A New Campaign for the Summer

For those that have been paying close attention to the Other Blog  might have noticed I’ve been reading a bit of Hellboy lately and even painting up a few BPRD type characters… while it’s mostly inspired me to want to get the 1920s Cthulhu Campaiogn going again going again… but I probably won’t be prepared fro that until fall.. but in the meantime I thought I’d run a series of Modern adventure-scenarios perhaps inspired by Hellboy and the BPRD… Though the players characters weren’t really told that to begin with…

So for our first session we made a few characters. “Modern Investigative types” I told them. And then a ran a quick scenario to “try them out”…

Now it’s been a long time since I’ve run anything modern-ish… so they didn’t even think of taking stuff like DRIVING… (I allowed them to make a few modifications to their characters afterwards… probably could have done with a bit more tweaking… but… oh well…)

The players are to provide more detailed character backgrounds by next week, but here’s brief intro to the group so far…

Lord Stang (Rick’s characrter) is a playboy, millionaire British lord (Filthy Rich, Noble) that fancies himself a British Secret Agent type (like John Steed or James Bond) but is really a bit of a thicko with no real skills at all, except that he’s a remarkably good shot (Shooting d10)

Leonard Tipple is a Forensic Accountant/Investigator that works for Lord Stang. (Investigator, Knowledge: Accounting, Anemic, Bad Eyes)

Joey Roberts is a rough and tumble streetwise teen with a bit of a criminal record and some outstanding warrants… (Enemy, Wanted, Quick, Skateboard, Uzi, and a lot of d6s…)

For our quick introductory scenario I told them that Edward Jones, a thug from an Organized Crime Syndicate, that they had helped put behind bars had escaped custody and was on the loose again. With Roberts streetwise and Tipples investigation they tracked him to a hide out on a lonely moor in the Scottish Highlands.

They decided to drive up in the middle of the night, break in and capture the fellow…

This didn’t work out so well for them…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

It was overcast and nearly pitch black out on the moor… They tried pulling the door off with the Land Rover’s winch… this didn’t work… so they tried bashing the door in WITH the Land Rover… which only succeeded in damaging the Land Rover….

Also Jones had been alerted to the possible arrival of some visitors. When he heard (and saw) them driving up the road to his hide out he scarpered.

When Jones saw that it was that blasted fool Englsih Lord that had put him behind bars, decided to start sniping them…

Jones had a sniping rifle and night vision equipment…. The other’s had a pistol, a shotgun, and uzi and no idea where Mr. Jones was at…

Stang was shot – TWICE – and took two wounds… The flailed around in the dark trying to comw up with a new plan, but realized very quickly they were in over their heads. They bundled back into the busted Land Rover and escaped with Jones shooting holes through their truck as made their get-away.

An inauspicious beginning, if ever there was one… 

Operation Uranus

Back at it – I thought I’d run some Savage Worlds Skirmishy games over the summer. I’m sure the East Front campaign will pop up now and again…

North West of Stalingrad, 19 November 1942

SITUATION

BPO Psykiks have detected the presence of strong supernatural energies to the North West of Staligrad behind the Italian lines. A diversionary attack has been arranged early in the day to the east so resistance should be minimal. The Team had the option of going during daylight or waiting until night. They chose to go during daylight hours and scary things always happen at NIGHT! So the small BPO team basically executed a frontal assault on dug in Italians…

FORCES

Soviet Forces

Leytnant Lennady Stepanoff (Christian)  - Platoon Commander

5x Soviet Scouts

Serzhant Boris Trotsky (Dave) – Second in Commmand

8x Soviet Riflemen

Efreytor Androv Virgilovski (Rick) – BPO Rifleman (part of Trotsky’s Squad)

Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski  (Patrick) - BPO Sniper

Axis Forces

Cpl. Spagetti

9x Italian Bersaglieri Riflemen

10x Veteran SS Troopers

(plus others that weren’t encountered)

THE GAME

 (Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Things could have (SHOULD have) gone very, very badly for our heroes – advancing in the open, in broad daylight, against an entrenched enemy…

A clever combination of extremely lucky shots aided and abetted by a number of Jokers (Trotsky’s squad got TWO in the first four turns or so!?)

They were effectively able neutralize opposition at their end of the trenchline by severly wounding the caporal (with a submachinegun, rocknroll, and a shooting of d8 – which in concert couldhave messed them up!) and the MG team (which also could have messed them up!)

