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Really Wild West “Doomstone” Campaign — After-Action Report (Game Session 7, part 1)
After nearly a month break, I finally ran by Starfinder-Really Wild West-Doomstone campaign again, and people have been asking about getting to see the after-action report. So here’s a write-up adapted from notes taken by my wife Lj (who is playing the fenrin operative bounty hunter named “Sawyer”), mostly in second person, as a report for Session Seven!
You can find Session One here: Part One, Part Two.
Session Two here: Part One, Part Two.
Session Three here.
Session Four here.
Session Five here: Part One. Part Two.
Session Six here.
If you don’t recognize a reference, it may (or may not) be in a previous session, or at the updated campaign notes page.
A lot happened in this one, so it’s been broken into multiple blog posts.
>>We’ve traded the digging bits of the Martian Embanking Machine we captured (that had already been partially-converted by Professor Adrameliche, who turns out to be the Venom King) to the Circle Axe Ranch in exchange for the parts, materials, tools, and assistance we need to convert it into our base of operations. Conversion takes two weeks, during which time we are guests of the Circle Axe. The group decides on a group name (the Knight Rangers), and name the soon-to-be-finished mobile base of operations “The Armadillo.”
The local Fonts and Bismarck Station Chief, Adler, comes to visit and receive a briefing on the Knight Ranger’s recent activities. Agrees to use official Fonts and Bismarck channels to make inquiries about whether Professor Adrameliche has been seen in Montana. Also helps discover that the Professor’s style of technological invention is very similar to that found in several train robberies (performed with the aid of a robotic derailing machine) performed a few years back that accrued a great deal of cash.
Since the Knight Rangers believe the Professor is in Montana, the fenrin operative bounty hunter looks up bounties in Montana.
· The situation is complicated, with the state new to the Union and in a very unstable place due to massive damage from Martian Walkers during the War of the Worlds. Various Copper Kings (like cattle barons, but for copper) are in near-open warfare and set bounties on each other, many with local (though not legal) support. State bounties are legal, but often lack local support and are likely to anger one or more factions. Mostly only official Federal bounties are seen to have the weight needed to be legal and not likely to bring reprisals.
· An exception is that the rare bounty placed by “Gotham Jo” – Josephine Fiery, are also respected throughout Montana.
o She is a madam and business owner of a hurdy gurdy house in Helena
o She’s married to a man who’s present, but not in charge. In fact she seems to have him under her thumb, with lcoals knowing not to allow him to drink or gamble.
o has a reputation for taking care of her employees, and only put out bounties on those who have wronged her people, never on an ex-employee
· There are currently no active bounties safe to take
Knight rangers made some inquiries about Beard-cutter Ben (who sold them “walking meat,” a chewing gum that turned out to attract the Monstrous Jerusalem Bugs that attacks the PCs back in Session Two.
· Upon hearing they are looking for him, he shows up at the ranch to apologize and offer us refunds and reparations. He got the material from the East Hudson Fur Trading Company. He will never do business with them again, and he’s spreading word that it’s bad, hired a lawyer to sue the EHBFTCo.
· We ask him to tell us when he finds out more information
· As part of reparations, ask him to give discounted shaves for law enforcement. He also gives some cash.
Station Chief Adler reports Professor Adremeliche has been spotted in three places in Montana in the last 60 days.
· Helena, the capitol (It is 680 miles from here – if Knight Rangers go there, can visit Bute-Silverbow on the way. Economy fueled by lead, silver, and gold mining. Capitol buildings under construction. Most millionaires per capita in the US. Many movers and shakers – includes Gotham Jo. The Copper Kings who are so influential elsewhere in the state have very little control here. Population 13,000. No real bad part of town. Almost no unemployment. The rich people compete in charitable giving.)
· Butte-Silverbow (Closest to the Knight Ranger’s current location – 450 miles. Population of 15,000 – biggest city in Montana. Center of War of the Worlds refugees in the state. Major EHBFTCo. base of operations–no Fonts and Bismarck office there. Center of where the Copper Kings are waging war against each other. Center of the Asteroid Mining Co. – mine adamantine and other star metals. Growing copper industry. Center of Martian tech research in the state. Two scummy red light districts. Grimy and smoke-filled. Gangs based on foreign national or ethnic origins divided up the town, most with ties to one or another Copper King.)
· Hellgate (800 miles from here – due to limitations on moving the Armadillo through mountains and damaged infrastructure from the War of the Worlds, have to go around a forest to get there. Third largest city in Montana – pop. 3,400. In Hellgate Valley [Sections of which were choked with bones due to French fir traders fighting with natives, which is how it got its name. Fur trade has moved out.] Now largely trades in lumber. Home of Hellgate University [oldest in the state and includes the only accredited and licensed school of necromancy not in Eastern Europe]. Next to the Rattlesnake Mts. One of only two places in the world with a Badlands City embassy.
Most information comes from Station Chief Allison Flynn of Helena, Montana.
· Her information was gathered under the radar. She is convinced Professor Adrameliche is connected with one of the power structures in the state. Found a picture of him for us – he wears black with accents of the same green as the Venom King. He is, of course, the Venom King. Mechanical arm. Cane with human bones and a green skull pommel – [Likely the Venom King’s actual bones.] Eyes = black with tiny, green dots
The Knight Rangers decide they are going to visit the university in Hellgate first, to see if they can find a way to put down the dead spirit that is the Venom King, and who now seems to inhabit Professor Adrameliche.
