Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

c'ren and gang wander forth into a large cavern full of tall buildings. A man approaches, clapping slowly. "Well well well. What do we have here?" He's got a cigar in his mouth, and he wants to bring the party in on a heist. His plan: to lure and board the Civilopede, and escape via a "portal painting". His name is Gavin.

(For those who don't know, the Civilopede is a huge centipede that collects art and stores it on its back. It has great taste.)

The party says yes, they make preparations, specifically C'ren prepares 4 feather falls to make the boarding easier. Gavin and his team unveil a large pile of stolen art, and waft it with large paper fans. They climb the tall buildings and wait.

13 hours pass. Then things begin to rumble, there's some noise, finally huge bright headlight eyes erupt into the cavern. The Civilopede cometh. As it runs benath them the pc's jump, C'ren mass-casts feather fall, they land among some tents. Immediately a Canonite, a yellow art bug, asks them an art question. Nobody, the specialist, steals some canonite sweat and rubs it on her friends, they blend it and the art bugs stop harassing them.

All around them are piles and piles of priceless art. There's some question as to what to do; they try to cheese the Ynn invocation from earlier-- they get a painting of a garden and chalk that up with a door and a garden wall and write "Ynn, By Way of The Physical Plane" with chalk on the painting but no magic happens.

An art curator, also aboard the Civilopede, approaches, asks some questions. The PCs pretend to be performers, like, they do an Abbot and Costello routine. The art curator goes away. The Civilopede reaches around and pulls a figure from its back; it's Gavin, who's eaten alive.

The PCs go find Gavin's survivng friends, who join the party. Apparently Gavin got eaten because he was cutting a painting out of its frame. There's some effort to find an organizing principle to the art; there's been generations of labelling attempts. Beehive discerns a sorting method: by geological era of origin.

They head to the butt end of the Civilopede; they run into 4-5 Curators. The Curators aren't happy about boarders, and after an art argument between C'ren and the head Curator, like, C'ren's trying to claim that the Curators are in an ivory tower and that the adventurers are down to earth (her argument doesn't fly), the Curators send up a messenger towards the Civilopede's head, omniously enough.

The adventurers head to the butt end, where they make the decision to camp. However, minutes later, the Civilopede begins to reach around again, and figuring they should jump, they do. They grab some prehistoric art before jumping. Jon's character dies on the fall, everyone else survives; they're in a strange tunnel. They recoup. They set out to follow the tracks the Civilopede left to try to make it back to where they boarded... so they can use their map again.

Travel happens; there's some encounters. The first is with a half-broken tank filled up with Panic Attack Jacks. They defeat this relatively easily and score the tank; no one suffers Rapture. Next up Beehive incites a bunch of predatory floating red lanterns; they have to abandon the tank to flee. Finally, on the 6th day of travel, another Still-Tor man drops from the ceiling, this is also easily killed.

They make it back to the big cavern with tall buildings. One of Gavin's survivors is there; he joins up. They plan a route to the Mushroom Kingdom; they decide to take the shortcut, which is a long, long squeeze of a tunnel.

The squeeze tunnel requires laying down, all the time. Or sometimes sidling. They travel for five days this way. On the sixth day, Beehive suffers Rapture; in his head, he faces an old man with a sharp knife. The Rapture wins, and Beehive begins destroying his carried treasure, and then grabs C'ren's pack. C'ren shoots Beehive with a magic missle, killing him. C'ren then suffers Rapture herself, mentally facing a mirror image of C'ren, who also has a chainsaw. The rapture wins again.

When C'ren wakes up she has chainsawed Jon's new character to death and is facing combat from some of her allies. They stand down after communication; that's the end of the session, two dead PC's.

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

C'ren and (now reduced) gang make it to the mushroom kingdom (after navigating a magma ferry staffed by a giant wurm). The mushroom kingdom is: a giant conical cavern, with a huge mushroom in the center. There's a stalacite palace where the ruling Mushogun lives, and priests live in the mushroom.

