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…

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…

Pax Tharkas (with the BIG kids)

Whoops. I’ve slacked off a little updating the Dragonlance Campaigns. Here are the last two session of the big kids Saturday Night game…

Getting later into the afternoon (of Day 22… still…) our heroes retreated back to the “Chain Room”, having battled Draconians and saved the captive Elven Princess in our Previous Encounter

They ate some supper and awaited the return of the Kender – after an hour or so they heard some orcs and goblins heading down the passage towards them, evidently having come across the signs of the struggle and tracked them back to the Chain Room.


Riverwind rushed to the door, perhaps to block them from pouring into the room. Unfortunately not one went with him… so the orcs did pour into the room and quickly surrounded Riverwind.


It was quite the long, pitched battle, but I think it ended with Only Riverwind being seriously wounded (3 wounds!) and most of those, if I recall correctly, were from friendly fire into close combat!?

Afterwards Goldmoon, who’s starting to get the hang of the whole healing thing, healed him up pretty good (removing tow of three wounds). Princess Laurana and maybe Norfindel were also wounded, but survived and were given some quick first aid and set straight right away!

And that was Session 12… The battle took a while… we started late… and ended early…

This week our heroes left a note for the Kender should he ever return that way and forged ahead. They returned to the Guard Room where they had rescued Princess Laurana. They ahd a look out the two different doors leading out of the room and found dark hallways leading out of both.

Princess Laurana was able to lead them to the prison area where all the women were being kept. Henry FitzArnulf, actually being played by Christian for the first time in over a month and a half, stood guard at the Guard Room while others went off to rescue the women. While they were healing one of the prisoners and rying to make plans for getting them out a group of Draconians blundered into the Guard Room

“WE’VE GOT COMPANY!”


Henry charge the Draconians! Others followed – through their quick and decisive action, they were actually able to stop the two who had run off to get help before they made it to the stairs!

Afterwards I sent everyone upstairs for a bit so I could sort out what exactly The Kender was up to… I’ll have to fill you in on that later, lest my players sort out what’s going on…

Anyway, The rest of the women folk were freed but it was discovered that the children were being held hostage under the careful eye of an ancient red dragon! The men were being held elsewhere as well and were being forced to work as slaves in the mines… while they were plotting and preparing to head out the entire fortress became to shake as thought it was all about to collapse. Many were thrown to the ground and the trembling went on for half a minute. When it stopped all was deadly quite.

The silence was broken by someone wondering aloud “What did the Kender DO!?”

(If only they knew….)

Guessing that stealth and secrecy was no longer an option they formed ranks and, after making a quick check of the other rooms on this level of the dungeon, started climbing the stairs to the level above where it was clear complete chaos and pandemonium reigned!

We called it a night at that point because this was a bit of a departure from how I think it was imagined the module would play out – though, I think, not all that different from the books…. And I need some time to sort out where all the denizens of the fortress are at and what they would be up to at the moment….

Hopefully we will be forging ahead next week and finishing this part of the adventure!!!

I can’t believe how many sessions I’m getting out of each of these modules. WE started in September and still haven’t finished the second (of TWELVE!) modules in the campaign!?

More Sla-Mori

By the afternoon (of Day 22) our heroes had finished cleaning off zombie goo from the Previous Encounter and were ready to forge ahead…

They trundled through one hall and some of them fell into a trap and twisted ankles and stuff. Undaunted and not-quite-dead they carried on and found a room with a BIGASS chain rising up and out of sight through a tight hole in the ceiling high above. The Kender figured he could fit up there and decided to climb up and see what he could find.

Realizing the Kender was not coming back anytime soon some of the others forged ahead down the corridor, effectively splitting the party.

I hate it when that happens… It’s one thing when a character are going to scout ahead briefly and everyone else is going to stay put and wait until they return – but it’s something completely different when one group goes one way and another goes another with no clear plan as to how they’re supposed to meet up again. For one it means some players have to sit and twiddle their thumbs for great periods of time while others play out what their characters are doing. Another difficulty is how far ahead do you let one group delve before returning to the others. Further – how do you deal with information? If everyone’s sitting there listening and hearing all the stuff that they other group or individuals are doing , do you trust them no to act on information they hear that their characters would not have any clue about – it’s hard…

Previously (like, years ago) I would send the people not with an individual group into another room… Then I got sick of that because the group was ALWAYS splitting up and getting into separate fights in separate areas and some evenings some players wouldn’t get to play at all – and I essentially told them not to split up anymore…

I guess I could give them disincentives to do so – increase the likelihood of random encounters/wandering monsters and beat them down when they do.

