rowing positions and move closer to the back of the ship (where Jim and Boa also are). Atrox notices that Jim has his 10 gp sunglasses on his head, which he needs to protect his pretty vulnerable kobold eyes from the sun. Obviously, this means that Jim is now Atrox’ prime target.

The crewmembers are pretty easy to dispatch, but slowly mist begins to gather and get thicker, so that by round 3 very few attacks still hit. Aaron is surrounded by crew members at this point with his back against the main mast. Boa has flown upwards to the crow’s nest to take out the crew member there with the idea of sitting there until the fight is over it seems. By the way, have I mentioned yet how Boa’s wings are butterfly wings with a flaming skull pattern on them? In hindsight, I almost feel like there should have been some pirate making threats to pull his wings out and use them as wall decorations.

By the time the mists are thickest, a shadow comes to loom over them and with a loud CRASHING NOISE THE LIKES OF WHICH THOR WOULD BE PROUD OF a second ship rams the one the PCs are on from the right! Splinters of wooden wreckage fly around, killing the remaining crew members on the deck and throwing around a lot of rubble, instantly changing the battlefield. In the misty shadows the party members look about in confusion, most of them hurt by flying wood as well. With a thud following almost immediately after the crash, they find a catfolk woman in their midst, half-conscious. As Atrox goes below deck to search for any sign of Jim or his sunglasses, Aaron and Vido help the newcomer get up and clear-headed again, explaining the situation when asked. Boa flies to the other ship and Annie attempts to use the Mighty Throw maneuver to throw herself onto it, but fails.

NADIA has joined the party!

[dsmiles]

Awww...I was hoping you'd "pirate up" the narrative a bit.

[Morph Bark]

I'm not going for a silly feel all that much in this campaign, to be honest. Some pirates the players encounter might have a... "speech impediment" though.

Anyhoo, I wrote up the rest, this shows that the second session was considerably longer and more active in play than the first...



The Second Session - Part II

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Whilst most the party tries to climb onto the new ship (Annie gets the tied-up cook and Mighty Throws him on board) and Atrox is still below deck, Boagetash enters the captain’s quarters in search for his bird, going down a stairs. He finds the cage and lifts it up, but right when he does so, he is stabbed in the back! With a YAAAARRGHH! the captain launches himself on top of Boa and stabs him rapidly with his rapier, dealing heavy damage and causing Boa to flee as fast as he can, dragging the cage with him. On the stairs the captain catches up with him and trips him with his whip, making him and the cage drop to the steps. In the meantime, Annie and Nadia have heard the commotion and come rushing back and into the ship, confronting the captain.

It is at this point that I look at Annie’s player and ask her if she is wearing pants.

Nadia’s player voices that he really wants to try tripping the captain with Nadia’s spiked chain, but Annie is in the way. Disgruntled, he instead decides to have Nadia voice admiration for the captain’s fancy hat and a desire to loot it from his corpse. Boagetash crawls between the legs of Annie and Nadia to safety, dragging the cage with him and setting his eagle free once outside. The captain sees he is facing trained opponents who outnumber him, so he retreats and hides in his quarters. Nadia tells Annie the hat is not worth taking as the ship they’re on is rapidly sinking by now due to the crash, so they climb back on the new ship.

Atrox comes back up and - not having found his shades, nor Jim - and shouts down through the captain’s door: “Hey captain, where is Jim?!” No answer. “Well F you too, captain! Your mom’s ugly!” (At this point I should mention it is a staple of our campaigns that kobolds have a habit of insulting the mothers of their enemies.)

Atrox fervently continues to search for his shades, so Vido decides to mess with him by casting a Silent Image version of them. Atrox makes his Will save and the two exchange insults. At this point, Atrox is the only one left on the deck of the sinking ship, whilst Nadia is below deck on the other ship, investigating it.

Then the captain returns.

As the DM, I dramatically hold up my hands to my side as if I am holding something heavy sideways.

The look on all my player’s faces is well worth it as Nadia’s player utters: “You’re shatting me, he has a gatling gun?”

He has a gatling gun, or more accurately, a gatling crossbow, handcranked, firing 1d4 bolts per round that deal 1d10 damage each.

And Atrox is right in front of it.