The Mushogun is crazy, and has a laser cannon that he uses indiscriminately, and can only be reached via a "laser ladder" which he deploys, only to talk to priests. The city itself is controlled by contested Daimyos, of which the mushogun was once one.

The PCs are introduced to this information, and to R.'s new character (an ex-priest) Baba, at an Inn. They are then informed that the local Daimyo's bandits have surrounded the Inn. C'ren sends out her lightning demon to deal with them.

The lightning demon scares the bandits away. The Innkeeper informs them of an issue; arcane magic and demons are forbidden by the local clerics, so the appearance of the lightning demon will be an issue. C'ren hides the demon and goes out to collect materials to summon another demon (for some reason).

Out and about, C'ren and crew, with their flaming green sword, draw a crowd, and thereafter, the local Daimyo approaches. He invites C'ren to drink sake. In a bar, C'ren aand the Daiymo, who's name is Izumi, strike a deal: Izumi will pretend to kill C'ren and her demon and hide them in the Inn if C'ren gives Izumi her magic green flaming sword. There's a backend to the deal-- C'ren and Izumi will work to install Izumi into the Mushogen throne.

Hence there is a faked battle at the Inn between C'ren and Izumi's forces, C'ren is fake-executed. Thereafter the PCs have a private locked room at the Inn as the base of their operations. C'ren attempts to summon more demons; the first, a deadly spider, only lasts two rounds before disappearing again. The second, an amobea, gains a permanent contract with C'ren, to serve her for life. C'ren spent ~20,000 sp in her summoning efforts.

This is basically the whole session; there's a side-scheme wherein Baba plans to incriminate Izumi to another local warlord by charming one of Izumi's lieutenants into killing a local casino owner; that goes nowhere.

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

basically c'ren and gang are in the mushroom city doing scams. There's some business about selling a 50,000sp statue of a woman doing anatomical impossibilities. No merchant will pay more than 10sp for the statue.  C'ren casts "charm person" on a merchant. The charmed merchant pays 50,000sp for the statue.

C'ren is running a cult. After some experimentation she figures out that her infinite source of food is the best lure (she has a troll tooth that constantly generates edible troll). She gets 30+ recruits this way, she has some plan to assault the mushroom city’s priesthood by massing her own militia.

Izumi, the warlord who is hosting C’ren, isn’t happy about any of her plans, but feels increasingly like he’s committed to her course of action. Things get out of hand when Baba and Papi, (papi is john’s new character) are arrested when trying to buy magical supplies. Baba and Papi are held under suspicion of connection with the sale of a cursed statue.

The session now consists of Papi getting interrogated by clerics who can cast “Detect Lies”. C’ren to rescue Babi conocts a plan to frame the dead lieutenant who they killed last session; this scheme involves a the lieutenant’s dead body, a  local bartender, magic missle, and a confessionary “bartender’s journal” that C’ren scribbles at the crime scene from torn pages of her spellbook. Ultimately the plan is a dud.

Babi, to his captors, reveals the location of the Inn where C’ren + cult are staying; subsequently there’s a confrontation between C’ren’s demons and the investigating priests in the street outside the inn. In the confusion caused by the battle C’ren + cult escape and go to the framed bartender’s now disused bar. Izumi shows up-- things have gone from bad to worse with him, considering that there is now absolutely no doubt in the local priesthood’s mind that Izumi actually is harboring a demonic magacian despite pretending to kill one about a week earlier.

Izumi, on the verge of straight up really killing C’ren, instead folds to C’ren’s suggestion: Izumi should hide out with C’ren at this bar until a better plan arrives. Izumi knows that it’s too late to do anything else but play the cards the sorcerer’s given him so

PLAY NOTES:

it was hot and I had a tallboy going so … not my best dming. Things have started to go for shit as C’ren’s plans and maybe unwise use of arcane magic have stirred up a lot of trouble. Particularly John’s characters keep getting thrown under the bus.