· We can make 40-50 miles per day in the Armadillo. Get to the university in 16 days using an alternate route. Our route will take us through Yellowstone, Idaho Falls, Salmon, Hamilton, Lolo, then Hellgate
Around Day 10 into the 14 days it takes to put together the Armadillo. Dwargus invites us up to the big house for supper and new. Circle Axe has been granted 75% of the disputed lands they were arguing with the vicious Hippogriff Ranch – including Neblin Ridge.
· Dwargus gives us a Federal salvage deed for the Armadillo from the Sixth Federal Circuit Court in Ohio. It might be overturned, but it should at least take a court case to do so.
· Mention that Texas Helium Magnate Tex Tanner has sent word he’s sending a representative to make an offer to buy the Armadillo… but the rep won’t arrive until two days after the Knight Rangers have left. We decide not to wait for him.
Around Day 12 into the 14 days elven ranch hand Waterlily wants to talk to us. She mentions the Ogre ranch hand Bo Hoss has a problem he doesn’t want to bother us with. His family lives in a shield volcano near Rexberg, Idaho. Communication with them has ceased. Dwargus sent an inquiry – got no information. They’re all ogres – only a few speak English – mostly immigrants of Pacific Islander descent.
A Shirren lady comes to measure Liam for some clothes. As a sensate, she asks if she can lick the Armadillo. The Knight rangers are okay with it, and she experiences 15 new flavors she’s never tasted before. In thanks, she gives us all spider silk umbrellas (+2 KAC/EAC against liquid-based attacks if held, but only 1 HP and takes damage if attack it is used against does any damage).
On Campaign Day 31 – it’s time to head out to Hellgate
· The roboticist mechanic and operative bounty hunter are the best drivers, with the cartogramancer technomancer a close third.
· The centaur paladin can drive, but her armor gives her penalties
· The others we set up on rotation to learn
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Technomancers of the Really Wild West 5: Teslics
Not so long ago I noted on Facebook and Twitter that in the Really Wild West, the most common kinds of technomancers are Cartogramancers, Edisonades, Lovelacers, Telethurges, Teslics, and the Prophets of John Moses Browning.
I thought it might be fun to examine those ideas, and we’ve gotten to the Teslics.
Teslics
Teslics are technomancers who attempt to reconcile the weirder scientific theories of mechanic Nikolai Tesla with their theosophic technological equivalents. Though Nikolai Tesla is a relative newcomer to the technological world stage, Tesla’s AC system and motors driven by it were adopted by Westinghouse in 1888 (following a war of publicity with Thomas Edison) giving Tesla international attention.
When Tesla claimed to be able to communicate with spirits of the dead in 1889, and that they warned an invasion from another planet was imminent, numerous serious researches and companies wrote him off. When he revealed he was boosting his own intelligence with the applciation of electircal current through an implant, there was serious discussion of having him committed.
When the Martians invaded, and tesla proved able to intercept their communications, predict their movements, and was the first to begin understanding their technology, all that changed. The US War Department has since given him nearly unlimited funds and facilities, and his Grand Street Laboratory in Manhattan has rapidly expanded to cover most of a city block. As a result, Tesla’s creativity has exploded.
Spirit phones. Cosmic auras. Teleforce. Broadcast energy. Death rays. Polyphase converters. Oscillating generators. Radiant energies. Remote controls. Magnifying transmitters. Tesla creates ideas in frenzied dashes of invention, rushing from one concept to another and forgoing sleep in favor of direct electric stimulation of his body. Some ideas he completes, and can be put into near-immediate use. Others are barely described at all, with little more than a single working prototype and a few scrawled calculations and theories. All efforts to bring tesla back to flesh-out his more esoteric concepts fail, and the War Department is so desperate for the inventions he completes–which they believe will be crucial in predicting and possible preventing a second War of the Worlds–they refuse to cut off his support.
After some weeks of having top-secret panels try to make sense of the fragmentary advances in technology Tesla has already abandoned for new ideas, the War Department generally leaks what little is know to private think tanks, and over months they become more widely disseminated. While dedicated mechanics and engineers attempt to recreate the pure-science answer Tesla has clearly discovered, some going to far as to install electric “exocortex” stimulators in their own brains, some technomancers seek to bypass the need for understanding the core principles of these technologies by building theosophic, sympathetic magic answers that can create the same end result without knowing exactly how it is done.
Teslics are often considered to be toying with forces no mortal mind can comprehend, and thought of as likely to become unreliable and possible even dangerous with little or no warning. At the same time, a Teslic’s willingness to risk their mind to unlock some discovery that might help the Earth defend itself from Mars is also seen as crucial on a grand scale, even if most people prefer Teslics do their crucial work far, far away.
Technomancer Alternate Class Feature: Teslic
Theoretical Theosophy: One spell known of each spell-level the technomancer can cast is randomly determined, representing what concepts the technomancer doesn’t quite understand they have managed to temporarily lock into a theosophic frame. However as the stars alignment changes, planets move, weather patterns shift, and the technomancers own understanding of the universe evolves, the tehcnomancer can loose the ability to use an old random spell, and can a new spell in its place.