Anyway the group that scouted ahead down below found their way into a cellar and then into a guard room


In the guard room they confronted a few draconian guards and freed Princess Laurana…

(Here I lowered the number of guards… should have kept it at the suggested number and beat them all to a pulp, took away all their stuff, and forced the others to now rescue them in addition to carrying out the mission… except now having to do it with less than half their number… and with the entire fortress aware of their presence – a totally impossible task – do I want to end the campaign in module two – of the twelve that I have successfully tracked down over the last year!?)

The Kender (Roscoe Thorngage) climbed waaaay up in the fortress and snuck around and found out some stuff (here I did kick all the other players out of the room).

Not sure if the game is going on tonight only two have confirmed their attendance, two are definitely not coming, the other two I haven’t heard from (but haven’t been showing up regularly so I generally assume that they won’t be here…).

Sla-Mori

Early the next morning (of Day 22) Gilthanas lead the group into the Sla-Mori - the secret entrance to Pax Tharkas that only the Elves know about (well… presumably only a few Elves at that… Anyway…. Into the dark carverns our heroes delved…

The first came to the burial chamber of Kith-Kanan – founder of the Qualinesti, who, with the help of the Dwarves built the fortress of Pax Tharkas. Across his lap (for his remains sat in a large throne of stone) was a great sword that Lorena Whiteswan divined to be embued with some very powerful magic and then realized (with a series of raises on a Knowledge: Arcane roll!) that it must be the legendary Wyrmslayer! Norfindel took the sword – thinking the ancient king would understand they had desperate need of it!

Carrying on through some double doors made of bronze they followed a passage that lead to another hall where they were ambushed by…


SLUG EAT YOUR FACE!

(I was so excited reading ahead to discover that there was actually a GIANT SLUG in this adventure and I’d have an opputunity to use SLUG EAT YOUR FACE!)


Of course with such a big party, even making the giant slug a wild card… he didn’t have much of a chance (good thing the sword wasn’t called Slugslayer…)

After slaying SLUG EAT YOUR FACE! They realized that this was a dead end and headed back to explore a different corridor they had passed along the way here. This lead them back to a crypt with many stone doors down a dark hall. Of course Roscoe Thorngage - being “curious” and all – HAD to check them out…


Oh dear!

ZOMBIES!!


GRAAAARRRR!!!


And on the third turn I got a joker… because they hadn’t quit got a line formed up and I had a few characters more or less surrounded I – with the joker and wild attacks and gang-up bonuses I had +4 to +7 to hit (and +4 to damage, if I hit) – which these useless creature needed…

I actually hit Henry FitzArnulf with a raise… then started rolling sixes for damage… a lot of them… when it was all counted up I’d caused five or six wounds… Jackson who was playing Henry for Christian (who wasn’t there!?) roll a two to soak… fail… bennied that and started raising and raising and ended up soaking ALL of the wounds… it was that kind of night…

I also managed to tag Norfindel for a few wounds and one actually "stuck".


Wall o’Zombies hammering on Wall o’Heroes


I pulled ANOTHER joker two turns later… but this one wasn’t nearly so effective…


Eventually the zombies were whittled away…

In the end Henry FitzArnulf and Roscoe Thorngage had each taken out nine! Norfindel had taken out five, Tika and Gilthanas had taken out three each, “New Guy” and Marcus Cabot both took out two, and Magnus Blackburn had beaten down one with the torch he was carrying… Lorena Whiteswan held her light so everyone could see and managed to cast armour on a couple characters… Goldmoon tried, in vain, to heal norfindel throughout the whole combat…

Elvenhome

The Elves that saved our heroes from the Slave Caravan led the group on through the Elvish woodland realm of Qualinesti to the capitol of Qualinost. There they had meetings with the Speaker of the Sun and it was eventually decided that they should go to Pax Tharkas to free the slaves (including some of their own families!) and try to take some of the pressure off the Elves by leading the Dragon Army within off in pursuit in the opposite direction… or something like that…

Gilthanas, The elf they’d met in the caravan, was to lead them to a secret entrance to Pax Tharkas known as the Sla Mori (which only the elves know about).

Along the way they came across the scene of a recent battle – and were ambushed by Draconians.


The Draconians were dealt with in short order…


Amid the bodies and carnage they found one survivor, who joined their merry gang.

In the valley that leads to the Sla Mori they ran into some Ogres


It was supposed to be trolls, but trolls look a little bad-ass in Savage Worlds… of course, considering how fast they dealt with the ogres, I probably could have thrown the trolls at them…

Next Week: Into the Sla Mori to infiltrate the mighty fortress of Pax Tharkas!