Running a priesthood of abut 100 clerics, and an inquisition they’re doing into the PCs, is an issue. Basically difficult to “play it fair”, thinking I’ll roll a d6 and on a 1-4 the investigation proceeds on a 5 or 6 the fuck up and delay somehow

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

END OF THE CAMPAIGN

ok so: c'ren and her cult and the local warlord Izumi and the other PC's and Izumi's last few men are all hiding out in a bar. Their former base, a nearby inn, has been raided by the mushroom kingdom's holy guards/ kannushi (priests).

C'ren decides to storm the Inn and reclaim it! She sends 13 of her cultists, some of Izumi's men, her demon, and herself. This party easily slaughters the contingent of 7 holy guards and 3 Kannushi at the Inn. Soon after the battle, however, the local Daimyos surround the Inn with their forces. In addition, there's a host of Kannushi present.

What follows: C'ren tries to convince the crowd to join her, she has infinite food, but the Kannushi cast Enthrall and control the crowd. Baba, a PC, fires a bolt at a priest and a battle ensues: many cultists die, and one of Izumi's lieutenants, but ultimately C'ren and her demon kill a Kannushi and drive off the aggressors.

There is some peace as both sides regroup. Baba sneaks out with a bag of troll meat, gets caught by some Holy Guards. He bribes them with half the troll meat. Then he meets up with some Miko (servants of the priest) friends of his and gives them the rest of the troll meat. This all in an attempt to disrupt the sleep of the priests by giving their servants infectious meat.

Anyway, after some sleep, C'ren disbands the cult. Izumi and his lieutenants flee the city. C'ren and the PCs disguise themselves as meat merchants and hide their electric demon in a cart. As they leave the Inn they're detained by some holy guards. C'ren sends her demon into battle and flees with the PC's. They find an empty house, oh wait there's an old man in it, they kill him.

They make a plan: raid the jail to recover Papi + his confiscated treasure. They charge towards the jail, which is the barracks of the holy guards! Their demon meets up halfway there. As they approach they see 8 holy guards with spears, 5 with crossbows, and some kannushi are guarding near the front of the barracks... so the PC's run in the barrack's back entrance.

Inside the barracks, there's Papi in a cell. C'ren chainsaws the lock and Baba blockades the front door with a table. Papi says, the money isn't here probably. Then the holy guards burst in through the front door! C'ren casts magic missle, killing a guard, but the other guards swarm in. They seem magically protected, as the demon can't apprach them! They all stab C'ren- she dies. Her demon goes wild! Everyone else flees.

we agree to end the campaign and switch to a different roleplaying system, namely Troika!

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

peterwebb wrote:

we agree to end the campaign and switch to a different roleplaying system, namely Troika!

*multiple lines of thought go* "Awwww...." sad


"Peter stops Lotfp?"
"yes, Peter stops LotFP"
"No more Peter Lotfp..."
"What does Peter play...?"
"Not Lotfp"
"Szad..."
"...so szad".

*multiple lines of thought leave, with their heads hanging low*
sad

With kind regards
Gregorius21778
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Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

Aw greg I'll probably use the system with some other ppl sometime!

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

tonight's game ended with unusual violence. we had to kick one player out of the group permanently. the cause of this I think had little to do with the role playing game text.

one player got drunk and angry, and shoulted "fuck off" at the top of his lungs in the face of another player. this, part of a pattern of drunken behavior... we kicked him out and good riddance.

no one was harmed. this is the guy who threatened me with a knife a couple weeks ago.

anyway the game: PCs are the slaves of knotsmen.  They have nothing but the sharp rocks they use to mine coal for their masters.

Immediately the party mugs their guard and steals the lantern. The knotsmen guard tho seemingly can't be killed in combat as supernatural luck intervenes.  The PCs flee deeper into the mine.

Then I ask the players to elect a guide... they refuse. I bring up that their lantern is running out of fuel. They decide to mine more coal for their lamp.

An interesting play interaction: per hour, they mined 1 lume if they pass a wisdom test. Proceeding thus they recieved 3 lumes after 2 hours of digging, netting a 1 lume profit for their burning lantern. I point out that they are covered in coal dust from slave-mining and they recieve 1d20 lumes each. 