Ths others also got some extremely lucky shots in – taking out Italians in the trenches while shooting at them on the run!? (had to use german casualty figures as I don’t have any dead/wounded Italians…)

The Scout section wasn’t so lucky…

They were shot up pretty good… but the wildcard characters were able to make it to the trench relatively unscathed… (though short a few bennies!)

Trotsky’s DP gunner continued to fire while his loader was shaken and rolled three ones – jamming the gun! They weren’t able to unjam it for a number of turns…

The Soviet BPO team made it to the Italins trenchline and the few remaining Italians surrendered – it was at that point that they started taking fire from the woods beyond!

Unfortunately it was at that point that I stopped taking pictures apparently….

Anyway, there was a veteran squad of SS troopers there that covered the escape of… well.. whatever dark and mysterious evil was lurking  within the woods… MWA-HA-HA-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa….  

Stepanoff’s Scout team suffered four (of five!) casualties, one was killed in action, the other three were lightly wounded and will return to play after missing one game. Trotsky’s squad suffered two casualties – one seriously wounded, the other lightly wounded. The seriously wounded rifleman will join the two previously seriously wounded riflemen – who remained in grave condition and will miss further games…

Cpl. Spagetti was seriously wounded when he surrendered, two others of his squad surrendered. Of the rest four were killed in action, two suffered serious wounds, and one was only lightly wounded. The Italian POWs were unable to tell the BPO anything about what was going on in the woods. They said the SS didn’t allow them anywhere near it – they’d even shot one of their squad mates who’d wandered over to the edge of the woods to piss a couple days earlier.

Three of the SS were killed in action, three were seriously wounded and in no condition to talk so they were summarily executed. Whowever else had been there had packed up quickly and scarpered. All that remained in the woods was an alter of some sort. The BPO team thought that looked like some sort of sacrificial alter, but there was no trace of blood or any other indication that it had been used as such…

Risk was pretty excited as this was the first character he ever had that made it to Veteran.

Coming Soon to Savage Timmy’s Playhouse:

More game reports, hopefully...  

The Ruins of Kundurq

For a few weeks now we’ve had to cancel our Savage Saturday Session for one reason or another (and the Friday kids game too…). This week I was able to run something and Rick, Dave, Patrick and Curtis were able to make it out… unfortunately I didn’t have the next adventure ready for our Dragonlance Campaign, so I quickly throw out a scenario for our Weird War Two East Front Campaign…

 Kundurq, Afghanistan, November 1942

 SITUATION

 Our heroes have been pulled from the Stalingrad front to attend to a more pressing problem. The BPO has learned that the infamous Nazi Orientalist Occultist Colonel Dr. Dietrich Von Ravenhoff is leading an expedition to a remote ruin of Kundurq in Afghanistan. What the colonel Doctor is looking for is anybody’s guess – but it likely has something to do with nazi occult research and must be stopped! 

FORCES

Soviet Forces
Serzhant Boris Trotsky – Team Leader
Efreytor Androv Virgilovski – Second in Commmand
Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski - BPO Sniper
Rayadovoy Jorgi Markov – BPO Scout
6x Soviet Riflemen

German Forces

Colonel Dr. Dietrich Von Ravenhoff
Heidi Von Ravenhoff
Obergefrieter Johann Meuller
16x German Riflemen (two squads of two teams; MG team and Rifle team)

 THE GAME

 (Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

First Greamn Squad approaches the ruins of Kundurq

The Soviet BPO team approaches from the other side… The opposing sides spotted each other from atop hills on opposing sides of the valley – so it was just a race to see who could get to the prize first. Or so the Germans though – for once overestimating the Russians and assuming they knew what the Germans were there for.

The Germans reach the edge of the ruin.

Serzhant Trotsky leading his troops from the front (for once).

Inside the ruins – a German is shot while dashing from one bit of cover to a doorway.

As the firing starts the second German squad picks up the pace to find a defendable position!

From a position in cover Serzhant Trotsky sends his fodder…er… troops… forward.

Dizaleski and Markov sneaking around the backside of the compound.

Obergefrieter Johann Meuller shoots up Trotsky’s Squad as they make a dash into the compound.

The German second squad exchanged fire with Serzhant Trotsky – Trotsky was obliged to abandon this position as it was rather exposed, and made for the compund with the rest of his troops.

Part of the first German squad made it up onto a roof and shot down on the exposed BPO tean in the street below.