Slave Caravan Ambushed

The whole crew was actually on hand to play their own characters tonight! Woot!

Picking up the action where we left off last week; Marcus Cabot, Norfindel, Henry FitzArnulf, and Roscoe Thorngage had, after destroying a few Draconians in the ruins of the Inn of the Last Home, slipped out the back door to find themselves surrounded by dozens of orcs and goblins and draconians. They were arrested and hauled to the center of what remained of Solace and locked in a big cage on the back of a wagon.

Up on the mountainside Lorena Whiteswan, Magnus Blackburn, and Goldmoon lie moaning in pain under the ever watchful eye of Riverwind. Lorena (through a fog of pain) spotted a patrol of Draconians headed their way. When she reported this to the others both Riverwind and Magnus (drastically failing stealth rolls) stood up to look around shouting “WHERE!?” The group was surrounded and also captured. They were roughly hauled down to solace and imprisoned in the same cage as their compatriots.

After a day of hanging out in the cages a caravan was finally organized and head out towards Pax Tharkas. After a couple days the caravan was traveling near the Qualenesti wood when the caravan guards started dropping like flies – felled by Elvish Arrows!

So… we started with everyone (well all the player characters, plus Goldmoon and Riverwind, and Tike Waylan and Gilthanas – two additional NPCs picked up along the way) in one of the cages and unarmed – but with the locks just busted off by a Gully Dwarf slave (who wanted to sticki it to his soon-to-be former master – before scarpering off into the underbrush). I focused the encounter on just the area around the wagons – there would have been dozens more Orcs and Draconians on either side, but we assumed they would be kept busy by additional ambushing Elves. So on the table I have 7 Elf Rangers, 8 Kapack Draconians (the ones that melt into a pool of acid upon dying) 13 Orc warriors with either sword and shield or great axes, and 7 orc archers….


The Caravan rolls along what remains of the old road leading to Pax Tharkas


When the ambush was spring the Elves got to take one shot with the drop – and they dropped six foes right then and there.


On the Orcs first move they rushed the ambushers, not yet aware that the Gully Dwarf had broken the locks on our heroes cage…


Part of The Gang. From left to right: Christian who plays Henry FitzArnulf, Amanda who plays Lorena Whiteswan, Curtis who plays Magnus Blackburn, and Patrick who plays Roscoe Thorngage.

Also present (but not in any pictures) were Jackson who plays Marcus Cabot, Dave who plays Norfindel, and Rick who has been playing Riverwind since Curly plummeted to his doom off a subterranean waterfall…


When our heroes finally went (Gilthanas was blocking the door out) Gilthanas in one deft (multi-action) move leapt out, picked up a sword from a wounded orc and cut down another!


The rest blundered out scrambling to pick up weapons from injured foes…


Fighting other orcs, or trying to free the other prisoners…


The ambushing Elves.


In the end most of the orcs and Draconians in the center were slain and the remaining ones on the flanks (not on the table) fled! The Elves were dealt a serious blow – three of the seven on the table here were killed in action (by naughty orcs delivering killing blows!) one was seriously injured and another was lightly wounded.

In the melee Riverwind was seriously injured, but Norfindel was able to path him up pretty good afterwards.

Tika the barmaid was the champion of the day taking down at least four Orcs (I can’t say “singlehandedly” because at least two of them had been previously shaken by Roscoe!?).

After freeing the rest of the prisoners and recovering their personal effects the lot of them scarpered into the Qualinesti woods with the Elves…

Huzzah!

Heading Home

Session Seven… and just starting DL2 Dragons of Flame… this campaign’s going to take a year – for sure… Unless I pull a TPK and abandon it…

In our last episode, the group had escaped from the collapsing ruin of Xak Tsaroth, fighting a few bands of Draconians along the way. It was nearly morning and they had been on the run for nearly 24 hours… Two of the group were critically wounded (3 wounds!) so they all collapsed into a bush somewhere to hide out and wait until sun up… They listedned for a while as the ruins collapsed into the sea and the draconians rampaged and fled hither and thither.

As dawm broke on the fifth day since their adventures began it seemed like it had been months… (in real time, it HAD been!?). They lay low in the swamp for a day then decided they needed to press on. They headed back up into the mountains through the pass and sought out shelter in one of the secret hiding places of the Que Shu. The arrived to find the scene of a recent battle and the cave deserted. With seriously wounded companions they decided they could travel no further. They hung out in the mountain valley for a few days to recover – ever aware of smoke rising from beyond the Sentinel Peaks beyond the plains.