Normally the randomly-selected spells shift once per month, and each time the technomancer gains a new technomancer level. These spells may be drawn from any spellcasting class (roll 1d10– 1-3 random mystic spell, 4-6 random technomancer spell, 7-9 random witchwarper spell, 10 technomancer may select a spell from any class allowed in the campaign). The random spell is always of the same level as the spell it replaces and one the technoamncer can use (for example, if a personal spell only functions with some class feature he tecnomancer lacks, a different random spell is selected).
Additionally, the technomancer may select one spell known at each spell level that is drawn from the mystic or witchwarper spell list. These may be any spell of the same or lower spell level. The technomancer may never select more than one such off-class spell known at each spell level in this manner (such as if they later swap out spells known upon gaining a level). However, the spell-per-spell-level-known that is selected randomly does not count against this limit.
Teslic Magic Hacks
The following magic hacks are available for selection by Teslics, beginning at 2nd level.
Broadcast Magic: You can attune a number of technological devices equal to your key ability bonus. This takes an hour, and they remain attuned until you attune new items in excess of your maximum. When these items are within short range (25 feet +5 feet/2 levels) and within your line of sight and line of effect, as a move action you can make them the origin point of a spell you cast that has a range greater than personal. You must cast the spell by the end of your next round to do this.
Teleforce: If you cast a damaging spell with a casting time of 1 standard action or less as a full round, you can change the type of damage it deals to be bludgeoning damage, and it becomes a force effect. If you cast the spell using a spell slot one or more levels higher than normal, you can also force the target to make a Reflex save (at the DC for a spell of the level of slot you used) or be pushed back 5 feet for every point by which it fails its save, and knocked prone.
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Technomancers of the Really Wild West 4: Telethurges
Not so long ago I noted on Facebook and Twitter that in the Really Wild West, the most common kinds of technomancers are Cartogramancers, Edisonades, Lovelacers, Telethurges, Teslics, and the Prophets of John Moses Browning.
I thought it might be fun to examine those ideas, and we’ve gotten to the Telethurges.
Telethurges
While telethurges are very strongly associated with telegraph wires in the 1891 of the Really Wild West, their discipline is significantly older than that. The idea of ranged data transmission goes back almost as fat as the discovery of fire, and numerous ancient cultures used signal fires, smoke signals, and even lighthouses to send coded messages. The first “modern” telemancer, however, was British polymancer Robert Hooke, who combined a series of optical telegraph stations with specific theosophic principles on how to boost and encypher transmissions using that system.
However, the first widespread, successful use of optical telegraphs enhanced by theosophic principles was built by French engineer Charles Chappe during the French Revolution, and as a result numerous telethurge schools still teach in French. This was also adopted by naval “weather witches” who developed flag signals and eventually the large-flag system of wigwag, which proved its use during the American Civil War.
The development of the electric telegraph, followed quickly by Samuel Morse’s code for using it in 1838, turned telethurges to find theosophic ways to transmit and receive electric telegraph signals without the wires normally required. This allows access to such wonders as the Babbage-Bell Grid (a global cogitating and data storage system normally accessed through teletype machines in cities and major educational centers), global communication, and in recent years even telephone communication.
Telethurges are often see as “common folk” spellcasters, on par with linemen, polemen, and telegraph operators. In smaller towns, especially in the years just after the War of the Worlds, the local telethurge may be the most reliable method for getting news, sending important letters, and calling for help.
Technomancer Alternate Class Feature: Telethurge
Graphapathy (Su): A telethurge can access information from a telegraph, telephone, or other telecommunication wire without the normal equipment needed to do so. The wire or device must be within 400 feet +40 feet/level, and within line of sight and line of effect. The telethurge can use the communication system as if she was sitting at an appropriate device wired into it. The telethurge can even take a message from one wire or device, and move it to another (such as taking audio from a telephone line and transmitting it directly to a wax-cylinder recorder or Edisonade’s playback device).
A telethurge can extend the range of this ability by expending a spell slot. This allows the ability to function if there is a telecom wire or station within a range of 50 miles, +50 miles per level of the spell slot. Anything that would block a detect magic spell from detecting a source of magic at the same location as the telecom wire or station blocks the telethurge from being able to reach it. When messages are send or received in this way, they have a maximum of 10 words per caster level for each spell slot expended.
Additionally, when using telecom devices to send coded messages or trying to decipher coded messages, rather than Bluff or Sense Motive, the telethurge can use Mysticsm, and gains an insight bonus to their checks equal to 1/3 their class level.
A telethurge gains the following spells known as bonuses when they gain spells of the appropriate level — telepathic message (0-level), akkashic download (1st level), status (2nd-level), tongues (3rd-level), telepathic bond (4th-level), telepathy (5th level), telepathic jaunt (6th-level).
A telethurge has one fewer spells known at each spell level.
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Technomancers of the Really Wild West 3: Lovelacers
Not so long ago I noted on Facebook and Twitter that in the Really Wild West, the most common kinds of technomancers are Cartogramancers, Edisonades, Lovelacers, Telethurges, Teslics, and the Prophets of John Moses Browning.
