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Session 5

A new/old scenario for this session.

The events take place in June of AD 1602.

For this session the players were Anthony R., Walter C. and Jon S.-D. About half way through the session, a fellow who was shopping in the retail store came up and said "hi" to Walter. Walter knew him from other gaming situations. This would be Sam M. I cajoled him into joining the game and gave him the NPC dwarf. After the game, I invited him to join the campaign but I'm not sure if he will.

Andy R. could not be at this session. Since he is moving to Alabama, he might not continue in the campaign. We had talked of a telepresence option so his face may appear on a laptop at our in-person games. Maybe we can decorate the laptop so that he looks like Arnim Zola from Captain America fame. I assumed that his elf was not able to join the expedition.

The set up for the scenario is that the party was contacted by Charles Rutherford. He had been in correspondence with Rupert Greene. Rutherford learned about the party's venture to the church with strange artwork and tunnels under the hill. He came to the conclusion that the party had not taken full advantage of the place. He offered to use his amazing vehicle to transport the party to the village in the middle of the night when the villagers would all be asleep. In the months since the journey to the other planet, Rutherford had learned how to make the craft invisible for a limited amount of time. He only asked for 10% of all monies gained off the top. The party agreed.

So, the party flew back to the village in a flying saucer. A few days ahead of time, they had prepared a timber bracing system for the trapped door.

They went through the "Exchequer" door. This time they took the tunnel to the left. I had decided that the god would only hear them if it was reasonably close to their noise-making. They opened several of the vaults and got a few coins, a very valuable gem and two scrolls (one wizard scroll and one cleric scroll). Each scroll had many spells. Eventually the god came along. Despite the fact that it was obviously slow and could be outrun, they charged to fight it. The dwarf was killed in the fight and they eventually ran away. They left the tunnels and discovered that the god would not leave said tunnels. It just remained at the doorway watching them. Someone did rush out of the saucer and close the door.

The party flew away in the flying saucer.

End of session 5 and end of Return to the God that Crawls.

If all goes well, we will start Thulian Echoes at the next session.

4th session of the campaign.

The party is still wandering across the planet that harbors a city called Carcosa while being led by a demon/box.

The same players from previous sessions (Andy R., Anthony R. and Walter C.) were there. We also had Jon S.-D. He was playing the dwarf that had been an NPC.

In my last posted I forgot to indicate that they had entered hex 1905.

At the beginning of the session they traversed into hex 2004. After a few miles, they spotted a group of allosaurs before they themselves were spotted. They wisely hi in the tall purple grass and let them wander off.

After several miles of following the trails indicated by the demon, they met the Brown man on the rock. They were polite to him and a long conversation ensued. the man told them many things about the planet and then they departed. A mile after meeting the wise man the camped for the night.

The next day, they moved into hex 2104. During the morning they passed both the pulse cannon and the sigil in the rocks. They spent only a little time examining each and then continued. They moved into 2203. After walking a few miles, they saw the Space Aliens standing on floating disks about half a mile away. They seemed to be searching for something in the grass. The party decided to try to avoid them and did so. Traveling another five miles, they came to the robot village and talked with the Bone sorcerer. He asked them to help him escape. He offered Space Alien technology (night vision goggles) in return. They indicated they would try to help him later then then left. They walked a few miles and made camp.

In the morning, the wandered into hex 2202. They walked few miles and were ambushed by a Child of Ny-Gor-At. Their firearms made quick work of it. It helps when every member of the party has guns. After another few miles they came to a village of Dolm men. They were very wary of the Dolms and did not fall prey to any scheme but left promptly.

They moved into hex 2201. After some time, they encountered the bone sorcerer with the fancy sword. He had a wagon being pulled by a small tricerotops and he had two Green slaves. He was cocky and arrogant. He demanded the party give over all their treasures to him. They told him to "fuck off" and fight ensued. Bad rolls on my part meant that they killed him even though he wounded the cleric but not with the special effect. The cleric took the strange bone-white sword. They freed the slaves who went off to the East.  After walking some distance more, they encountered another Child of Ny-Gor-At and killed it. then, they made camp.