Lorena Whiteswan and Magnus Blackburn both recovered one of their wounds (still two each). It was decided that they could wait no longer and had to pres on.

Another days travel brought them to Que Kiri – the town at the entrance to the mountains – reduced to a smouldering ruin. They found a dying man who told them of great flying wyrms with leather wings that destroyed their town…


And then they were attackecd by a group of Draconians – a new type, that melted into a pool of acid upon dying!? YIKES!

Goldmoon was critically injured in their encounter with them!? They stayed the night in the smouldering ruins and then pressed in the morning – Riverwind carrying Goldmoon – and climbed the pass through the Sentinel Peaks. They camped in the pass and in the morning were exposed to a horrific vista – the valley many of them had grown up in was reduced to a smoldering ruin….

Stumbling down out of the pass they approached Solace. They found what was left of it to be occupied by Draconians. Leaving the injured behind, Norfindel, Henry FitzArnulf, Roscoe Thorngage, and Marcus Cabot tried to sneak into town. They found the ruin of the Inn of the Last Home – Tika the barmaid was there and serving up food and ale – but shortly after their arrival a group of draconians entered the establishment and picked a fight with an Elf and Tika…


Our heroes intervened, but as they tried to beat a hasty retreat from town they found the Inn to be surrounded by Draconians…

Marcus Cabot

Marcus Cabot - Wildcard Ranger - Jackson
Ag d10, Sm d6, Sp d6, St d8, Vg d8,
Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 6
Skills: Fighting d8, Shooting d10, Notice d6, Stealth d6, Survival d8, Tracking d8
Edges: Woodsman, Quick, Quickdraw
Hindrances: Code of Honour, Loyal
Gear: Bow (Range: 12/24/48, ROF1, Damage: 2d6), short sword (Str+d6)

Marcus was born in to a small woodland village. Out of necessity he learned to hunt and gather at a young age like all woods people must. He had no brothers or sisters and not many friends, he found joy practicing archery training to become a masterful hunter like his father.

Although he liked hunting, is true calling was adventure and the thrill of the unknown. Eventually his curiosity got the best of him and he decided to leave the village in search of a suitable quest. His perseverance paid of and over time he accumulated a group of fellow adventurers. These were his first real friends and he quickly developed a brotherly bond with them.

They set up the home base of Solace. Whenever they went there separate ways they always knew to meet back there for their next adventure.

He recently got a letter telling him to meet there but when he got there he found that they had already left with two plains people. He began the long tedious job of tracking them. With the help of some footprints and some lucky pegasus feces (he believed to be dropped from very high up) he eventually caught up with them at a ruined city in a swamp next to the sea....... thus the adventure continues.

Escape from Xak Tsaroth!

The Sixth Session of the Saturday Night Savages DragonLance Campaign…. (Finishing off DL01 Dragons of Despair). This post is a couple weeks late – we played this session on 22 November 2011, The following week I was at the opera, and this past weekend we Played Hordes of the Things since I wasn’t quite ready to move on to the next adventure and half the players were absent….


Rick took over playing Riverwind (since Curly met an untimely end last session).

So we started in the remains of the Dragon’s Lair with the cavern beginning to collapse around them – Larana severely wounded. Magnus had spotted the Disks of Mishakel at the end of the last episode so he went and picked them up…

Now I was curious, and had thought about trying to figure this out before (but didn’t get to it before…) about how much these disks are supposed to weigh… the disks are 18” in diameter and 1/16” thick… and there’s 160 of them all bolted together!? The game doesn’t even list the gold-piece-weight of them… but Dave quickly figured out for us that a cylindrical block of platinum 18” in diameter and 10” tall would be 894kg (or about 1900lbs) I think that exceeds the load limit of the entire party!? Now they were supposed to “quickly” escape this collapsing cavern with this?! I wonder if Mr. Hickman thought of this…? Actually, the more I read through these adventures the more I have to stretch the limits of my suspension of disbelief! Ah well.. it’s fantasy…

I said for anyone of “good alignment” (which in our game is anyone with Code of Honour or Heroic hindrances) it would “magically” be the weight of a heavy book… for anyone else it would be the full weight… (much in the same way that anyone of evil or neutral alignment would get zapped for 4d6 damage if they tried to touch or read the discs). Of course that would have caused some other conundrums a little later on if I’d been thinking about it…

They made their way out of the Dragons’ lair to the underground plaza as the whole subterranean city and cavern began to collapse around them. There they thought of the great chain they’d seen. Norfindel finally saw it in action and figured if they could get to it maybe it’d be a way out. They found the giant pot at the bottom of the chain, climbed in and rang the gong. Gully Dwarves jumped into the other pot a couple hundred meters above them and up they went.