His hero instinct kicking in, our resident Whisper Gnome Swordsage leaps from the other ship and attempts to Mighty Throw the captain into the ocean, but fails at this attempt. The two ships then break apart and drift from one another as the ship starts sinking more and more rapidly. Aaron is amazingly lucky as I keep rolling 1s for the captain’s amount of attacks per round. As Atrox flies to safety, Aaron leaps from the ship and Nadia throws him a grappling hook. The captain manages to shoot down both Nadia and Vido, who were reeling Aaron in, as the ship goes down. Aaron manages to climb on board anyway and immediately stabilizes them both. Together, the three watch the other ship go down. The captain has gone back into his quarters. Boagetash curses because he had hoped to put the captain’s head inside the bird cage.

Being in safety now, Annie looks for clues on the new ship’s maps to see where they are. She finds a fancy new hat, a red tricorne with small green feathers and a bear and a unicorn stitching on the inside. Then she checks the cargo: barrels of rice and soy milk. A Knowledge check later the players come to know that the elves in this world are vegetarians (which I made up on the spot because Annie’s player is also a vegetarian), because they find animals and such too valuable as subjects for experimentation (which fits with the idea for elves I already had); this second part has Annie’s player join Aaron and Nadia on the “elves are bad” side.

Boagetash repairs the ship with Aaron’s help while it is sinking due to the damage it has sustained - luckily not as much as the ship they were on before though. He hangs from the grappling hook outside because he would otherwise be claustrophobic (one of his Flaws). Vido and Nadia just lie on deck healing. Atrox tries scouting around in flight, but finds nothing.

We skip to the next morning. Nadia’s player immediately exclaims “I CAME FROM THE RIGHT!” Vido’s player jokingly asks for a Knowledge check on marine traffic laws. The characters introduce themselves to each other and the party is officially established. Woot! I still can’t believe I came up on the spot so easily with a way to get them all to trust one another and want to stick together as a party for IC reasons, especially since none of them have any background story connections to one another. They discuss their options and look at the maps Annie found and see that the ship was headed to a city in the east of which the name has been smudged out. They also see a city on the map that is in the middle of a desert. All players immediately want to go to Vegas.

Considering the ship isn’t suited for desert travel though, they set sail for the nearest port town. Nadia frees the cook and uses Diplomacy to concince him to stay with them and be their cook. We lose a few minutes of play time as Nadia’s player relays to the other players a story of our last pirate campaign in this setting where they drifted around on wreckage with an übercook before.

On the way to the port town Boa spots a small chest on some floating wreckage that they pick from the water. In it they find a bag of 50 gp, a right handed hand of the mage and a journal, which turns out to include a non-hatted version of the captain they saw going down with his ship. They make note that the last few entries are in a different handwriting and signed with a different name, but none of them asks further about that.

When they arrive at the city, most of them head out to find some info or go shopping. Annie talks to the shipyard master about repairs, but they all find that repairs are too expensive for their tastes (and current funds). Nadia tries to find out if anyone knows of her here, because she wants to become a fearsome and well-known pirate after all. Atrox goes to buy some new shades and finds a decent shop. The problem is, the owner is a flamboyantly gay elf with huge ears (Atrox’ player compares him to Dumbo) and most shades don’t fit his wishes. However, eventually he gets the elf to admit to having something even better than he thought of: silver shades shaped like gnome skulls.

Realizing that they don’t have enough people to really be able to sail, the players try to find out how many NPCs they’d have to hire and how much they’d cost. I tell them they’d need 8 people for their ship and each NPC hired would cost 3 sp per day. Nadia’s player considers this and decides that with the whole party together, discounting the cook, they should at least make up for two all together and he recalls that 5 would be the bare minimum. I refrain from comment at this point, trying to see where this is going, and the players decide to hire 5 NPCs, which is perfectly fine by me. Vido and Nadia go out to hire some, still completely oblivious to the fact this is an elven town due to the fact that they all wear turbans. After hiring five, they are approached by a wealthy-looking elf in a heavy coat and Nadia instantly gets suspicious. The elf tries to find out what they are doing in the town and attempt to convince them to work for him, putting down a heavy bag clinking with coin in front of them. Nadia wants to refuse as they don’t have time for this, but the elf simply says “Oh, I will simply contact you later for your services. Consider this a… gift.” and then leaves. Investigating the bag, Vido finds out that it is filled with roughly a hundred onyx black coins that he Appraises and determines to be about 100 gp worth each. This makes Nadia interested, but all the more suspicious as the two return to the ship as night begins to fall…

[Greenish]

Black onyx? That doesn't bode well.

