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50 Fathoms: Session 33- The Shiani and Hunting Blackbeard

March 15, 2017 / Jeff Messina

The Shiani and Hunting Blackbeard

Characters:

Kaliferous: Kraken mage
Rodrigo: Human priest and water Mage from Earth
Mordecai: Human Air Mage Puritan from Earth
Tomas De Orinjo Human Fire Mage from Earth
Daxson: Doreen treasure diver native

Date: 3/18/17

XP: 2

Recap:

Still grieving the loss of their friend, the Crew decided to bring Crow’s body to Maroa and allow the Atani to perform an appropriate funeral. Not only were their spirits weakened, everyone needed some downtime.

They arrived at Maroa and were let into the beautiful tree city without any delay. Their effort in saving the Elder Tree was not forgotten. However the the Atani people were dismayed to find their Shiani and hero deceased. Elderwind song was stricken but quickly prepared to perform Crows last task: The Melding with the Heartwood.

Windsong brought the Crew, Crows body, and the leaders of the city deep within the heart of the Great Tree and inside the cavern that held the Heartwood. Inside, the Crew was amazed to see it fully healed and radiating with power. Where these was once corruption, was healthy wood now pulsing with beautiful green light.

The Heartwood rapidly grew a pedestal and Crows body was placed on its surface. Windson then lead the ceremony and spoke for Crow, of his life and bravery. The Crew then followed- regaling his heroism, quirks and stories of their adventures with him.

The seedpod Crow carried with him, now pulsed with Crows Shiani energy and had, since his death, sprouted into a seedling. Elder Windsong took a beautifully carved wooden dagger and cut into Crows body to expose his heart. He then placed the seedling and pod into the wound and stepped back.

Suddenly, enormous amounts of energy pulsed from the Elder Tree and flowed into Crows body. The seedling rapidly grew and within moments was a fully grown young Carroway tree. Crows body was lost in the tangle of roots as the tree rapidly grew. The entire Grove seemed to be both saddened and energized when their new friend joined them. A new Elder Tree was now growing and would soon join the interconnected network to make a new forest one day.

After several days the Crew decided it was time to find Blackbeard and end this part of their adventure. However before they left and old friend Tomas De Orinjo had finally caught up with them and asked to be part of the Crew. He was welcomed aboard and the Crew sailed south to find Blackbeard.

Rumons said Blackbeard was west of Perck and the Crew whether by luck or divine guidance managed to find Blackbeard’s ship, The Destroyer, without any delay. Sailing straight for the giant vessel the flag of parley flying high, they hoped for the best.

What will Blackbeard do? Will he shoot him on sight? Find out next time!

Redmark Session 05: The Wizard Who Went Splat

March 11, 2017 / Stan Shinn

January 30, Third Age 1331

Hashar the Bugbear may be a black-hearted minion of evil, but he’s good to have on your team when you need a magically locked door busted open or an enemy’s body desecrated. More on that later.

Part I: Rumors

Lundie and Ghost Dancer returned to basecamp from their errands, and Marcus sought to commune with Mars at the Temple of the Lots in preparation for the trials that lay ahead.

Ghost Dancer shared with the group some rumors he heard in Nimroth. First, living southwest of Nimroth are a pack of wolves that are supposedly the pets of an evil giant. (With any luck, Marcus can hire him, too.) Second, people say that there is a ruined castle on top of Bone Hill.

Rumor confirmed!

The source also said that the ruined castle was uninhabited.

Fake news.

And, that beneath the castle ruins, a lost treasure waits to be claimed.

The jury’s still out on that one.

Finally, Ghost Dancer shared that he had been to see Sister Sophia at her convent, and had asked her to try to get word to the elf, Arilon, that the party would like to speak with him.

Part II: Marching Order

The party prepared to enter the castle by arranging themselves in Sword Formation. Based on the shape of the sword, however—out of game—the players called it the Freudian Sword Formation.

Freudian Sword Formation!

Back in game, our Freudian formation went up the stairs, discovering a hallway filled with doors. Most of the rooms were empty, and two of the doors were magically locked. Hashar, however, gleefully busted down each door.

Inside one room, a treasure trove of books about the magic arts. Quintos seemed to love the tomes more than the ladies. Frankly, how he caressed and stroked each book made everyone a bit uncomfortable.

In another room, the adventurers found a potion mixing lab. In addition to a spell book sitting on the table, there were eight vials of mystery potions. Daring, brave volunteers from the party each took tiny sips to discern the nature of the potions. Ghost Dancer tried two, Ivamel three, Lundie one, and Quintos one.

There were two potions of superior healing, a potion of heroism, a potion of growth, a potion of animal friendship, two potions that will remain a mystery until someone takes a full dose but they seem cool. And then, of course, there was the potion of age regression. Quintos got that one. Before our very eyes, he morphed from 21 to 16, got acne, and got in trouble for having a messy room. Adolescents are so hard to work with.