I thought it might be fun to examine those ideas, and we’ve gotten to the Lovelacers.
Lovelacers
Lovelacers are students of the principles of Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, and her the Mathimatikí Poíisi, the mathematical poetry that allows Analytical Engines and Cogitators to do more than solve equations. Ada Lovelace was the only child of famed poet Lord Byron and mathematician Lady Byron, and she recognized the potential of Charles Babbage’s mechanical calculating machines, beginning with his first Difference Engine, and combining their capacities with the clockwork minds of automatons, making the standardized construction of Androids possible. (Countess Lovelace also formed the Sapience Sequence, a series of questions and tests that can differentiate between a difference engine pretending to be sapient, and a true android that is the vessel for a soul.)
It’s also worth noting that Countess Lovelace was not, herself, a technomancer. Though she created numerous Mathimatikí Poíisi formula for use by technomancers, she herself was not a spellcaster but a pure theoretician and thinker. She had a sapient drone built using her designs and created numerous theosophical principles that have since become tehcnomancer spells, all without any spellcasting ability herself.
Lovelacers are respected as adepts at mathematics, poetry, and machine intelligence. Even before the social upheaval of the War of the Worlds broke numerous gender-based biases against women as technomancers, Lovelacers of any gender where considered respectable and competent, due in no small part to their ties back to Countess Lovelace herself, who was seen as a nearly divine intellect and the inheritor of significant social cachet as a result of her parentage.
Lovelacers are generally expected by the public to be “genteel” technomancers, the sorts of people who spend time in intellectual salons and academic settings, rather than on the frontier or in grimy workshops. However, they are also perceived to be serious thinkers, and when they do feel moved to put themselves in rougher ettings, people take their reasoning seriously.
Technomancer Alternate Class Feature: Lovelacer
Data Cache (Ex): A Lovelacer has a series of cogitator gears and difference engine formula that allow her to quickly and easily store data, run sums, and operate certain kinds of gizmos. Rather than a spell cache, this serves as a data cache. The Lovelacer’s data cache does not function as normal for a technomancer. Instead, it acts as a computer, with a tier equal to half the Lovelacer’s tier. At 2nd level, and each even technomancer level thereafter, the Lovelacer can add one module, countermeasure, or upgrade to the computer at no additional cost. Additionally, as long as you have your data cache, you are considered to have access to an InfoSphere. Your data cache can be repaired or replaced in the same way as a spell cache. Your data cache counts as a spell cache for prerequisites and interactions with other class features.
This replaces spell cache and cache capacitor.
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Technomancers of the Really Wild West 2: Edisonades
Not so long ago I noted on Facebook and Twitter that in the Really Wild West, the most common kinds of technomancers are Cartogramancers, Edisonades, Lovelacers, Telethurges, Teslics, and the Prophets of John Moses Browning.
I thought it might be fun to examine those ideas. I started with the one I’ve used the most, cartogramancer. Now its time to look at the Edisonade.
Edisonades
Edisonades are inspired by one of the most famous living technomancers, Thomas Edison. Many can trace their training back to Edison himself–usually not from instruction directly from the Wizard of Menlo Park, but having learned from those who worked at Menlo or Edisons current facility (as of 1891) in Fort Meyers, Florida.
Edisonades are often seen as the “best” technomancers by the general public, due in large part to their continuation of Edison’s work in the theosophic value of sound, electricity, and data recording. They are also often seen as arrogant and too business-oriented to be trusted by common folk. While neither of these generalizations are actually rooted in the techniques of the Edisonades, they are widespread enough impact how most people react to these technomancers.
Many Edisonades try to also try to be inventors, seeing that as part of the Edison tradition, but their success rate is no greater than any population of educated, scientifically savvy people.
Technomancer Alternate Class Feature: Edisonade
An Edisonade can convert any damaging spell they cast to do electricity or sonic damage. If casting a cantrip that does electricity or sonic damage (including those that normally do some other damage type which they convert with this class feature), the Edisonade adds their class level +1d6 per 3 class levels to the damage done for spells with a single target, and add half their level +1d4 per 3 class levels for spells with an area or multiple targets.
This focus on energy types and manipulating them comes at a cost in other technomancy expertise. An Edisonade has one fewer spells known at every spell level.
Edisonade Magic Hack
A character with the Edisonade alternate class feature can select the following magic hack in place of a standard magic hack.
Playback (Su): An Edisonade with this magic hack can record and playback video and audio using their spell cache. The playback can be seen and heard by anyone able to see and hear the Edisonade. They can record up to 1 hour/level of audio and visual and play it back if they choose to do so in advance, though if they exceed a total of 1 hour/level of recorded material, some older recording must be erased. For any specific detail to be revealed in their playback, the first time they attempt the playback they must make an Engineering check with a DC equal to the Perception check DC to notice the detail when it first happened. The total recording time that can be stored can be divided into multiple recordings, but each recording uses at least 5 minutes of capacity.
An Edisonade can attempt to playback up to 1 minute of audio-visual they experienced but did not think to record at the time. This is always fuzzier, less perfect recordings, and the Engineering check DC to reveal any detail is equal to 10 + the DC of the Perception check to notice that detail when it first happened. this check can only be attempted once for any given moment. If the Edisonade wishes to keep this playback beyond a single viewing, it counts against their total stored recording time.