Oh, and just for the record…

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Lookin' forward for more piratey action, yarr!

[Morph Bark]

The Third Session

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Vido and Nadia return to the ship, bringing along their phat lewt new bag o’ black coins they got from the suspicious elf. (All elves are suspicious, it goes without saying.)

Guess what the first thing everyone else does is? Appraise, appraise, appraise! Fine by me. I give them all some differing values, ranging from 30 gp per coin to 150. I don’t think any of their results beat Vido’s from the previous session though. The players think on what to do with this, squabble for a bit, but ultimately decide its best to sleep on it and in the morning go look for stuff to fix the ship.

The following day, Atrox is sent to go buy nails and the two gnomes go to buy wood, all materials for fixing the ship. They manage to find a good store called Delta Carpentarrs that sells them and they buy so much they’re 1500 gp lighter by the time they walk out. Sad faces around the table, now they are poor! Atrox wants to use Diplomacy to get extra nails and, fair enough, he gets three extra slipped to him by a store clerk for being such a nice kobold.

Boagetash meanwhile has wandered off to the junkyard, where he finds… *drumroll* magic items! “Lolwut?” is prettymuch the exact reaction I get from the players, but hey, what do you expect from elves who probably make sure to put all the useable stuff in that fancy Delta Carpentarr store? They probably have too many magic items (read: crazy inventions) stuffed underneath their beds already. Rolling on a random table, he picks up a bag of holding (Type II) and a pale blue ioun stone.

Nadia and Annie stay behind to guard the ship. Annie, because her player is sadly absent this session (she wanted to fix her Link costume for the fantasy fair we attended the Sunday after that). Nadia because she has nothing better to do than petting Boa’s eagle, which purrs like a kitten.

Note to other DMs: never make your players’ eagles purr like kittens. They will write this down as an important fact.

When the players gather back again, they focus on the black coins again. Nadia and Atrox are sent out to go find a pawn shop to see if they can sell them. Vido follows behind them, but is ultimately caught in the act and brought along. Sadly, their search proves fruitless, so they head on home again as the sun starts to set.

Coming back to the ship they find that the others are talking with five men that are familiar to Nadia and Vido because they hired them the day before. Nadia asks if they know anyone who could fix their ship and is told by one of the elves that “Kyle can do it.” Who is Kyle? Kyle turns out to be one of the elves. When asked for their names, I brainfart and grab back on our 4E campaign with the names of the children my half-elf “adopted”. So what are their names? Kyle, Keanan, Kel, Kasper and Ferinox. Atrox asks of them what they think of gnomes, making Ferinox immediately fall down on one knee before Vido once he realizes what he is. Atrox also almost falls to his knees, but with more of a reaction of “NOOOOOO!!” rather than reverence. This is also the point where Nadia finds out she has recruited elves, which causes her great annoyance. They talk a bit, discussing the men’s duties and after that they go into the ship to pick out a spot.

Vido takes first guard duty, being a spellcaster he needs to sleep in one go, so Atrox goes last. When it is Boa’s turn, he spots a hooded figure watching them from the shore. He flies off the ship towards the figure and begins to question him on why he is there. The conversation basically goes something like this:

“Why are you watching us?”
Silence.
“Who are you?”
Silence.
“I said ‘who a--’ ”
“Pylon.”
Half the players: “Pylons! Must construct additional pylons!” (Don’t ask me, I wouldn’t know why they’d want to build these. )
Boa: “What?”
“Pylon.”
“I don’t understand.”
The stranger looks up. “My name is Pylon.” He then walks away towards the back of the ship as he keeps looking at it. Boa, confused, follows him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m on a mission.”
“A mission?”
“A mission.”
“What kind of mission?”
“My mission was given to me by my master. It is a secret mission.”
“Awww…”
“…my mission…” Pylon turns to Boa, “was to give you a mission.”
“…I thought it was a secret mission?”
“It was, until just now.” I glance at my wrist. No watch.
“Who is your master? Why would he give us a mission?”
“My master… I cannot tell you his name, but he desires the destruction of all the elves.”
“What?! I’m an elf!”
“…erm, well, all city elves.”
“Oh, then it’s fine.”
DM note: Boagetash is not strictly speaking Chaotic Good.
“What is your master’s name?”
“I cannot tell you his name! Though… I could tell you his title. Maybe you have heard of it. ‘The Dark King’.”
“That doesn’t sound very nice…”
“He is on the side of good, as you are.”
“Hmmm… do I trust you?”
It is at this point we all take a moment’s pause and look at Boa’s player. Nadia’s player immediately reaches for Boa’s character sheet to check his Intelligence and Wisdom scores, which are 18 and 19 respectively. “‘Do I trust you?’ Seriously?” “Erm, yeah?” “Okay…”
Pylon takes a moment’s pause as well before answering “Yes.”
SENSE MOTIVE IS ROLLED! Actually, no, but this would have been the perfect time! I don’t tell my players when to make those though, they’ll have to decide for themselves if they want to make some.
Boagetash decides that now would be a good time to wake the others up and see what they think of it. Pulling Nadia, Aaron and Atrox out of their sleep - with Atrox going immediately back, grumbling about non-spellcasters waking up those who cherish their death-like sleep - they find Pylon to have come on board once they come back from their quarters. Nadia questions Pylon to find out more, and Pylon explains that he works for the Dark King, wishing to destroy all elves (“All city elves!” Boa pitches in) and that he wishes to employ them to work in that direction by hiring them for an assassination on an elven noble. This piques their interest as they are by far no lovers of elves. Pylon tells them that his master would like them to steal something for him first however, as a kind of ‘test’ to see if they’d be ready for an assassination. He gives them the details, then leaves.

My notes on the session tell me that at some point Pylon also mentioned living castles to them, but I’ve forgotten the details about that particular happening.

The next day the five of them go to the place Pylon told them about and sneak in. A few stairs down they come across a door, at which point most of them hide while two of them listen at the door and try find out what’s on the other side. Of course, the answer is “guards”. Nadia and Vido try the charismatic approach and simply knock while the others hide. Chairs fall over and the door is opened, showing two guards with a table behind them covered in hastily put down poker cards. They tell them they have an appointment with their master and are told that the master is gone for a few hours. When the guards ask for a password, Nadia tells them “We weren’t told there was a password.” The reply? “Good, there is no password anyway.” The guards ask them for their names and apparently are talking to a Nidalee Windrider and Vido Crosschord. Charming. Actually, that is quite true, as Vido succeeds in charming one of the guards while using Cloaked Casting, meaning the other guard has no clue. The guards talk a bit and agree to letting them inside. Sure enough, the rest comes rushing in and they beat down the guards and tie them up.

Going through the only other door in the room, they enter a kind of steam-machine-driven factory and find a crafty workshop at the other end. They search it and find what seems to be a kind of raygun (which the characters of course don’t know, but hey), as well as paper, red ink, some universal solvent and uh… this thing. When they turn to leave, suddenly, monks fall! Everyone dies!

Actually, no, sadly all of the monks’ surprise attacks miss, but they roll high on initiative anyway, so they go first and Atrox is immediately killed. WHAT?! That can’t be right. Checking, he’s hit EXACTLY -10. He asks if his Damage Reduction applies. The other players tell him that fists deal bludgeoning damage, which is the only thing that gets through it. I tell him that he is still alive because the monk chopped rather than punched, thus dealing slashing damage, leaving the kobold just barely alive and bleeding out. Of course, he is quickly stabilized by Nadia, who proceeds to unleash some martial strikes upon their foes, which in turn heal Atrox. (I allowed Nadia to take Devoted Spirit in turn for giving up Tiger Claw and White Raven, hence allowing her to be the party healer in a sense.)