Part III: Splat

The last room on the floor was the bedroom of a very vain Magician named Telvar.

This guy. I mean, who hangs a giant painting of himself over his bed?

Of course, behind the painting in a secret compartment was a bag of gems that Quintos discovered.

At ladder led to a trapdoor in the ceiling, but the trapdoor was bolted shot. Hashar tried to bust through but was foiled. Lundie and Quintos both climbed to the door and tried to force it open. All eyes of the party were on them—and away from the window behind them where the vain magician hovered into view and surprised the heroes with a fireball that scorched Hashar, Ghost Dancer, and Lundie for 28 points of damage. The agile reactions of Ghost Dancer and Hashar spared them from half that damage. Lundie’s stout constitution saved him from sure death as he bore the full brunt of the blast.

The party rebounded quickly, pummeling Telvar with spells and weapons. With Ivamel’s hit, the magician tried to hover away from the window and ready another fireball. But in his haste to retreat, he opened himself up to an opportunity attack by Ivamel.

Ivamel hit him! The blow, however, didn’t kill Telvar. The party was sad.

Scene wherein concentration (or lack thereof) became very important!

The blow, on the other hand, did break Telvar’s concentration, which suddenly terminated his flying spell. And that was when Telvar the vain Magician dropped from sight and plummeted to his death several stories below. The party was happy!

The group plundered his magical robe, a powerful item from the Second Age, for Marcus. The group also prevented Hashar from desecrating the magician’s body. High on victory, the adventurers decided to bust through the barred door on the first floor.

Quintos used his cantrip to bludgeon the door open. Behind it was a room with stairs going down into the dank dark. Halfway down the stairs, Ghost Dancer stopped the group and said, “I can hear what sounds like the undead moaning and shambling down there. Either that, or the stirge-jerky I ate at breakfast isn’t reacting well with my tummy.”

What will happen next? What terrors await the party in the catacombs beneath Bone Hill? Is the rumor true—is there really a great treasure below the ruined castle? Or is the only reward waiting for our heroes…certain death?

Redmark Session 04: Reverse Ambush

March 9, 2017 / Stan Shinn

January 29, Third Age 1331 — Midday

(Quick recap of the Feb. 23 game)

Stealing up on the castle at Bone Hill, the heroes found themselves ambushed, much in the way they had ambushed the Bugbear patrols the day before. Due to some great alertness, the heroes were not caught flatfooted, and prevailed over their enemies, largely due to the incomparable heartiness of the halfling barbarian Ragnor taking a beating from the bugbear chieftain. Hashar fell in battle but later recovered, but he still smarts from the taunting his former bugbear allies had in calling him ‘Traitor!’ during the battle.

Future Campaign Idea: Star Wars Organized Play

March 8, 2017 / Stan Shinn

Star Wars WEG d6 1e

Wanted to jot down my thoughts about a potential future shared RPG campaign technique using the Star Wars setting. Helping some folks on the d6 community form an Organized Play group (since I used to manage the D&D regional organized play) so these thoughts are in my mind.

In a nutshell, we’d have episodic games set in the Rebellion era, where we’d rotate GMs and have our characters go on Military missions but return to homebase afterwards. Perhaps we could have GMs own specific story threads or NPCs. Games could be played in a variety of contexts (Saturday Nights, Ragnarok Saturdays, one-shot events, etc.).

For those interested, here are my initial thoughts on how this might work.

General Information

ARTICLE 1: Adventure Premise — Players play characters who are members of the Rebellion during the time period between Episodes IV and V. Characters are not Jedi, but may potentially be Force sensitive. As members of the Rebel Alliance, you are stationed out of a secret headquarters in the Arkanis sector. From your home base you join other members of the Rebel Alliance to go on adventures assigned to you from the Rebel leadership. Adventures are self-contained and take place over a game session of about 3-4 hours. After the adventure is over, you return to home base and await orders for your next mission. Each mission may be with a different set of characters.

We may optionally have seasons, with the first season or two being in the age of Rebellion, and perhaps season 3 being set during the latest trilogy or in the Old Republic.

ARTICLE 2: Dynamic Games — Players may move freely between games run by different gamemasters and may transport their character to any game participating in SWd6OP. Games can be run in person or online via virtual tabletops like Roll20.net.

ARTICLE 3: System Choice — Players must build characters according to West End Games’ “Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game” 1st edition with errata. Gamemasters can choose to use any rules from 2nd Edition, 2nd Ed. R&E, 2nd Ed. REUP, or retroclone so long as they disclosure the specific rules they are using that are different from 1st Edition.

ARTICLE 4: Character Types — Characters can be flawed but fundamentally must be heroic and do good on behalf of the Rebel Alliance. Characters are built according to standard character creation rules.