Of course half way up they realized that the Gully Dwarf that acted as the counter weight were riding to certain doom – so as they passed by the dwarves going down they shouted at them to stay in the pot – thinking they might be able to find something else to fill the pot with to bring up the gully dwarves… Unfortunately, just as they got to the top and bailed out of the pot the whole apparatus crumbled and fell away into the cavern.

The gang pulled themselves together and scrambled up and out of the hall of the dead. In the upper part of the temple they found Goldmoon by the statue of Mishakel.

As they left the temple…


…there was a group of Draconians just rushing up the steps!

They were beat down and the group scrambled away back into the swamp. Behind them they could hear the crash of rock collapsing and falling into the great void, and and sound of rushing water – the water level in the swamp was noticeably lowering and as they stumbled through he swamp…


They ran into another band of Draconians!

It’s been a couple weeks now so I’m not sure where everyone was wounded, but in my notes Lorena currently has three wounds (I’m pretty sure those were from the dragon), Magnus has three wounds (I think that was from the last encounter), and Roscoe has one wound…

And that’s where we’ll pick up – hopefully this (Savage) Saturday!!

The Black Dragon!

The Fifth Session of the Saturday Night Savages DragonLance Campaign….

Picking up where we left off last week, the group wandered out of the building they were in and down a “street” (the city had sunk underground during the Cataclysm – the buildings on this street toppled together to form sort of a hall). The kinder insisted on searching EVERY building along the street, and when they got to the square at the end of the street they found a torrent of water gushing through it and on the other side another building with great steel doors.

Some decided to checkout where the water went and discovered it opened into a great cavern. The Kender (Roscoe Thorngage), however, had to check out the steel doors…

He somehow waded across the river without trouble – with a rope tied to him (just in case). He tied off the rope andLorena (“The Light Source”) crossed as well. The made their way in only to discover spectra minions waiting for someone to deliver their taxes – not having the taxes they minions attacked.

Now I’m not entirely sure how anyone was supposed to deal with these – the spectral minions could not be harmed by any normal weapons… and I don’t think any of the original members of the party had magical weapons… Perhaps Raistlin was meant to deal with these… So I let Lorena try to cast “Slumber” on them. A couple of them fell asleep as did the Kender.

Laurana continued to try and make the other minions sleep – so she could retrieve the sleeping Kender and retire. She just couldn’t get them all to sleep and the remaining ones attacked. Now on their own this wasn’t much of a problem because I’d given them a d6 fighting….

Curly decided something was amiss so he decided to cross the water and see if he could help out. Making it, he took a swing at one of the minions – SWISH – right through it making a loud klanging noise as it solidly hit the stone floor. Everyone woke up.

Curly then decided there was no use fighting them and beat a hasty retreat heading for the water… We’ll get back to him in a moment… This unfortunately left Laurana facing four spectral minion guards again. She tried “Slumber” again – it only worked on the Kender… So four spectral minions ganged up no her and had her down, slowly dying, in a round…

Back to Curly: Curly slipped trying to cross the torrent and was washed over the falls plummeting to his death 150m below… (Here’s how that worked” failed Agility check – slipped and let go of rope, failed strength test to just wade across on his own, failed second strength test, bennied it, failed again, last ditch agility test a -2 to grab slipper vine as he was thrown over the precipice – I think he might have even failed and bennied THAT and succeeded on the second attempt – but only because Magnus, who was standing there looking down aided him adding a +1… when I told Rick he was saved but lost his axe, he insisted that Curly would not have let go of the axe under any circumstances… I told him he would have needed a raise to grab the vine – which he had not done – so Rick said he went over the falls…. I mentioned that it was ~150m drop, right…? So I had to look up falling damage… 2d6+5 per 10m…. I decided to add a bit of chance in there and made it 2d6+d6 per 10m – my maths weren’t working at that time of night – trying to convert form feet in game book to tabletop inches… anyway I rolled 14d6 instead of 17 as I probably should have. the first mittful of dice I chucked came up all ones and twos and we, for a brief moment, thought curly might survive the drop… the second mittful of dice was less forgiving and curly took 30-some damage causing 6 wounds… no bennies left… Exit Crullen “Curly” Balckstone…)

Back up at the top everyone else was realizing the situation was becoming dire. The rest of the group bludgeoned their way across the torrent and, in an attempt to prevent a TPK I said that as soon as Goldmoon entered with the staff the Spectral Minions backed off (this staff keeps getting better and better – Oh, and I miust have been glowing, because the only light sources, up until now had been Laurana’s magic staff, which would have been snuffed out when she was, and Curly’s lantern – which just went over the falls…)


The end of the first encounter – water and rocks seem to be more deadly than any other adversary in this quest so far…

They dragged Laurana and the sleeping Kender out of there and patched them up as best they could – Norfindel working his near magical first aid and the staff helping out too…. They managed to heal three of Laurana’s six wounds.