It turns out that one of the three monks is crazy strong compared to them, attack- and damage-wise, so I have him turn to using a greatsword he had on him instead. (The monk had this greatsword with him as an in-joke for myself, which I won’t reveal due to it revealing sensitive information to my players. The greatsword could be ‘activated’ to gain a lightsaber-like edge.) Nadia ended up fighting a blindfolded Halfling monk, who kept dodging her attacks. Meanwhile, the only female monk of the three that attacked them (and the only one with a hat) keeps the spellcasters in check - though Vido still tries to use his spellcasting on her without her noticing thanks to his class features. Atrox, now at positive hp, flies to the top of a nearby 15 ft tall bookcase where Boa already is at and starts to heal himself back up. Boa meanwhile keeps firing arrows down, but misses a lot. Luckily he shoots none of his teammates though - thank you Precise Shot feat!

Eventually, they manage to bring down the greatsword monk, causing the female monk to pick him up (“Attack of Opportunity!”) and move away from the rest. She heals him, but Atrox hits her with some spells and practically halves her Strength. Seeing as how this effect will last a while, she makes a break for it and climbs on top of the bookcase, intending to climb to the ceiling and disappear between the pipes and cables up there in the next round. The greatsword monk meanwhile gets back up, but is slain quickly afterwards. The blindfolded Halfling monk leaps from wall to wall and disappears, just like the female monk. The players subsequently loot the monk’s corpse, finding a ring and a necklace, but little else.

Soon after they get into trouble though, as one of the containment tanks in the factory explodes, spilling puke-like stuff all over the floor! The cause? The Halfling monk hanging upside-down from a pipe at the ceiling with a crossbow. He quickly disappears again. Atrox simply flies to the exit, but the rest needs to climb. Aaron lends Nadia her climbing gear to give him a boost and they and Aaron climb towards to first tank, where the spilling is coming from. They stand atop the tank for a bit before moving on, but have to roll Reflex saves because… the tank collapses! Like they didn’t see that one coming.

Nadia quickly clings to the wall, but Vido falls in and is unable to come out. Nadia and Boagetash help him out by tying a rope to a ceiling pipe and tying the other end to Vido. Both end up being nicely splashed with factory-puke, requiring Fortitude saves! Aaron has none of this trouble though, he automatically succeeds on the Climb checks all the way. Nothing bad happens and they all get to the exit safely, where they find the guards still tied up and the factory-puke slowly spilling into the room! Boa cuts them free, earning bad looks from Nadia for wasting perfectly good rope, and they all leave. The guards quickly flee and the rest return to the ship, feeling like they’ve deserved some rest.

[dsmiles]

I've been waiting sooooooooooooo long for an update...

[Greenish]

Kill all the elves, yeah!

[Morph Bark]

Well, you're in luck! There was some time between the second and third, but after that things have gone a little faster, so now I can also immediately post the

Fourth Session!

Spoiler

Show

This session was planned on rather short notice (as in, a mere two hours prior) and sadly Annie’s player couldn’t be present again and Boagetash’ player couldn’t be present until halfway in. We quickly handled the level ups for those who weren’t finished yet, which was easy enough.

So what do we do first? Bathing of course! Nadia, Vido and Boagetash, the three characters covered in factory-puke last session sorely need some hygiene. So where are they gonna get water? Do they just want to go jump in the salty sea? They consider this and Nadia decides it might be wiser to get some water from a well in town. Afterwards the day is up and they go to sleep.

The next day Nadia gets up first and goes to find the cook to make breakfast. He wants to try something new, so he asks if they could supply him with some new ingredients. The players talk a bit and assign the task to Vido, who now has to buy enough food for a week for them and their crew (minus Atrox, who just wants to eats larvae and it’s not like Vido would love buying the kobold fellow some healthy noms). Three meals a day makes it come down to quite a cost, so he leaves with 100 gp in his pocket. He also takes along a black coin because he is adamant in finding someone to sell it to.

Meanwhile, Aaron, Atrox and Nadia go find someone to identify the ring and necklace they looted off the monk’s corpse last session. Praise Gather Information! They find a good place filled with mechanical stuff and curtains, making it look like a mixture between a steampunk clank workshop and a fortune teller’s abode. They find a 4 foot tall person inside (not a gnome, to Atrox’ relief) with a fancy hat and too-large robes. They tell him that they’d like for him to identify the ring and necklace for them and in turn they’ll give him the sword. After inspecting the sword, he heartily agrees to it.