In the morning, they set off and made their way into hex 2301. Walking only a little way in, they found the Space Alien facility to which the demon/box had been leading them. It led them to a metal door in the side of a low hill. The box opened the door for them and they entered. They found metal corridors and the demon caused parts of the ceiling to illuminate. They were attacked by creature that looked like three fleshy globes attached by fleshy ropes. They killed it easily as it had only HD1. It did not make contact with them so its contact poison was of no avail to it. Right before getting to destination room of the demon/box they were attacked by a Flying Dagger ( basically bat-shaped but with a bony spike at the front). They killed it and then went into the room.

I'll finish the account of session 4 soon.

More about the 3rd session:

In the morning, the party continued on their way according to guidance by the demon/box. they walked several miles into hex 1907 and came to a large village of the Yellow folk. An outlying patrol of warriors met them and escorted them through the village since the party did not want to trade.

After walking a few more miles they saw a reptile that walked on large hind legs and had small fore limbs. It was as big as a hut. It was some distance off and the party tried to make sure it did not notice them. It did not. But, it did breath blue light at some other reptiles and they burst into flame. they screamed and dies and were eaten by the big lizard. The party snuck away from the distracted monster.

They pressed on into hex 1906. After a few miles, they were accosted by five of the Red folk who seemed to want to rob them. A fight ensued and one red man was killed. The others were frightened by the firearms of the party and fled. The other groups of Red brigands who were not too far off decided to find easier pickings elsewhere.

After walking a few miles, the party was ambushed by another Child of Ny-Gor-At. This was a large crustacean with feathers and no eyes. there was a fight that lasted awhile with the party finding it hard to damage the thing because of its hard carapace. Eventually, the killed it but not before it snipped the fighter in two with its pincer/claws. They buried his remains and proceeded on the journey. Yes, they looted his body.

The party walked several more miles and made camp. In the morning they, trekked further. After four or five miles, they came to a castle with Blue Men. It seemed like there were not many of them. Neither the party or the Blues offered violence they travelled further.

Only two miles down the trail they came to a strange building with a small number of Purple folk. The purples and their apparent leader tried to entice the party into taking up the worship of the Old Ones but the party was not interested in religious sermons. They kept walking.

As the party walked away from the monastery, we ended the 3rd session of our campaign.

More of the account of session 2.

After stopping for a midday meal, they travelled a couple of miles and the box directed them to follow an intersecting pathway that lead North. Now entering hex 1509, they walked four or so miles and saw a strange thing off the right. It was maybe a quarter of a mile away and looked like a lumpy pillar rising from the plain. Rutherford wanted to investigate so the moved towards it. As they got closer, they saw it was a huge mass of pulsating fungal growth. They only approached to a distance of 100 feet and could see some liquid spray out of the thing to a distance of 20 feet. They decided to go back to the path and proceed on the journey.

Only two miles past the fungus pillar they came to a castle occupied by Yellow Folk. The path ran right next to it. Some men armed with spears and shields came out to talk to them. They seemed surprised by the strange appearance of the group. They were especially interested in the elf with the pointy ears and squat figure of the dwarf. They called their cheiftan to come out and be conversed with the party about where they were going. He tried to barter for the demon/box but Rutherford refused and the chief did not press the matter. He eyed all the firearms the party was carrying and assumed they were like the weapons of the Greys. The party left to continue the quest. Right beyond the castle was a trail leading Northeast and demon directed the group that way.

They walked another four or so miles and it was getting dark so they made camp without trying to start a fire. During the night, the invisible monster attacked the person on watch. It had been following them since it first saw them. A fight ensued and the thing was quickly killed. The box informed them that it was a Child of Ny-Gor-At. The cleric cast a healing spell on the wounded
person and they tried to get more sleep.

That was the end of the second session.

Here is more about session2.

For those who did not figure it out from the last post, I'm using the Carcosa supplement for the second scenario.