After that they attempted to talk to some Gully Dwarves that had just climbed up the vines hanging down the inside of the great cavern. The group climbed down the vines – but luckily had tied off Laurana and Goldmoon – who were both seriously injured at this point (Goldmoon still having two wounds from hertumble down the sewer pipe last game, and Laurana now having three wounds from her encounter with the Spectral Minions…)

Crreping around they came to the Grand Plaza and spotted the Dragon giving it’s (not-so-spectral) minions to begin some sort of search, before retiring to her den.

Making their way across the less deep, less fast moving water they followed into the subterranean courtyard. Presented with a hall and a pair of massive double doors they chose the hall – because how could a dragon possibly open doors? They followed the hall and wandered down a few passageways and encountered some more Draconians:

Beating down the Draconians

After the encounter with the Draconians they decided to head back to the double doors – because the last hall they entered was clearly too small for a Dragon to have fit through…. And couldn’t possibly lead to a sneaky backdoor entrance to the Dragon’s Lair or anything…).

Throwing the doors open they strode down the great hall – stepping on pressure plates, sounding alarms… The dragon popped it’s head through the doors and the far end and filled the passage with acidic spray…. The players wondered if the staff might cast barrier? I decided it could to avoid a TPK before I finished the first module… So the mighty staff of Mishakel saved them from certain death (considering half of them had no bennies left at all…).

The continued striding to the end of the hall and entered the dragon’s lair:

Entering the Dragon’s Lair

Henry FitzArnulf charged in and Norfindel let fly with the arrows…

They battled the dragon for a few rounds

Eventually goldmooon was able to stagger up to the beastie and smashed the Blue Crystal Staff on it and they both disappeared in a brilliant explosion of blue-ish white light… then the cavern started to crumble and cave in…. and that’s where we left it as it was after midnight.

Next Week: Escape from Xak Tsaroth! (and Who Will Rick Play Now!?)

Lorena Whiteswan

Lorena Whiteswan - Wildcard Wizard - Amanda
Ag d6, Sm d10, Sp d8, St d8, Vg d8,
Pace 6, Parry 5 (6 ), Toughness 6
Skills: Fighting d6, Notice d6, Stealth d4, Spellcasting d10, Throwing d4, Knowledge: Arcana d10, Survival d4, Riding d4, Swimming d4, Persuasion d4, Healing d4, Investigation d4, Climbing d4,
Edges: Arcane Background (Magic), Alertness, Luck, Wizard
Hindrances: loyal, pacifist, Code of Honour
Spells: Detect/Conceal ARcana, Light, Armour, Slumber
Gear: Robes, Staff (Str+d4, Parry +1, Reach 1), Dagger (Str+d4), Backpack, Bedroll, etc.

Lorena was born in Solace just after her parents moved there. Her father, John Whiteswan, a master carpenter, was invited to move there by his cousins who’d lived in the town for a couple generations.

Her older brother (by three years), Arnulf, had been born in Solamnia. When he was 14, he was apprenticed to another Master Carpenter, who moved to Solamnia in search of work and Arnulf went with him. No one has heard from him since.

Lorena had four younger siblings that were born in Solace. Isador, her younger sister (by just a year) has always been a rival – and a bit of a brute – bullying her constantly. She still lives at home – exasperating her parents.

Gwenyth and Gyles, twins (four years younger than Lorena) get along with her quite well. Both are recently married. Gyles is a carpenter and works with his dad, and Gwenyth is married to one of her fathers other apprentices Morgan Hammermann.

A Third sister was born a couple years after the twins but died when she was only one in a housefire.

Lorena’s youngest brother Quinlan (10 years younger) is also apprenticing to be a carpenter under her father, but longs to travel and go adventuring like his older sister.