The players lean back suspiciously and discuss whether this is such a good idea, so they try to calculate how much the sword might be worth and decide that it’s prolly around 2000 gp and the identifying cost would have been 1500 for the ring alone (I told them the latter outright, the sword wasn’t 2000 gp, hence why I overlooked their metagaming here). They are told the ring grants glibness 1/day and the necklace grants a +5 competence bonus on Jump 4/day (stackable).

In the meantime, Vido has kept going around in circles trying to find someone to sell his black coin to, even asking for directions. It is only an hour later that he realizes that the black coin has been stolen, right when the others come back from the item identifier. The others don’t believe him to have been stolen from and Nadia trips Vido to the ground as a sort of warning, getting support from Atrox.

Of course, Vido responds by shouting “Guards! Guards!” and immediately a bunch show up to arrest them all. They let Aaron go because he didn’t do anything, but Atrox, Nadia and Vido are grabbed a hold of (yay Grapple!). This doesn’t really help though, as Atrox is wearing spiked armour. It deals the guard so much damage that he drops straight to the negatives so that he is dying. Hope that won’t count on Atrox’ criminal record! The kobold remarks that “He’s gonna pay for my armour ‘n’ stuff. It’s all dirty.”

The other guards immediately draw their weapons and urge him to come with, planning to drag their companion along. Nadia tries to convince them she can heal him by punching one of them (actually wouldn’t completely work since the guards at this point would all count as enemies), but the guards do not buy it. (We tried rolling Bluff versus Sense Motive in a kind of “reverse Bluff” scheme, but we got confused on how to exactly work that, so I figured “eh, the guards wouldn’t normally buy that kinda stuff”.)

Of course, Nadia punches one anyway and the fallen guard rises up. Confused looks on the NPCs’ faces, but they are still taken in for questioning. Aaron follows behind and waits outside the guard station for the others to come out. Nadia and Atrox are chained together and when questioned, Nadia tells them the gnome was robbed and is a friend of theirs. Atrox instead pulls up a story about how Vido conned them or somesuch. When the guard leaves to question Vido in another room, Nadia begins swinging Atrox around by the chain through the air, causing him to be sick (Fort save yeah!). Because Vido relays the same story as Nadia, both are let go off the hook. Atrox though? For replying to the guard with a “Ever met a gnome who wasn’t a liar?” he is put on death row for “insulting the great ancestors”.

Nadia does not like. When outside and told to Vido and Aaron, Aaron does not like either. Vido does not dislike, but voices no specific liking. It is at this point Boa’s player enters the room after a night out, so the three are joined by a concerned Boagetash because he was just wandering around wondering why they were taking so long. The four of them decide to go bust Atrox out of jail to save him from execution. They simply walk into the station and up to the receptionist and ask if they could visit their friend in jail. She tells them flat-out “no”, so of course Vido charms her and - on Nadia’s instructions - makes her sign a paper that they have been authorized to go into the jail. Twenty feet down the hall later they run into a guard who asks them why they are there since they shouldn’t be allowed in there. Nadia shows the paper, which is torn up by the guard as the receptionist doesn’t have the authority to grant access. The players look at one another… and jump the guard full force, stuffing him in one of the interrogation rooms, all tied up.

They proceed onwards until they come across a reinforced door, which Boa lockpicks (he picked up a rank at the level up). An alarm goes off when they go through and they proceed to storm down the stairs quickly. Vido, being the slowest, is caught up by the guards and he cries for his allies to help him. He succeeds in stunning a guard with a spell before Aaron manages to get back to him. (I had the stairs count as difficult terrain, which a stance allowed him to easily bypass. An easy Climb check coulda been called for too, but remember that Aaron would easily have made it, just as in the previous session.)

It takes Boagetash and Nadia a bit longer to get back, Boa drawing his bow along the way and shooting down one of the front guards from a stairs below them. Nadia proceeds to unleash more strikes to heal up the wounded, downing another guard. The stunned guard is taken out third and the last tries to make a break for it, but he is chased up the stairs by Aaron, who punched him down to the steps.