They landed on a metal platform. It seemed to be in a grassland area but the grass was purple (they had landed in hex 1410). rutherford began a conversation with the demon/box.  After a little bit of strange flashing lights from the box, it indicated that the platform would not provide enough power to return to Earth. Rutherford would have to take the box to another location on the planet. The box indicated it would take roughly seven days to walk there but the demon/box could guide them. The box indicated it needed to go to the Northeast (see hex 2301). The group left the craft to have a look around.

They saw that the platform was right next to a footpath running North and South. Looking to the South they seemed to see a gorge about half a mile away. They went there in investigate. The path took them right to the edge of the gorge where they found a basalt stairway leading down the slope to a huge metal bridge that spanned the wide river at the bottom. It seemed to them that there were a great many coins and gems scattered on the bridge. They also noticed that there were many cave openings on the walls of the gorge. They decided it was a trap and that they should avoid it. They went back to the craft, gathered their supplies and headed North on the foot path. After a couple of miles, they found that there was a path coming from the Northeast that intersected the path they were on. The demon/box told the to go Northeast and so they did. What they did not know was that there was an invisible monster at the crossroads and it began to follow them.

I'll give more info about session 2 soon.

More on the Second Session

Rutherford talked to the box and it responded. The red glass windows would glow when it spoke. Rutherford indicated that the demon/box had provided much information to him. Whereas most folks in Britain thought the cosmos was roughly 6,000 years old based on the biblical account, the box had told Rutherford that it was more than 13 billion years old. It had told him about other star systems and the planets that orbited those stars. It told him about one planet in particular. It informed him that there was a vessel here on Earth that could transport Rutherford to this other world. Rutherford made a bargain with this demon/box to dig up the buried vessel and take the box back to the planet of its origin.

Rutherford told the PCs that the vessel was almost unearthed and ready for the journey. He said it was in a mountain side in the Pennine Range. He promised them 1,000 silver for each person if they would travel with him in the vessel to the other planet. They were to guard him and assist in his explorations. They agreed if he would give them 100 silver up front and give them a few days to get ready. Rutherford agreed and the deal was made.

I'll give more account of Session Two later.

continuation of 1st session

The party went back to London and met with Rupert Greene. They gave him a report of the activities and he paid them each 25sp. He advised them to lay low for awhile. They waited a week and decided to go back to the underground complex to find more treasure.

They walked to the back door. They did notice one of the kids from the church had been sitting on the hill side keeping a watch on the back door. The kid ran back towards the church as soon as he saw them. They noticed that there were signs of much recent activity in front of the door including stone blocks and timbers. They opened the door again and saw the trap had been repaired. they closed the door and started moving around the base of the hill and staying in the wooded lower slopes. When they got to the other side of the hill, they moved up closer to the clear area at the summit but stayed the the underbrush to hide. They saw Bacon and some villagers mustering at the front door to the church. Some of the villagers had farm implements. A few of them had swords. And, two of them had wheellock rifles.

The party decided to move away from the hill and toward London. They tried to stay out of view of the folk of Three Oaks and move across country. Eventually, they got back to London. They decided to tell Greene about their second venture. He was quite agitated by this turn of events. He advised them to get out of London and maybe even out of the country. He indicated that he would be leaving London for a little while.

So, we finished the session with the assumption that the party members would be heading North away from London to other parts of England.

1st session

The first scenario was set in England in the year AD 1601. I decided to use The God that Crawls. Anthony R. was playing a wizard. Walter C. was playing a cleric(Church of England). Andy R. was playing an elf. Two players did not show up (and probably will never be seen again) and they would have played a fighter and a dwarf. I had Anthony run the fighter and Walter ran the dwarf.

The party was hired by Rupert Greene to investigate a village church. Greene was a scholar of things arcane even though he was not a wizard. He had come across info in old books about strange circumstances (and strange artwork) at this particular church. He promised the PCs 25sp each if they could sniff out the real story. So, they left for the village called Three Oaks. I had decided that the road to the village ran past the back door. There would be a chance that they would spot the door through the foliage next to the road. They all rolled poorly and did not see it.