Session ends here.

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

A) ...damn it! You know rough, unfriendly, undesireable folk! GOOD RIDDEANCE INDEAD!!

B) I am happy to have you back here smile  smile  smile


Let´s see what the guideless mining slaves come up with next!

With kind regards
Gregorius21778
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Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

had a good veins session
used my hexmap system worked pretty well
a decent amount of accounting with lumes and referring to the map and map key
keeping track of lumes and hunger really helped instill a sense of urgency in the game
like, I have 50 lumes left, I can do 25 hours round trip travel
I need to find a solution in a very small amount of time
That's kind of the gamefeel that the veins was originally designed for
They found a fishing village. The village had a chained eunuch. No one spoke the same language, so we did extended pantomime which worked pretty well, we have some strong roleplayers in this group
all in all... great stakes... challenge... and instadeath: one player got two javelins to the chest in a surprise round
the cultists wait on the rooftops with javelins.

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

peterwebb wrote:

one player got two javelins to the chest in a surprise round

For some this is the loss of a comrade, for other this is a kebab-to-come

With kind regards
Gregorius21778
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Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

rlly happy about this session

most of the group cancelled at last minute so I just came over to play video games

eventually we said fuck it lets play with 1 player only

The PC agrees to cut off his ear and sell it to cultists for information

He's using his sword for surgery... as he begins cutting I call in the Rapture, who quickly takes control. The Rapture pulls the sword out of the wound and begins to attack.

It swings at the watching hungry cultists. It hits and kills. The other PCs join the battle.

Soon the cultists are all dead. The Rapture leaves. The PCs have the run of the cultist's church.

Inside they find a deactivated magic portal. The Magic-User PC reactivates it. It leads to 1970's Chicago.

One PC goes thru the portal. We play out a week of homelessness, then a cop knocks out one of the PC's eyes. The PC slays the cop with his sword.

Looting the corpse, the PC picks up the cop's gun, bullets, flashlight, mace etc. Then he heads back to the portal. He makes it back thru the portal which deactivates.

Okay so now the PC has gun + bullets + flashlight, not to mention modern clothes, in the veins. We end the session there, a half hour of play.

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

Good session.

The knotsmen are back to reclaim their slaves: the PCs. However a shot from the cop gun scares the slavers away.

Given some free time, the PCs peruse their new magical library. The Magic-User learns 3 new spells. Then they start getting hungry.

They travel to a nearby fishing village-- the copkiller PC's home. There they gamble, trade stories for slices of the village eunuch's skin.

A decision is made, and in the quiet hours the PCs rob and kidnap one villager, handcuffing him and knocking him out with a police baton. On their way out a child sees them; this child is Magic Missle'd to death.

The villagers rouse. The child's body presents a tempting value. The copkiller PC can choose between getting away without being seen or grabbing the tiny corpse. He chooses to the corpse, and blinds the witnesses with his flashlight.

In the instant of the flashlight's glare, the PC sees a multitude of new detail in his former village, and as much as well in his blinded former fellows. The PCs leave and are unfollowed.

The trip back to base is harassed by first, ignimbrite mites whom the copkiller PC maces, and then second, by Psychomycosis Megaspores. The Megaspores get the surprise but the PCs abandon their handcuffed captive and get away.

Following this, they make it back to base, with a child's fresh corpse.

PLAY NOTES:

I wish the Psychomycosis Megaspores text stated how you get the spores off your head. Without that I floundered and came up with a too-easy method: succeed on a grapple check.

Our copkiller player knows how to argue and successfully debated that ignimbrite mites are vulnerable to mace.

The veins cannibalism/lumes economy is on brilliant display in this campaign.

The way I interpret LOTFP's chase rules:
On your iniative you can run away. If someone chases you, you do the d20+speed/10 roll off. If you win, you get away in unfamiliar territory. If you lose, they get a surprise round and then reroll iniative.

I keep forgetting iniative is determined by light, and in general I often forget the immediate threat of darkness, although I well remember the draining lumes.