Species Restrictions: After reviewing the 1e rules, we may come up with some species restrictions. For example, all species that get a 2D for 1D at the beginning of character creation may only do so once. Meaning they cannot put 2D and get 4D in a single skill. (This is a 2e concern, not sure it applies to 1e).
Force Sensitives: We may add more specifics on which Force sensitive powers you can acquire. Force sensitive characters cannot use light sabers. (In future seasons, we may allow ALL characters to be Jedi. Rule of thumb is that none of you are Jedi, or you all are, which will vary by campaign). There is a d6 template called the Lrri Tenets. This introduces a martial monk of sorts to Star Wars. Akin to the guy from Rogue One. We might use this template.

ARTICLE 5: Skill Points & Character Advancement — Characters should start each game with 5 Skill Points (aka Character Points). Characters may spend unused Skill Points after games to improve their characters as described in 1e. Players must log their experience and be prepared to show new gamemasters their past history of play and Skill Point rewards.

ARTICLE 6: Character Death — Characters can die. After a character dies, the player must create a new character which can join in that game or in the next game, at the GM’s discretion. New characters start with zero experience.

ARTICLE 7: Multiple Characters — Players can have multiple characters, but each character earns their own Skill Points; they cannot be transferred between characters.

ARTICLE 8: Gear & Expenses — As members of the Rebel Alliance, your gamemaster will assign you an amount of funds to spend on mission-specific needs such as bribes or equipment. The Rebel Alliance will pay for your room and board and reasonable expenses. Any surplus goods such as stolen spaceships or credits acquired from military operations goes back to the Rebel Alliance, not the player’s pockets.

ARTICLE 9: Tracking Advancement — We will use the honor system, but in order to ensure players are tracking their character points correctly, we will track advancement using a form which dumps date into a shared Google Spreadsheet.

Gamemaster Information

ARTICLE 10: Giving Back as a Gamemaster — Part of what makes Star Wars d6 Organized Play fun is giving everyone a chance to play. We’ll make that happen in part by having players step up to run occasional games. Although there is no specific requirement, have as a goal to run 1 game for each 4 games that you play in. This way everyone can play as much as they want, without limiting games by lack of gamemasters who are willing to only run games.

ARTICLE 11: Adventure Guidelines — Gamemasters should use 1) modified classic adventures that make sense in the organized play environment, or 2) original adventures that are created and shared with the organized play gamemaster community. Adventures should be self-contained, run in 3-5 hours, adhere to Star Wars canon, and not introduce situations or outcomes that affect canon or disrupt other gamemaster’s storylines.

Extended Adventures: Some adventures may take 2-3 sessions of play. In these cases, you should have the heroes return to their home base (ship, camp, etc.) after each session so you can explain the why you have different characters in some of the session (the likelihood of having the exact players and having perfect attendance across three sessions is usually pretty slim!).
Home Base: ‘Nothing exciting happens’ at the Rebels home base (since all GMs will be sharing it we don’t want it to be volatile).
Recurring NPCs: NPCs generally don’t cross GM storylines. NPCs are self-contained in an adventure, or if the GM has the NPC as a recurring person, they are only in that GMs storyline. Alternatively, the recurring NPC is ‘off camera’ seen on a holovid recording but you can’t include them or kill them.

ARTICLE 12: Gamemaster Rewards — Gamemasters earn 5 Skill Points for each game they run which they can spend on characters which they play in future games.

One One Eight Two Five

March 6, 2017 / Robert Miklos

11825, the Eleventh designation from the 825 batch, a distinguished batch of clockwork Mymidions, was a proud construct. Manufactured 1270 years earlier, 11825 had served both the Dragon Overlords and the nascent Gothic Imperial Court. He served with distinction, fighting and destroying many of the rebellious lizardmen. He aided the Gothic Imperial Court in their evacuation from the Lands. And he accepted his deactivation full well knowing he may never see another day.

But that day came 1120 years after deactivation, when new people that 11825 thought had come from the Gothic Imperial Court (for they spoke Gothic, who else could they be) reassembled him, and called him to service once again. The plasma ran through his circuits, and he knew that he would uphold the honorable 825 designation once more.

He fought the strange new lizard like creatures, smaller than Lizardmen but fierce nonetheless. He answered the many questions from the Gothic Courtiers. He refused to be called “Brobot”, whatever that meant. He opened doors. Finally, in the second fight with the little mini-dragons, the courtiers became indicisive. Some called for him to back up. Others, to attack. A few simply yelled “shut the door.” But 11825 was in the doorway, and requested clarification. All the while, the little Mini-dragons pelted him with fire bolts and spears. As his strength ebbed, and eternity beckoned, 11825 wondered, for a moment, what a breeze felt like. A laugh. A mountain flower looked like. Then he could take no more damage, and ceased to be. 11825 had served his 825 designation with honor, and was now at rest.

Dicehaven