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Technomancers of the Really Wild West 1: Cartogramancers
The technomancer character in my Really Wild West campaign “Doomstone,” is a cartogramancer–someone who uses magic to enhance maps and mapmaking tools, and can use those tools to divine some kinds of information.
I noted on Facebook and Twitter recently that in the Really Wild West, the most common kinds of technomancers are Cartogramancers, Edisonades, Lovelacers, Telethurges, Teslics, and the Prophets of John Moses Browning.
I thought it might be fun to examine those ideas, starting with the one I had used the most, cartogramancer.
Cartogramancers
Cartogramancers focus on cartography, exploration, and the map as a scrying device. It has multiple origins, having developed in different forms separately in Babylon, China, and India. These were all known to and evolved by Greek and Roman mappers, but the major advancements in cartogramancy occurred in the Muslim community during the Golden Age of Islam. The 12th century cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi is considered the Founder of Modern Cartogramancy, and it was his time spent in Sicily at the court of King Roger II that brought this modern version of the art to Europe, from whence it spread to every place the Europeans eventually colonized.
Cartogramancers are among the most in-demand forms of technomancers among major companies, governments, and military groups. Though this ascendency had begun in the past generation to wane as less and less of the world was uncharted, the Martian Invasion changed so much topography, and stirred up so many Hollow Worlds, that demand has spiked again in the past two years.
Technomancer Alternate Class Feature: Cartogramancy
At 1st level, you gain access to cartogramancy. This replaces you spell cache. (You gain a spell cache at 6th level in place of a cache capacitor, and gain cache capacitor ( at 12th and cache capacitor II at 18th level).
You can make a Mysticism check to perform the Orienteering task normally associated with Survival. You double any equipment bonus that would normally apply to an Orienteering task check (such as from a cartographer’s kit). You also gain an insight bonus to checks made for Orienteering equal to 1/3 your technomancer level (round up).
Additionally, if you are in an environment you have taken at least 10 minutes to survey with a cartography kit from a vantage point that grants you a broad view (such as the top of a hill, rather than down in an alleyway), you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to initiative checks, Perception checks, Stealth checks, and Survival checks within the area you were able to see from your survey point.
Once per day, you can divine information about a region using a cartography kit. This takes 10 minutes, and can be combined with surveying an area, as described above. You generally gain information about one biome you can see out to one day’s travel from you. You can learn one piece of information, plus one piece per 4 technomancer levels.
You can learn the direction or distance to the nearest potable water source, what the natural weather will be over the next 24 hours, the CR of most dangerous creature native to the region, what the most dangerous natural hazard is and what its CR is.
If you ask the same question more than once, each answer moves down to the next relevant answer–for example of you discover CR 7 quicksand is the most dangerous hazard in a region and you asked that question twice, you might also learn than CR 5 rockslides are the second-most-dangerous hazard.
Cartographer’s Kit
Bulk: 1 Cost: 20 credits
A cartographer’s kit includes a compass, sundial, triangles, pens with various nib thicknesses, collapsible tripod, levels, spyglass with level, sextant, and plumb lines. It grants a +2 equipment bonus to skill checks for the Orienteering task or to craft a map. Additionally, if you are trained in a skill that can be used to perform the Orienteering task, and can see the stars or sun, you can take 10 minutes to make a DC 20 check with that skill to attempt to determine your longitude and latitude on the globe… if you know what world you are on.
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Really Wild West “Doomstone” Campaign — After-Action Report (Game Session 6)
It looks like there is enough interest in session notes from my Really Wild West: Doomstone campaign for those to become a regular feature. So here’s a write-up adapted from notes taken by my wife Lj (who is playing the fenrin operative bounty hunter named “Sawyer”) as a quick report for Session Six!
You can find Session One here: Part One, Part Two.
Session Two here: Part One, Part Two.
Session Three here.
Session Four here.
Session Five here: Part One. Part Two.
If you don’t recognize a reference, it may (or may not) be in a previous session, or at the updated campaign notes page.
Session Six
I decided to playtest my idea for Spotlight Tokens in this session. I got some useful feedback, I may or may not keep using them in this campaign.
These notes are from the point of view of the PCs (specifically my wife Lj, and I adapted them from her notes for her character, the fenrin operative bounty hunter Sawyer).
The Svirfneblin host us and feed us. Dinner includes large roasted pill bugs that taste like lobster. Mushrooms, snails (escargot-style), slugs, beer.
· The svirfneblin give us papers and a copy of The Pact to give to Dwargus Hardfist, with whom they hope to open formal trade.
· The svirfneblin give us “the Door,” a complex set of nested crystal spheres. It will seek a spot within the serpent people Hollow World near its center, and then can be activated (with a combination of three successful Engineering and/or Mysciticm checks in a row) to close the serpent people Hollow World for a century or so. Once activated, it must be guarded for 1-2 minutes (1d10+10 rounds), after which it will open a portal. It then cannot be stopped, but anyone who doesn’t go through the portal will be trapped in the Serpent People dark Hollow World for a century.