The soviets took another casualty and scampered for cover.

Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski - BPO Sniper – finds himself a nice position in a doorway and starts taking down Germans….

The Russians, having taken cover in a crumbled building, exchange fire with the Germans on the rooftop.

Having more or less suppressed the Germans on the rooftop, Trotsky’s squad moved out into the street – they gave the Sarge the all clear and he ran for on of the compounds gates – taking shots from some not-so-cleared-out-and-on-hold Germans around the corner – he shrugged off the bullets, made it into the compound, and shot up the remaining German in the courtyard.

The Germans on the rooftop taking worse than they are dishing out!?

Serzhant Trotsky pushed into the building and located Colonel Dr. Dietrich Von Ravenhoff who was apparently searching for something… Trotsky fired one last burst… and then ran out of ammo!?

POW! Dizaleski takes down Obergefrieter Johann Meuller.

 The neat thing about the high-walled tight compound in the middle of the table was it was sometimes hard to keep track of where everyone was… and sometimes people forgot where people were – much like I imagine a close-quarter firefight in a labarynthine compound would be like. (I sometimes forgot where my OWN guys were – as I was having to take care of so many…?) And so sometime did silly things like run for a doorway – only to discover that there was a occupied by someone they’d forgotten about…

… like when Heidi Von Ravenhoff stormed into the courtyard of this compound only to discover the Soviet BPO squad was lingering there…

 They shot her up pretty good…

Serzhant Trotsky overcame Colonel Dr. Von Ravenhoff – with the help of the rest of his squad who stormed in after shooting the colonel’s daughter…

The colonel and his severely injured daughter were captured.

Of the rest of the Germans; three were killed in action or died of wounds shortly thereafter. Three others (including Obergefrieter Johann Meuller) were serverely wounded and captured. Four others were also captured – two of whom were lightly injured. The remaining seven managed to get away (two of whom were lightly injured). Four were captured and killed by Afghan tribesmen, the other three were never heard from again and presumed to have died of starvation and exposure out in the desert somewhere…

The Soviets suffered only two casualties – however both were severely injured and will be out of the line for some time.

Coming Soon to Savage Timmy’s Playhouse:

Hopefully at SOME point we’ll get back to some Dragonlance action… I think I may have missed some updates… but both campaigns have sort of stalled for the moment.

Escape to the South

Following on from our last previous episode, our heroes escaped with the 800 odd freed slaves of Pax Tharkas in the middle of the night as a snow storm brewed up. Chased by Draconians, which they periodically had to chop in half with Wyrmslayer, they trudged on through the night up through the high mountain pass in nearly zero visability. By dawn the refugees were dead tired (and a dozen of them were genuinely dead from exposure) and so they rested until noon.

Just before noon the heroes were summoned to a council that had been formed to direct the refugees. For all their efforts they were offered a non-voting advisory role on the council… nice…

Through the afternoon the group pushed on, ever southward through the snow and wind. They camped in the evening and tried to sleep through the night. Exposed as they were they lost another dozen or so through the night.

The morning broke clear but cold. They marched further south coming out of the mountain pass into a plain. Around noon they came a tower with some strange instruments and a big stone slab. Finding nothing much of interest they pressed on into the hills where they spent another chilly night.

In the morning they tightened their belts – finding they had pretty much ran out of food – and marched on further to the south – hoping to get to the wooded vales of the mountains beyond the plains, or perhaps find Skullcap, the fabled tomb of the great wizard Fistandantilus….

By the afternoon they left the hills and were on a plain again. Occasionally they came across evidence of a great battle long ago. After another hours march they came to a marsh. Skirting around the march to the right they wandered ever southward…

Late in the afternoon they a great skull-shaped mound of stone loomed out of the fog of the marshes – Skullcap!

By that point it was getting late and we decided to call it a night rather than delve into the ruins. Not a lot of action this evening… but they made it to skull cap with ~760 (starving) refugees…. And no immediate sight of a Dragon Army in hot pursuit…

Pax Tharkas (Part Two)

For those who have not been following along, I am running the old classic Dragonlance campaign adventures using Savage Worlds for TWO different groups, more or less simultaneously. One is for the “Saturday Savages” – the Saturday night “adult” group that’s been playing Savage Worlds for some time and whose shenanigans have been chronicled on this blog – but the group goes even further back than that… The other group I am running it for is my kids and a couple of other homeschoolers….

