Saberstrath Campaign, Session 1: And Then We Come To.... The Tunnel!

Note: Namazu the white dragon is a 4 HD dragon, not a 6 HD dragon, which explains why she has a low pool of health. This ended up being a lucky mistake for the party, since dragon breath bypasses magic resistance.

October 20-23, Caudex Annales, 70 AUP
After some deliberations over strategies and priorities, the party decided to begin by opening the tunnel to the western timberlands beyond the Great Barrier Range. The choice between the High Pass Tunnel and the Deeps was resolved somewhat trivially when none of the liberated prisoners could recall anything about the Deeps -- including where to find the entrance. Conan the Librarian, now functioning as the notional lord of the newly captured tower and thus under its protection, offered to follow as far as the tunnel, but no farther.

On the first day of journey, the party encountered several giant beetles, which scuttled away from the unnatural column of marching skeletons. The following night was more eventful; a huge warband of close to 60 goblins encircled the camp, threatening to raid out of the darkness. Parlay with the goblins revealed their weakness for greed, and the party was able to buy them off for a few gold pieces each, throwing 250 or so into the forest to be scooped up by the greedy hands of the would-be ambushers. Conan instructed the goblins to scout the path and report back, if they wanted any more gold. The few goblins too slow to claim a share of the treasure promptly began squabbling and tussling with the others, and the threat was neutralized.

The entrance to the tunnel was itself unguarded except by a few odd inscriptions around the perimeter, but the party had been given advance warning of multiple checkposts inside. Illusion spells cloaked the frontline in the guise of a dark elven hunting party, with Boudicca's spider glamoured to appear as a drider. Sure enough, within the first ten minutes the party found a sign advising preparation for a customs inspection. Confident in the quality of the illusion, the party marched forward through the checkpoint, speaking imperiously to the watchpost captain on duty. As the party marched forward, the guards increasingly stared in confusion at the endless array of skeletons (not so unusual), the pair of young white dragons (more unusual), and the saurian gladiators. At the sight of D they snarled, and one of them remembered thedwarf and lizard fighting team from the arena of Emru-Marol -- the one shortly before the great clone-invasion slaughter at the fall Spider Festival. But the display of force left them suspicious but unwilling to throw away their lives.

Midway through the tunnel, the party encountered a drow noble patrol of three priestesses of House Aleval and two arcanists, along with their bodyguards. While equally deceived by the illusion, they were far less intimidated. Indeed, the impudence of drow from a rival house seemed to inflame them. When the party refused to stand down, they turned back to lodge a complaint with the west-end watchpost at a crisp march. When they realized the party was matching pace, they began to break into a run.

At this point, Zelmar teleported directly in front of them, initiating a battle. Fortunately the party managed to flood the tunnel with dragon breath before they could volley off any spells of their own. Zelmar cut down the sole surviving elf-at-arms.

The violence in the tunnel alerted the far end to the possibility trouble. As the party stepped forward, Shiek the assassin spotted some irregularities in the floor and and ceiling -- a complicated multi-part trap. No one could disarm the magical trigger mechanism, so Herrohnin sent ahead a skeleton to set off the trap. A portcullis gate slammed down on top of the skeleton and multiple large rocks from the ceiling dropped just behind it, into a hidden pit revealing itself beneath the paving as floor suddenly gave way.

By this time, the guard post was on full alert. Herrohnin sent a squad of skeletons to move the rubble evenly into the pit. As they were finishing their work, a nervous bolt came whistling past one of the skeletons on work detail. The party barked a challenge at the drow, who gave no response. As they stepped forward (Zegzinu bashing down the heavy gate) everyone was totally unsurprised to encounter an ambush in waiting, on both sides of the tunnel: a priestess and arcanist on each side, and lots of guards with crossbows at the ready.

Skeletons charged up to tied down the guards, and both dragons moved into the intersection to lay down frost clouds. The south alcove went down quickly, but the north alcove had more than sufficient time to bathe the tunnel in pyrotechnics. Both dragons and a lizard went down hard, and it took a dedicated second wave of advance into the side tunnel to root out the defiant drow.

Finally the party reached the west entrance. Conan, Zegzinu, and D turned back to defend the tower, and the remaining party members exited out into a high twisting road that led back down through the mountains into the uncharted timberlands below.