Lorena, showing an aptitude for magic, was apprenticed to a Wizard at the age of thirteen. The wizard, Rowena Lablanca, traveled a lot and maintained a number of households across western Ansalon in Solamnia, Ergoth and Abanasinnia. Every couple years Lorena would return with Rowena to Solace – sometimes for a month, sometimes a whole year, but eventually they would be moving on. After twenty years Lorena’s apprenticeship has come to an end – passing the tests at the Tower of High sorcery. She has traveled home to Solace to decide what to do next…

Magnus Blackburn

Magnus Blackburn – Wildcard Preacher - Curtis
Ag d6, Sm d8, Sp d10, St d6, Vg d6,
Pace 6, Parry 5, Toughness 5
Skills: Fighting d6, Notice d6, Stealth d4, Persuasion d10, Investigation d8, Streetwise d8, Knowledge (history) d8, Knowledge (the Good Book) d8, healing d6
Edges: Healer, Charismatic, Alertness
Hindrances: Quirk (Loves Beer), Loyal, Heroic
Gear: Robes, Large leather and metal bound Book of the Seekers (Improvised Weapon, Str+d4, -1 to hit), 2 Daggers (Str+d4), Backpack, Bedroll, etc, etc…

Magnus Blackburn was born a short 32 years ago. Orphaned at the age of five when both parents died of illness he was raised by family friends in Solace. He had a decent enough childhood but never felt as if he really belonged. These feelings only got stronger in his teenage years and as young boys sometimes tend to do he ran away from home. He expected great adventure but was barely managing to survive after his small supply of food ran out. This is generally the way of things. Nearly dead, Magnus was found by a group of out of work mercenaries. Instead of leaving him to die they gave him food and water ( very odd considering they were mercenaries) and let him travel with them. Magnus proved an able travelling companion as long as he didn't have to worry about trying to survive. He was quick of wit and had a knack for understanding people and getting them to do what he wanted. Eventually, he joined their company and spent many years taking one job after another from whoever was willing to pay. It was during this time that Magnus did many things he wasn't proud of. Lieing, cheating, stealing, killing, these were not things that he had any interest in but he was accepted and because of that he stayed. Eventually his shame grew to be too great and he ran away once again. You would think that during his time as a mercenary he would have learned a little about survival but all he really gained was a love of good beer. On his own Magnus quickly found himself in trouble once again, lost without food or water. This time he was found by some priests travelling from Haven. Once again helped by strangers, Magnus found himself in a temple of the new gods. Here he learned of the Word and the true Way. Thinking he might have at last found a place to belong he joined the order and became a priest himself. Now he travels, preaching to all who will listen about the way of the new gods. This has allowed him to travel back to Solace and use it as a home base. There, he has met old friends and made some new ones.

Magnus isn't much of a fighter but can if he has to. He would much prefer to talk his way out of most of the situations he finds himself in and he's actually quite good at it. He is incredibly loyal to those he considers friends to the point of being foolhardy. Trying to make up for past misdeeds he has a heroic streak that is bound to get him into a great deal of trouble someday. Of course if he happens to find a good ale house he may never make it on to another adventure.

Descent into Darkness

The Fourth Session of the Saturday Night Savages DragonLance Campaign….

Jackson finally made it out to a game and made himself a Human Ranger type (hopefully we’ll have a background for him shortly – AND MAYBE ONES FOR LAURANA AND MAGNUS!?).

Speaking of Laurana, for a (minor) pacifist, she had been doing a whole lot of “shooting first” last session… So I decided to take away her Bolt spell and replaced it with Armour – as it seemed to fit her character better. I did allow her touse her level-up from last session to take Slumber…

In our last session The Heroes had finally made it to the Ruins of Xak Tsaroth. Attacked by a dragon they sought refuge in the only standing building nearby – which turned out to be the temple of Mishakal. And that’s where this evenings adventures began!

Exploring the temple they found a statue of Mishakal that came to life and spoke to them, pretty much telling them what they needed to find (the Discs of MIshakal) and where to find it (in the Dragon Hoard)! While further investigating the temple they discovered some cowardly Gully Dwarves and were discovered by a unit of Draconians…


They were dealt with pretty quickly – due to about half of them falling asleep on the first turn… only waking up just in time to die…

After they were finished snooping around the Temple they descended and spiral stone staircase into the deep dark underworld. They discovered a worn trail leading out of the main hall they had descended into, but decided to check out some side passages. While trying to look down into some big cracks in the floor they head noises in an ajoining hall. They took too long trying to decide what to do – stay and make ready to fight or run and hide – and didn’t think to put their lights out… so they were discovered.


Another squad of draconians dealt with easily thanks partly, again, to the slumber spell, and partly to the unstable crumbling floor which sent a few tumbling into the vast blackness below….