They went to the church, knocked on the door and were met by Timothy. He let them in then went to get Reverend Bacon. Bacon greeted them and the party indicated that they were travelers who wanted to stop to pray. He was glad to let them do it but they mentioned the paintings they could clearly see on the walls so he gave them a tour. After the tour, the party indicated the need for prayer so Bacon conducted them to the pews and went back to his chamber. The three boys were bustling about the church cleaning various things. While sitting the pews the party whispered a plot to distract the boys and have one party member look behind the curtain. Their roll to distract the boys was successful and the elf looked behind it to see the door on the right. He chose not to try to go through the door so as not to raise a ruckus. The party left the church.

Once outside, they determined that they had investigated enough and would head back to London to get the fee. Since they were retracing their route, they had another chance to spot the back door and they saw it this time. They approached the door and saw the sign. They thought that it could only be a ruse on the part of the locals and not really from the royal government. They removed the bar and opened the door.

I'll finish the account of session one in a day or so.

Looks like they some more books from the 1600's

https://library.gatech.edu/news/archive … ileo-books

4th Game
They got to the back door and decided not to go in. They went to the church and talked to bacon. They were acting kind of suspicious and so Bacon was suspicious of them. I think they let drop that someone hired them to investigate the church. They left the church and went to the back door. As they were doing that, Bacon was rousing the villagers. They noticed the doorway problem and spent a turn making poles to brace the ceiling. The part went in and shut the door behind them. The villagers took up position outside door to prevent party from leaving. I assumed that a couple of the villagers had wheellock muskets and the others had farm implements. The party looked at the already opened vault and found a scroll with summon spell. Luckily/unluckily, the wizard had memorized read magic. So, he read magic. They went to the right and opened the next vault. They found a bag of coins and the god showed up. There was a round of combat and then wizard summoned a demon. It had a dog-like form and could cast chaos spell at will. There was a test of wills betwixt wizard and demon and the demon won handily(Great Margin). Rather then use the Dominating Creature table, I decided the wizard would be demon’s slave for a year. The demon used chaos on the god and the god meandered aimlessly away into the tunnels. The demon told his disciple to follow and he went to the exit door. The villagers started to freak out so demon-dog used chaos spell. Some began to fight each other and some meandered away. The demon-dog and slave left for the village. The rest of the party followed to help their comrade. The demon-dog (and slave) ran into woods and the party lost them. We all decided the game had run its course and called it quits.

5th Game
They went to back door. They noticed door problem, made poles for bracing and then went in. After the already opened vault they went to the right and opened the next vault. They saw the god come into view from the West and decided to run East to stairway IX. After going up stairs, they went East and so wound up at the collapsed tunnel. They examined it for awhile. This gave the god a chance to trap them in that tunnel. A fight ensued. The god had many, many bad attack rolls. It took many rounds but they hacked it down to 0 hit points. As they made their way past the remains, they noticed it was reforming so they ran out of the tunnels through the back door. They then went to church and told Bacon about the demon in the tunnels below his church. He seemed very concerned and promised to contact the royal government. He also told them that they were in luck since it was the anniversary of the founding of the village and there would be a feast that night. He invited the party to attend and they accepted. Two of them did not make saving throw for wine and had to be carried to a barn by the others to sleep it off. They all stated suspicion about being drugged but did nothing about it. In the morning, they visited bacon to see artwork. Bacon had arranged for the villagers to wait until they were in the church then charge in, dog pile them and wrestle them into restraints. They put the party in the pit. I explained that there were villagers at all exits and it was essentially hopeless. We decided to call it quits rather than play out more dungeon crawling. We assumed the party would die.

I ran 5 sessions of this scenario at DragonCon last weekend. I pre-generated the PCs (one of each class, all of  them 1st level) and I pre-generated treasure for 20 of the wall vaults. Since some of the treasure included scrolls with the summon spell, I pre-generated some demons. I made 3 1HD demons in case the Magic save was made and 3 in case it was not made. I made 3 2HD demons in case the save was made and 3 in case it was not. For the 3 not-save, I rolled a 20 on the second one. The Abstract Form I rolled was the one called World Under Water.

I decided that as they walk on the way from London, the road would lead past the side door in the hillside before rounding the hill and each PC could roll Intelligence or less to spot it.

I'll post tomorrow with accounts of the 5 games.