Roster

• Herrohnin, 5th level summoner, and his scads of spooky scary skeletons
• Sir Rock Boulder Fist, dwarven 5th level summoner
• Zegzinu, 5th level gladiator 
• the last henchlizard
• Sir Robin Silverblade, 5th level spellsword
• Kilor Graniteback, 5th level machinist
• Shiek, 4th level assassin (custom Thrassian class)
• Zelmar Krackiss, 5th level fright knight
• Viserion, 3rd level (4 HD) white dragon
• Boudicca and her spider familiar
• Conan the Librarian
• D
• The very young white dragon, Namazu

Casualties

• Shiek, lame in both legs
• Zegzinu's final henchlizard

Both dragons went down to fireballs, but recovered without a scratch!

Treasure
All the usual drow stuff that fades away in light: priestesses come with a +3 set of chain, shield, and mace, and most other drow have +2 versions.

Experience

Intimidated: 6 giant stag beetles
Deceived with illusion: 7th-level drow priestess [1490 xp], 5th-level drow fighter [500 xp], 8 3rd-level drow fighters [8x80 = 640 xp]
Bribed: ~50 goblins [50x5 = 250 xp]
Killed: 7th-level drow priestess [1490 xp], 4 6th-level drow priestesses [4x1070 = 4280 xp], 3 6th-level drow arcanists [3x1320 = 3960 xp], 5 5th-level drow fighters [5x500 = 2500 xp], 7 3rd-level drow fighters [7x80 = 560 xp]
Total:  15,670 xp

Total experience from treasure: 0 xp
Total experience from kills: 15,670 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0 xp
Total experience: 15,670 xp
Total experience per member: 1306 xp

Starting the Saberstrath Campaign

This Saturday is the first day of the summer RPG campaign at my house (700 Oakdale).

At the end of last summer's campaign, the South Group party had (1) escaped from the dark elves in the Underdark into the Saberstrath, (2) captured a small stone beacon-tower containing an intricate clockwork mechanism, and (3) allied with one camp of pirates (the Styxx) in order to eliminate the camps of all their various rivals and liberate several hundred of their prisoners.

This is a great time for new players to jump in, or for old players to roll up a fresh character. Of course, anyone with an existing character from last summer will be eligible to continue. New starting characters will be at the "Adventurer" tier of power, with 20,000 experience points and 16,000 gold pieces of wealth, which may be exchanged for starting equipment or a henchman in accordance with the ACKS rules. Only your first character of the campaign gets starting wealth; if that character dies, then you'll have to leave an inheritance yourself to provide for the next one! However, any new characters will get the full 20,000 xp.

If you already have a copy of the rules, feel free to roll up a character in advance. As usual, the method is the strict "roll 3d6 in order", but you can generate 5 sets of stats and pick your favorite. You can also trade stats at 2:1 to adjust your prime requisite stat upward. The Autarch set will quickly roll new sets of five stats for you at this link and then email them to you.


The Current Situation
It's the middle of October, and the Saberstrath Valley is deep into autumn. The air has grown cold, and the few deciduous trees among the evergeens have shed their leaves. You are camping at the old clockwork watchtower located at the top of the great cliff that overlooks the valley road to the south and west, a superbly defensible position of great tactical value.

Unfortunately, the hundreds of men you've liberated from the pirates are unable to all live inside the tower. You now have a small domain of conquered territory north of the road and south of the river, such as it is, and with that comes responsibility. Daily and hourly, the men come to you with concerns and fears about their safety and the winter ahead.

Here are some of the most pressing concerns:

• You have managed to deeply offend most of the Great Houses of the dark elves in Emru-Marol, both by disrupting the Spider Festival and by slaying many of their pirate allies. They will not quickly forgive the wrongs you have done them. While a substantial blow was dealt to the City of Spiders itself, there is a vast underdark domain that will repopulate its losses and seek to avenge them!
• The Styxx crew's pirate camp to the west is well-fortified, and still runs a steady stream of slaver caravans along the road. Thus far they are greatly pleased with your elimination of their rivals. But pirates are treacherous by reputation.
• The men have thus far managed to subsist on foraged and plundered foods, but in the winter ahead, this will be more difficult. Unless a reliable trade route can be opened to purchase consumables, they fear starvation. A rich assortment of plunder from the pirate camps is packed away in crates and barrels, but it does little good this far in the wilderness unless it can be transported by caravan to somewhere more populated for sale or trade. (The Styxx pirates would happily take it, but only at absurdly unfair prices, knowing full well your desperation.)
• Even foragers are now reporting that the area around the tower is insufficiently pacified, and that various monster lairs are still present within a few miles of the tower and need to be exterminated.
• The young white dragon you rescued, Namazu, continues to eagerly seek knowledge and has been angling to learn any spells offered by mages in the party. Yet her heart is ever dragonish and she has begun to lust after treasure as well. She is willing to perform some light reconnaissance and to help defend the tower during her visits, but any greater services will require compensation. She is also ever-hungry for fresh meat.
• The pirate captives you liberated from slavery are mostly men, and they report that their families have been taken onward into the Underdark -- either to be sold to the dark elves or to be carried onward into the Undying Lands beyond. There is much grief over their possible fate given the ill reputation of the City of Spiders and its ever-hungry brood of sacred giant arachnids. Rumors of dread arcane experiments and the sacrificial rites of necromancers have set no one's hearts at ease. Morale is low, and some of the petitioners are demanding that you send a team back into the city to rescue their wives and children -- if they yet live. Barring this, the men would at least find satisfaction in any grim revenge you might exact for their loss.
• Opening a path out of the Saberstrath would serve many purposes: Diplomacy and trade with the Savage Reaches to the west (if there are any non-monstrous inhabitants to be found there), and the ability to communicate with the seat of human civilization in Durnovar. This, however, requires one of two things: (1) Capture of the high mountain pass held by the dark elves, or (2) locating the deep passage under the mountains. The captive men you liberated tell grim stories about the fortifications and defenses of the former, and will barely speak about the latter out of a lingering sense of terror. "The darkness -- weeks of darkness, and the mad dreams within" is all the details you can pry from them.
• The return of the dread lords of Nerigos, the Dead City of sand-deluged Hyperborea, is never far from your minds. Lord Varghoulis, awakened by Piper from the barrows of Balewood, is marshaling long-interred armies out of forgotten tombs to conquer the Undying Lands. In time his attention will begin to pass through the mountains to your small domain, and then to the fragile civilizations beyond. Even now already, you have heard rumors that creatures who fall in battle will rise again of their own accord and continue the fight beyond natural life.

Green Pass Campaign IV, Session 4: Deus Ex Machinist

October 29, Caudex Annales, 70 AUP

Lizard sidekick not shown.

The curtain opened on a classic paladin-vs-demon tableau, at least if your version of the image also includes a helpful lizardman. Things looked to be going ill for Smaug and Sir Pal, as the massive avatar of Orcus dueled both of them at once with his mace, poisonous serpent tale, and an occasional lightning bolt or two. Smaug went down first to poison, and Sir Pal was left barely standing after taking a few million volts to the face. Meanwhile, the oozes slowly worked their way out into the open to engage the cheering cultists... only to come face to face with a pack of greater hellhounds, who proceeded to incinerate the black puddings (and, with much less effectiveness, the grey oozes). The remainder of the party charged through the worm-blocked tunnel to catch up, although it appeared that they would arrive too late to intervene on behalf of the valiants in melee.

And at this point, a 40-ton dwarven war mech dropped out of the sky.

hatamoto_chi_by_shimmering_sword

The pilot, a dwarven machinist named Bjorn Lindholm, had been cruising the area for trouble. [Editor's note: I can't blame Andrew for this, since it's not even a custom class. Giant dwarven war mechs are totally already a thing in the Companion rules.] The shock wave from the automaton's impact scattered cultists in every direction, crushing over a dozen of them on the spot. The primary armaments on the automaton -- a giant sword, a projectile cannon, and brute force applications of a giant metal fist -- quickly went to work pounding Orcus from the back. The result was a rapid reversal of fortunes. Avila Tressa, the priestess, quickly got Smaug back on his feet. Everyone else arrived just in time to see the last few desperate attempts to trigger the annihilation effect of the Wand of Orcus, and then the demon vanished back into the Abyss with a flash. The remaining cultists ran to the four corners of the compass, as gargoyles swept down to carry them off to safety.

Meanwhile, the party pondered how to deactivate the orange sky beam. Bjorn helpfully recommended an aerial suicide strike with his automaton, and rose dramatically into an arc headed toward the upper floor of the barracks. Immediately after ejecting, the automaton's chassis crashed into the building, setting off a kaleidescope of multicolored runes. The beam flickered and went out, as the swirling above the city began to ebb and fade.

And the moral of the story is this: I don't care who in the Pits of Hell you think you are, do NOT mess with master engineers. Because they will wreck you so fast.

The heroes made a post-victory sweep of the city of Centerpost to attempt to locate the vampire's coffin (or the lich's phylactery), but with the entire city already radiating evil out of virtually every crack and crevice, detection spells were of little use. Eventually, weeks later, the removal of rubble would reveal several additional giant wormholes running to both the barracks and the cathedral -- suggesting an exit strategy that exceeded the pace of cleanup.

The city had been saved, at the cost of nearly complete demolition. From this crew, we'd expect nothing less.