· The Svirfneblin can have their Hollow World (the Vault) overlap the serpent people’s Hollow World (Aakath), and deposit us near where we will need to set up “the Door.” As soon as we open the door, the powerful Venom Champion known to the serpent people only as “Her” will know, and is sure to arrive.
· Once Aakath is cut off, the serpentfolk who are currently out in our world, will be stuck. They will still be able to teleport, but will have weaker arcane powers and less eldritch strength.
· The Svirfneblin the PCs found and buried have returned their essences and minds to the Svirfneblin communities. Their “soul sparks” have become soul gems, which those who have fallen offer to the PCs (one each) as thanks for putting them to rest.
o “Who they are” has gone back to the community
o These are the fuel that drove their essence, minds, and bodies.
Soul Gem
· all are +1 Resolve Point (only to stabilize)
· Then there are cuts, each with a different power set.
o Trillions +1 to all saves
o Navette +2 against all afflictions
o Cabochon +4 to all saves against poisons
Into the breach — The Svirfneblin perform the ceremony to place us in Aakath.
· We all take anti toxins
· Things dwell there that are worse than serpent folks
· Be prepared for darkness that defies simple concepts such as evil
Aakath — the Endless Cavern
· Darkness so gray, it might as well be black, but we know it isn’t
· Settlement with inhuman architecture in distance, outbuildings nearby
· Thin glowing green sickly line in the far distance
· Vapor clings to the ground
· Crunching noise beneath our feet
· An alien howl of alarm goes off
· The Door draws us toward a nearby fountain, but there are things between us and it.
FIGHT!
· “The unclean thing” – (GM describes it ‘the bezor that the otyugh spit up’). It is a shapeshifting mass of waste, raw, pulsing organs, and foul ichors.
o It spews digestive juices and waste as an attack out of a sphincter it forms for the purpose
· The alarm turns into chanting
· The green glow flashes and two figures teleport in
o One is a Four-armed Huge snake-legged serpentfolk, with glowing venomous pistols, a green gem in her head, and wicked dagger – this is clearly “Her”
o Also with HER is a Size-large serpent with ridges on its back
o Damage to HER appears on the serpent, until the serpent is slain.
· The serpent charges for the bounty hunter operative fenrin.
· A Size-large four-headed serpent appears
· The centaur mercenary paladin protects the human robotocist mechanic and half-orc cartographer tecnomancer as they get the mechanism activated.
· Another unclean thing shows up – a minor version
· We finally get everyone down
· The portal opens as we see siege weapons and giant coils rolling this way
· We flee
AFTERMATH
· We all make it through. End up in the same cavern as the Martian embanking machine, beneath Neblin Ridge.
· Heal up
LOOT from Her: Pocket hollow world (clear gem) – teleport (self only, 440-foot range) CL10 as a move or swift action once per day – (goes the the centaur paladin); warmaster’s gloves (swap out weapon you are wielding with those stored on your person without taking an action) – goes to human soldier; Martian capacitor (1ce/day supercharge a weapon as part of the attack) – goes to human mechanic.
The Tess drives the Martian Embanking Machine out of the mine. We all take a turn driving it. Go back to the Circle Axe Ranch.
· They give us burgers
· Bring Dwargus up to speed. Learn Felspark has been “Recalled East,” by the east Hudson Fur Trading Company.
· He makes us Trustees of the Circle Axe Ranch
· We can take out the tunneling stuff from the Embanking machine and turn the engine into a mobile Base of Operations. Decide to do so before hunting down the infamous Professor Barkane Adrameliche, who we believe has beocme the Venom King, and we think is in Montana.
Divide up the $4000 worth of bounties between us. $800 each.
XPs: 1920
18,970 (23,000 to 7th)
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Really Wild West “Doomstone” Campaign — After-Action Report (Game Session 5, Pt. 2)
Here’s part Two of the Session Five notes for my Really Wild West: Doomstone campaign, adapted from notes taken by my wife Lj (who is playing the fenrin operative bounty hunter named “Sawyer”).
You can find Session One here: Part One, Part Two.
Session Two here: Part One, Part Two.
Session Three here.
Session Four here.
Session Five here: Part One.
If you don’t recognize a reference, it may (or may not) be in a previous session, or at the updated campaign notes page.
Session Five (Part Two)
Still Day 13
The characters see that the heaviest traffic out of the Big Cavern is through the left-hand tunnel, which was clearly made by the Embanking Machine. This also shows signs of the svirfneblin-drawn sled they saw bring green ore out of the mine when observing the camp outside. This is the route the take.
- There is a breach in the tunnel that clips some underground complex that was already there. (The players later learn this is the Svirfneblin Vault)
- The end of that tunnel opens up beyond the breach
- The centaur paladin, in the lead (with her darkvision) is attacked by monsters disguised as rocks at the entrance. They’re grick!
FIGHT!!!
- The grick don’t seem to take electrical damage, fire damage either
- The human soldier criminal grabs the Warhammer the Chimera Kid was using and uses that on the grick – bounces off. The magic fusion that was on the warhammer has already been moved to the mechanic robotisit’s drone’s bite attack (her drone looks like a mechanical dog).
- The grick don’t do a lot of damage, but anyone near them has to make a Reflex save or take some damage from their flailing tentacles, on top of their bites or acid spit. And the grick are reducing every attack that hits them by 10 points of damage, so seem nearly invulnerable.