This is what the "adult" group has been up to..

We’ve only had TWO sessions since I last updated in the intervening eight weeks… A number of weeks were cancelled due to not having Campaign Quorum (players off doing other things…) or because I was busy preparing for (or on the 25th, actually RUNNING) the Dark Age DBA Campaign.

In the last two games the group stormed up the stairs fought their way through the chaos on the landing (caused, indirectly, by the Kender’s shenanigans – it was, afterall, the dragon melting the chain – while trying to roast the kinder - that tripped the big rockfall trap…).


Beating down some Goblins and Draconians at the top of the stairs.


Here come some more…

They snuck into the kids place and had most of them herded out when Flamestrike – their ancient, senile red dragon nanny – woke up and was a little irate about them trying to steal off with “her children”. Gilthanas, who was taking up the rear, was bitten in two.


Norfindel charged in with Wyrmslayer and… well.. slayed the wyrm…

Now those of you who are familiar with the Dragonlance series of adventures or novels are probably laughing your asses off – it is NOT supposed to go down like that… Flamestrike is actually supposed to SAVE the characters later from being roasted by Ember – the other younger red dragon – as it is about to roast said player characters along with all of “her” children!

They mopped up a few more Draconians and hobgoblins that charged in when they heard the ruckus… and that’s where we left it….

That was February 4th…

The next game we played was last night (24 March)… seven weeks later…


I still wasn’t sure how I was going to resolve the module so I had a band of hobgoblins rush in (the same band that the Kender had been following when he last did something)


They battled said baddies and Magnus Blackburn died (seven wounds… his head was cut off… Goldmoon tried to reattach it, but Mishakel just wouldn’t hear her prayers – probably because Magnus worshipped the false gods…)

Ultimately I decided that Verminaard (or was it Verminarrd… I can never remember if it’s two “a”s or twr “r”s…) was off on patrol with Ember – of flying out to retrieve his dragon army to come back and “deal with” these rebelling slaves and the heroes led the slaves off in the middle of the night through the pass and away to the south… with no real idea of where they were going…

Dragonlance Kids Campaign Update

For those who have not been following along, I am running the old classic Dragonlance campaign adventures using Savage Worlds for TWO different groups, more or less simultaneously. One is for the “Saturday Savages” – the Saturday night “adult” group that’s been playing Savage Worlds for some time and whose shenanigans have been chronicled on this blog – but the group goes even further back than that… More on their adventures in a moment…

The other group I am running it for is my kids and a couple of other homeschoolers….

When I last updated the Kids Camapign They had just escaped the slave caravan and had made their way to Qualinost the capital of the Qualinesti – the woodland realm of the Elves. There they were charged with freeing the slaves of the Dragonlord who held them captive in the fortress of Pax Tharkas. They had followed Gilthanas – son of the Speaker of the Suns to a secret entrance to the fortress known as the Sla-Mori. They had entered there and found an ancient sword and killed a giant slug…. That was at the end of January.

We’ve had, I think, FOUR sessions since then in the intervening eight weeks… A number of weeks were cancelled due to vacations and book clubs and me preparing for the Dark Age DBA Campaign. Next weeks game will also be cancelled due to the other kids book club meeting…. Ah well, it will give me a chance to figure out what we’re supposed to be doing next.

In session #13 I made Christopher give up Wyrmslayer. He’s a Knight of Solamnia, not a tomb robber. He’s got his own (not-so-powerful) ancestral sword… Tanis now has it… Tanis… who never gets into close combat if he can help it, but rather stands just out and shoots his wimpy and ineffectual 2d6 arrows INTO close combat… I hate the shooting into close combat rules… it hardly EVER hits your own guys – especially when characters get shooting of d8 or d10 or better… Ah well…

The adventurers realized the way they had gone was blocked and went back the other way. Earlier, in the previous session, Christopher had INSISTED that Gilthanas would want to go that other way and insisted that he would split off from the group and go that way on his own…. I had him hand over Gilthanas’ card and told him they could have it back when they saw him again. They haven’t – they think they might have found his remains among the ZOMBIES!