Vido meanwhile has run away further down and away from the fight and comes across a door. Atrox player was told he was taken through this door, down a hallway and thrown into a jail cell by an elven guard and a large armoured knight with an executioner’s axe on his back. For making some snide remarks, the knight throws him hard into the cell, causing enough damage to drop him quite a bit, but not into the negatives. “Haha!” Victorious! Except then the knight comes into the cell to take off the shackles and smacks Atrox another time for good measure. “Awww.” Vido sneaks through the door after casting invisibility on himself and spots the large knight. Pressing himself against the wall, he lets the knight pass and he starts to look into the cells to find Atrox.

The others follow soon after, but they run into the large knight, who proceeds to deliver a smackdown on Nadia, reducing her to half her hp in one hit (another attack missed her barely). Boagetash makes a move down the hallway, being perceptive enough to notice Vido and he searches the cells as well, finding Atrox just in time to make a Heal check and stabilize him at -9. (Vido actually found him in time and got him out of the cell, but dragging Atrox across the floor caused 1 damage while the kobold was at -8, even though he had stabilized already then.) Hurriedly, Nadia tries to heal herself back up, but the knight doesn’t manage to hit her again and together with Aaron they lay enough smackdown on him to cause him to flee, opening a secret door in the wall, which shuts behind him.

Boagetash proceeds to release the rest of the prisoners and convinces them through Diplomacy to come along with them. And thus, they are now joined by 14 Mongrelfolk… oy vey iz mir.

Boa also finds one familiar face amongst the prisoners, namely... Jim! “Little rowy man!” The orc is still as shirtless as ever and appears to still be wearing Atrox' shades on his forehead. He hugs Boa heartily and easily agrees to come along.

We leave our intrepid heroes on the stairs as they face down a barricade by the guards who demand their surrender…

Also, my players are reading these entries too and find them enjoyable just like you. Say hi.

[LOTRfan]

Hello, players.

[dsmiles]

Hiiiiiiii players!

[KotserB]

Hey readers,
This is Vido Swiftriver.
I'd like you to tell everyone that you hate Kobolds.
greetings,
Vido

Operation Alpha: "the past strikes back": phase 2.

[dsmiles]

I'd like you to tell everyone that you hate Kobolds.

So do I. I loathe the little scaly barstards. Now, Gobbers, on the other hand...

[Greenish]

Kobolds are made of seven different kinds of awesome, unlike some other small races I could mention…

[The-Mage-King]

Kobolds are made of seven different kinds of awesome, unlike some other small races I could mention…

This.


Also, hi players. Be sure to steal some hats.

[Omeganaut]

Never trust a scaleskin. Them Kobolds is bad news.

[Morph Bark]

The fifth session came quickly after the fourth, as in I just came back from it! The players have, in fact, read your replies, and Atrox heartily agrees with both Greenish and The-Mage-King. Aaron refrains from comment so far. Vido was sadly absent from tonight's game due to other responsibilities involving a different game. (They probably could tell you this better themselves, though. )

The fifth session won't be up soon (as in, not today). Tomorrow is a national holiday, so chances are I will be quite preoccupied. I could, however, post some additional setting info I gave my players at the start of the campaign. I just found it again on a different laptop.

[Chief]

Hey there,

I'm Atrox Morbus the one and only flying Necromancer Kobold.
It's no wonder that Vido was nowhere to be seen when i got back on my feet after that big bully threw me against a wall and punched me into a deep sleep (during the 4th session). I bet Vido ran off to tell the others that i was already death or something. (Gnomes are not to be trusted!) It's his fault I was taken to prison in the first place.

Anyway I'm glad to see that there are at least some guys out there that understand the true potential of a kobold. Greenish and The-Mage-King you guys are gonna make it to the end. the others however will all fall for the lies of the gnomes, I'm warning you!

Yours truly,

Atrox Morbus

[Greenish]

And I, for one, welcome our new reptilian overlords.

[Shyftir]

Pssht! Some of us (the ones with brains) are totally joining the Gnomish Resistance. (What? They got better explosives.)

[Greenish]

Pssht! Some of us (the ones with brains)

My free +3 int begs to disagree with that statement. Due to my free sorcerer levels, I express this disagreement in the form of Fireball.