- There are two Sverfneblin here. They speak some kind of old German. It takes Culture checks for people who know German to understand them.
- The centaur paladin and fenrin operative work to asks the Svirfneblin to call off the beasts – the svirfneblin explain they do not control the gricks
- The human soldier criminal called out the name Drungeldan Smyreonot – the name of one of the ‘neblins we talked to after death
- Bullets don’t work against the gricks either
- The half-orc technomancer cartographer makes a Mysticism check, and says it takes magic damage to hurt the grick. He then casts overcharge weapon on the paladin centaur’s lance.
- The lance kills one. The human soldier has an automatic pistol with a magic rune on it, and he easily kills the other one.
AFTERMATH:
- The centaur paladin casts a spell that allows her to speak to the Svirfneblin
- They need to get to their Headman
- He is being held hostage in the back
- We will have to bypass the serpentfolk and some pact guardians
- The Pact Guardians are varied – some mechanical, some monsters. They protect the svirfneblin, but also obey the pact, and thus don’t currently attack the serpent people who took over the pact by stealing blood of pact scion – Dwargus. Thus as long as Dwargus does not elave the area, the serpent people can come and go in the Svirfneblin Vault. (PCs realize this is why the manticore kept killing off Dwargus’s cattle–so he couln’t retire and leave).
- Only the authority of the pact scion can get us to bypass the pact guardians
- The PCs try the writ given to them by Dwargus allowing them to investigate the area on the door in this room, which is a Pact Guardian itself.
- It works!
- There are serpentfolk on the other side of the door!!
FIGHT!
- There is a gorgeous small green snake, a serpentfolk with a gun and serrated jawbone of an ass sword, and a human carpetbagger with a staff and wearing a beautiful green operacloak
- The two ‘neblin cast spells to aid the PCs
- When the pretty cobra dies, it turns into a pool and evaporates
- The soulstaff dissolves
LOOT: Sharpened jawbone of an ass that is bane vs humanoids (5,000- 10,000-year-old artifact); Who’s Who in Montana 1890; guardian greatcloak (Goes to the technomancer cartographer, and changes from venomous green to midnight blue with silver nautical symbols, route lines, and compass roses when he puts it on).)
Guardian Greatcloak (magic item, level 5): If you take an action that provokes an attack of opportunity, you may expend a Resolve Point without taking an action and not provoke the attack of opportunity
LOOT: One shotgun
PCs move through the rest of the Vault to get to the headman, using the Writ from Dwargus to bypass traps and guardians of the Pact. Final room. Locked and trapped door. The mechanic roboticist bypasses it, and recognizes the handiwork/design skills of Professor Barkane Adrameliche, whose handiwork was also found in the Martian Embanking machine.
- The Svirfneblin Headman is inside
- He asks if he can close the vault, using their authority with the Writ from Dwargus – PCs all say yes
- The Headman explains Professor Barkane Adrameliche IS the Venom King (“Toxin Krieger”to the Sverneblin)
- The Professor found the idea of a “Venom King” while studying Martian Black Gas, and began to hear whispers. As he experimented with and perfected ways to use the Black gas, the whispers grew louder and louder, and eventually the Professor became the Venom King as much as he is Barkane Adrameliche.
- The Professor/Venom King is a Darkling — a human who has embraced the darkness so totally he is a native outsider, and on his way to becoming a demigod. He is one of six “Dread Fates,” six unspeakable ways to die.
- The Professor had six Lts.
- Dathaca (who was the Chimera Kid)
- Gaotma – (the only one with a Doomstone)
- Athath-ka
- Venomancer (the spellcasters the PCs *just* killed)
- Female serpentfolk in the other tunnel. Called “Her” in fearful tones by other serpent people.
- One Unknown
- The Professor and his six lts are the only ones who will ascend, becoming demigods
- None of the other six Dread Fates currently has a physical body. The Professor is trying to bring about one of them, his closest ally, the Dread Fate of Torture (who has a drop of blood as his icon, like the blood cultists encountered earlier on Neblin Ridge).
- The Professor is currently in Montana.
- Sverfhaim is a Hollow World– a place that is as much a concept and planar pocket as it is a material place. So is the Serpent People home. Also, the serpentfolk seek another “Hollow World“
- Headman offers PC hospitality for the night
- Sends his folk to watch the upper caverns
- PCs need to get into the serpentfolk city, set up a mystical “door” (a device the Neblin headman can create), go through it, close the door
- Then the serpent city will cease to have access to our world and we would be on Neblin Ridge
End of session. XPs: 2650
LEVEL UP to 6th!!
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Really Wild West “Doomstone” Campaign — After-Action Report (Game Session 5, Pt. 1)
It looks like there is enough interest in session notes from my Really Wild West: Doomstone campaign for those to become a regular feature. So here’s a write-up adapted from notes taken by my wife Lj (who is playing the fenrin operative bounty hunter named “Sawyer”) as a quick report for Session Five!
You can find Session One here: Part One, Part Two.
Session Two here: Part One, Part Two.
Session Three here.
Session Four here.
If you don’t recognize a reference, it may (or may not) be in a previous session, or at the updated campaign notes page.