They fought some zombies


So many zombies…


It’s been a while, but what I think we’re looking at here is someone who got a Joker… got a raise… and then rolled three ones for damage…

After that they fell into the trap beyond the hall of pillars… found the room with the cahin – while trying to divine what the purpose of said chain was Tanis went bust on his smarts roll and decided it must be the chain the secures the mountain to the ground and keeps it from floating into the sky… I think he successfully convinced a few others of this as well… Pushing on they made their way to the cellar where Sturm decided to yell “helloooo…” to see if it echoed… alerting the draconians in the guardroom beyond of their approach…

In the next session (#14) they fought those draconians…


Looks like the type that melt into pools of acid when they die…


SPLOOSH!

Also in this session they explored the lower realms of the dungeon and discovered the women prisoners and decided to go up and try to rescue the children…

They went up and things were going smoothly enough until Flint decided he’d had enough of this sneaking around business and charged out from his hiding spot and attacked some hobgoblins… around this time Tika, Riverwind, Goldmoon and Raistlin – who had been trying to herd the kids out pas the sleeping dragon, were discovered and trapped in the far back room behind the dragon – Tika and Riverwind were critically injured by the dragon.

Out at the top of the landing Sturm, Tanis and Flint were battling Draconians and Hobgoblins. Tanis and Sturm were also critically injured here and I decided to pull the old “send in overwhelming reinforcements to the bad guys so the PCs are compelled to surrender” trick.

Tanis didn’t want to surrender. I basically had to tell him that if he didn’t Tanis was GOING TO DIE (AND probably everyone else… AND the campaign would be OVER) if he didn’t… so he did…

The Next Session (#15) began with them, having been dragged out into the “courtyard” south of the Thardakan Wall. The women and children were collected up there along with all the men.

Laurana and Tasslehoff – who had been hiding in the cellar in the dungeon had to be convinced to follow the women up as they were herded out by the guards…

Dragonlord Verminarrd gave his “I’ve had it with you” speech and Flamestrike attacked Ember and the two dragons went tumbling off down the mountainside. The shattered PCs attempted to overcome the few guards hanging around them and got their stuff back. (I said the men and women and children overcame the rest of them). The slaves all gathered up all the stuff they could and off they went over the pass and off to the south.

Session #16 (this past Friday) consisted of a few skirmishes with scouts of the pursuing draconians…



We won’t be playing again until 6 April (book club, again…) and by that time hopefully I’ll have sorted out where they’re actually supposed to be going…

New Figures for Our Fantasy Campaign

This is, more or less, a re-posting from my other blog. But as it pertains directly to the DragonLance Campaign chronicled on this blog, I've posted it here as well...

Anyone that's been following this blog for a bit with know that last fall I started a couple new campaigns. The Saturday evening game (as well as the one for the kids) has been the old TSR AD&D Dragonlance campaign. The players made their own characters that I fit into the campaign (which is really written for use with pre-generated characters, but making your own is more fun).

Around that time I’d painted some fun cartoony fantasy figures (Dork Tower and Cerebus and Thrud) which were a lot of fun and I also happened to start sculpting again and I got thinking… “Wouldn’t it be fun to do some cartoony figures for my players characters…?”

One Sunday afternoon in September I sat down and drew pictures of the various characters. A couple days later I got sculpting. It was going good for a bit – but it’s a long process for me and I got going on other things… and they only worked in fits and starts…

I had originally wanted to keep it a secret until I had them all done... but the project stalled and I also didn't get them done in time for Xmas (which I'd originally planned to do)... of course no one was really showing up for games in December anyway... so... Anyway, here's what I've got done so far!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Here’s a pic from my sketchbook of the original drawings:


These are the first three I finished:


From left to right are: Lorena Whiteswan, Henry FitzArnulf, and Roscoe Thorngage.


Their backsides – all kitted out for adventuring. I was inspired a bit by Citadel Miniautres, who used to make some great character adventure figures that had lots of adventuring kit dangling off of them…


These are the masters of the above figures. They're kind of leaning against each other because otherwise they'd topple over... not terribly well balanced figures...

These are the masters of the remaining characters:


From left to right are: Norfindel, Marcus Cabot, Magnus Blackburn, and Curly. Magnus is actually finished… I just have to get around to making a mould and trying to cast one.

Unfortunately Curly is dead. He did die an “obscure death”, however... so I could conceivably reintroduce him to the campaign… washed out to sea… found half dead on the shore… captured by Draconians…

I was actually torn as to whether I should make moulds and cast them or just paint the masters. How many am I ever really going to need?! Ultimately I decided to make moulds and cast them. Though I lose some of the detail, I just really like the WEIGHT of metal minis…