Finally, veins definitely needs rules for preserving corpses with salt or similar.

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

peterwebb wrote:

((...))
Finally, veins definitely needs rules for preserving corpses with salt or similar.

I for one recently wondered if there truly is that many "preserved food" around in the Veins. I start to think about Veins Dwellers "gorging" it all if they can, similar to what hungry wolves sometimes do when they get a rich kill in an otherwise bleak season.

The best system neutral RPG guide about dressing kills and preserving meat I know of is The Meat Lovers Guide To The Post-Apocalypse. If you want to learn about the details (to later decide how much of it to ignore in favor of the game), this is the PDF I recommend. When you use the 10 calories = 1 lumen formula briefly mentioned on p.321 VotE, you can even calculated what a dried rat (for example) is worth in the Veins.

Last edited by Gregorius21778 (2019-07-17 17:58:05)

With kind regards
Gregorius21778
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Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

1 dead child = 2000 sp/lumes, that's a good value

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

THE END OF THE CAMPAIGN -

the PCs (only 3) learn of a nearby dungeon: a volcanic hall with a lava flow that dissolves souls. Those that seek to avoid hell go there. It is protected, however by undead monks who impose an unspecified levy.

First the adventurers have to kill the Cave Bear and harvest its Bone Plates for Anti-Fire Armor. A trap is made; a dangling flashlight.

The cave bear attacks! It bats the flashlight. The PCs attack! Gunshots ring out.

The bear is wounded, but alive and deadly... it mauls one PC. The others flee (now only two).

The PCs set up a similar ambush and this time blind the bear with mace. That's does the trick. They butcher the bear for armor, which takes a few days. Then they set off to get their souls dissolved.

They arrive at a large hole in the ground. The air around them is molten, the ground semi-soft. The ropes are fried during their rappel. At the bottom, the soft walls are sculpted as if by a million rough hands. Impressionistic cities and alien landscapes.

They traverse into a dark molten hall. Whispering encircles them. 12 jewlery-laden monks appear. Slashed mouths, sloughed white skin, ash scratchings instead of eyes. It is mutually discovered that the monks speak Infernal. They harass the PCs for payment.

One PC offers up the other PC as tribute. The players are boyfriends-- a betrayal! Much clamour starts. We eat pizza and I describe how the monk-ghouls eat the betrayed and then sacrifice the betrayer. The betrayed's destiny is hell and the betrayer's is oblivion.

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

That was a CLEVER way of entering this special kind of "Pariah of the Veins" that I will not name here further! To bad that it ended this way, but a fitting end for a short VotE-campaign for sure.

Will your journeys in the Veins (as a GM) end here once again? Or will a new group seek out adventure?

With kind regards
Gregorius21778
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Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

Gregorius21778 wrote:

That was a CLEVER way of entering this special kind of "Pariah of the Veins" that I will not name here further! To bad that it ended this way, but a fitting end for a short VotE-campaign for sure.

Will your journeys in the Veins (as a GM) end here once again? Or will a new group seek out adventure?

I've got no plans to DM for the forseeable future, we're going to play Gloomhaven for a while smile

Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

peterwebb wrote:

I've got no plans to DM for the forseeable future, we're going to play Gloomhaven for a while smile

A good choice in regard to cooperative boardgames. A friend of mine picked up a copy, he and his girlfriend had many good gaming evening with it so far.

With kind regards
Gregorius21778
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Re: Veins of the Earth play reports

Ran a new veins of the earth campaign and 6/7 characters died first session. No one was injured via combat.

3 characters died from jumping in a river and being swept into a lava flow. One of these characters was carrying over 75k gp worth of treasure (all of it was evaporated )

1 jumped in the river and managed to swim to safety, but then later opened a trapdoor which released the same lava flow onto them, killing them instantly.

The final 2 died from falling off a waterfall.

They fought scissorfish and panic attack jacks along the way, sacrificed a captured beastman to distract the fish and shot the jacks at range to kill them. The panic attack jacks were cool because they were slow but able to keep pace just beyond the torchlight due to their unique speed.