Session Five
Day 13
The fenrin operative bounty hunter takes the mask of inconsequence once used by the Chimera Kid. This magic item allows you to make Stealth checks, opposed by observer’s Perception or Sense Motive (whichever is greater) to appear to be no different form the majority of people around you. It only works when you are not in combat, and does not work against anyone directly interacting with you or who is in combat.
So equipped, she heads into the mine to do Stealth recon. She overhears a conversation between two guards – they know there was a ight outside, and if anyone comes up they don’t recognize the guards will will shoot first, ask questions later. They are awaiting the return of “the Professor,” who the guards obviously fear. The Professor specifically warned them not to use the “embanking machine,” which is taken by the group to be a Martian embanking machine from the War of the Worlds.
The players decide to make a blitz attack, since these guards and part of an operation that has used slave svirfneblin labor, and mercilessly killed and hid the bodies of a dozen or more of those.
- The centaur paladin charges in to begin the fracas, impaling an enemy operative (one of two) with a critical hit on a lance change before he has a chance to do anything. (“Yep, that’s a crit. What IS the crit effect on your lance?” “He dies?”)
- There is a spell-casting serpentfolk in here. It casts a defensive spell, then alternates between supercharge weapon and firing snakes as arrows from a 3-limbed bow.
- The surviving operative sniper trick attacks the centaur, and gets his own critical hit on her before she rides him down.
- The human soldier criminal PC exhcages fire with numerous gunslingers, and two axe-lords (people with magic rune brands in their hands allowing them to make special throw-and-return and multiple-target ace attacks, an old Nordic tradition). He gets shot with a snake arrow, but doesn’t go down
- One crook, “Mr. Green Jacket” gets away out the front of the mine and since he agreed to flee “into the desert” and not come back, and the PCs took a lot of damage, they opt not to chase him down.
AFTERMATH
- There is a Martian Embanking Machine here, which has been used to dig dozens of tunnels. It looks like a 20-ft. wide mechanical centipede, and has been converted to be steered by human controls. The human mechanic roboticist disables it by taking out aprt of thsoe adapted controls and in doing so finds a gear with a patent he reognizes–it was created by the infamous Professor Barkane Adrameliche, a citizen of the Ottoman Empire who helped create the first automatons. It is suspected he might have known Gaotma, the Manticore.
- This room also has a series of Martian atomic batteries, which have been salvaged from other Embanking machines. These are not as powerful as a Tripod Generator (like the one serpentfolk tried to steal in Session One), but these three have been hooked to a capacitor designed to concentrate their power, though it takes several days to power up to a generator’s power level.
- The capacitor is hooked to an array that clearly once had a spherical device hooked up inside it. This is right next to an empty storage area which the fenrin can tell 9with Scent) used to have Martian Black gas cannisters. Also, the iron box with the Doomstone taken from the manticore gets hot near the area.
- The PCs conclude the Venom King is using the Martian Batteries to infuse Green Iron (taken from this mine) with the toxic properties of the Black Gas, the most virulent poison now known on Earth. This creates the “Doomstones,” such as the one they recovered, but can only make one every week or two. If the Venom King had a Tripod Generator, he could make a Doomstone every few hours.
LOOT from thsi fight: High-quality handaxes x4; Allin needle guns x2 (one for Liam); Ajax revolvers (x5); three-limbed serpent person bow (no arrows), bag with 8 snake eggs; golden bullet (magical) – put it in any projectile weapon and it has a one-shot built-in supercharge weapon (given to the fenrin operative bounty hunter); gallon of butane
Cast grave words on the bodies the Serpentfolk just hisses words at the PCs. The All of the rest of them talk about weird smells and weird dreams
There are two paths deeper into the mine. The PCs go left.
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Worldbuilding Through Language, Part 1
The online Merriam-Webster dictionary has a “Time Traveler” function, which allows you to see what words first saw print in a given year.
Which means if you have a campaign set in a real-world year, you can create a list of words that were first used in print that year. This becomes a list of the cutting edge of new discussions in various fields. If ‘antibiotic’ is first used as a word in 1891, and that’s the year of your campaign, that tells you something about the state of medicine and awareness of it as a concept. It also means you may want to look at the history of the word and see how it was being used. (Antibiotics, for example, were being explored as a concept in 1891, not yet available).
As an example of what I mean, here is a list of words first used in English in print in 1891, the year of my Really Wild West campaign.
addictive
antibiotic
anti-gang
antimicrobial
appendectomy
atmospherics
AWOL
balloon tire
batting cage
bipartisan
bodywash
collective bargaining
compass rose
diving board
domestic violence
electromagnetic radiation
electron
exhibitionism
eyedropper
fair catch
fair market value
fellatio
fine print
fingerprinting
flea market
frenemy
handheld
house detective
leatherneck
legwork
motion picture
multimillion
mystique
nationwide
neuron
prosciutto
reinforced concrete
secondhand smoke
seismogram
skeletonizer
slot machine
stinking smut
supersecret
supraliminal
synesthesia
table tennis
tabloid
Tasmanian tiger
tattersall
time card
torpedo tube
trade in
transpacific
traveler’s check
tuberculous
ultrarich
vaccination
wasabi
water cannon
wiretapper
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Owen K.C. Stephens 