Returning to the well worn path through the crypts they ran into another batch of Guly Dwarves all queued up in a hall. Unable to communicate in any sensible way with them they tried to sneak up to the room ahead to see what was going on. The ALL decided to “sneak up” and someone made a noise and they were spotted.


The two overseers were again knocked out by the slumber spell and they “dealt with” by other party members…

They discovered a secret passageway and the sewer tunnel the gulley dwarves had been using. In the first section they descended the Kender lost his grip and went sliding down – bowling down a group of Guly Dwarves who were coming up the tunnel. Regrouping at a junction, they decided to take the steeper tunnel down (as they Gully Dwarves seemed to indicate that that is where they had come from.

On this one too there was sliding. Goldmoon slipped and took out nearly the whole group. Rolling for some damage on this one most escaped with minor bumps and bruises (a couple were “shaken”). But Goldmoon must have hit her head in the initial fall and knocked herself out. Then, being unconscious bettered her head on the sides of the stone tunnel all the way down and fell hard at the bottom – she took SIX WOUNDS!! Luckily she soaked one… Then Norfindel worked his (nearly magical) healing on her (the fantasy version of First Aid and CPR), taking off another wound. The Blue Crystal Staff healed a further two bringing her back to her senses but leaving her battered with two wounds.

AT that point I suggested we could stop – most seemed ready to bash on until I pointed out it was midnight…. Amanda called the game as she has to teach yoga in the morning and kicked everyone out…

Tune in next week! Find out if they survive the dragon and find the mysterious Discs of Mishakal!!

Xak Tsaroth

Raging ahead with my Savage Worlds Dragon Lance campaign this week, I was a little nervous about how far a head to be really prepared for - after last week when the players sidestepped and skipped by a dozen or so encounters I had lined up and found themselves nearly at the Gates of Xak Tsaroth!? Would they flounder in the swamp or bash their way to the very bottom of the dungeon and find all that there is to discover there!?

Christian didn’t make it out tonight, but I let the others play Henry FitzArnulf. They refrained from using him as a meatshield/trap detector. He even made it through the adventure free of injury, though his armour is looking a little worse-for-wear… Dragons with acid breath do that… but I’m getting ahead of myself..

I FINALLY got around to filling them in on the details of Goldmoon and Riverwinds past – having sprinted through the first batch of encounters they never really had a chance to catch their breath and formally introduce themselves to each other!?

And so, in the the swamp they went.


First they were ambushed by a group of Draconians as they tried to cross the murky waters of the swamp on a a fallen tree. This was actually their first encounter with the Draconians (having sidestepped said potential encounters last session).

Curly spent a turn or two frightened out of his wits until he could convince himself they weren’t GIANT bats… Roscoe Thorngage, the brick-like Kender berserker, went berserk and got his arm stuck in the sorcerer draconian as he stabbed his sword and arm right through – turning it instantly to stone.

Goldmoon and Magnus got into a bit of a theological tiff – trying to prove who’s gods were the bad-ass-iest. Goldmoon whacked one with the blue crystal staff (for something like five or six wounds) blasting it into a fine dust in a brilliant flash of blue-ish-white lgith. Magnus, not to be outdone, bashed one over the head with his holy book (improvised weapon, -1 to hit, Str+d6 damage – it IS 10 pounds and bound in steel!).

After finishing them off they came across another bridge guarded by draconians one tried to flee and was blasted by Laurenas magic missiles, The second sounded a warning horn, but was quickly silenced by Norfindel.

They happened upon a giant spider… who just happened to jump Curly (with “The Drop”), who was stung and poisoned and paralysed for a good few minutes. Laurena quickly blasted that with her magic missiles and splattering everyone with spider goo.

They scooted past the dragon breeding pool deciding it was far too ominous looking to be further investigated!

Henry FitzArnulf fell off a vine bridge and very nearly drown. He emerged from the water covered in a fetid smelling black slime.

Then they stumbled across the “Plaza of Death”!


Roscoe and Magnus went to check out the well while the others headed towards the intact building (the Temple). The dragon popped out of the well and made two straffing passes at the crew before they all made it into the (relative) safety of the temple. Magnus was pretty badly burned by the acid (like incapacitated “badly”). Henry escaped looking a little melted as well…

That’s pretty much where we left off. Hopefully they players will take advantage of that OLD RULE (concerning posting on this blog… hint... hint…) as they seem to be burning through bennies rather quickly!! (especially Laurena and Magnus… who haven’t supplied character backgrounds – they each only had one. Laurena because she was “lucky” and Magnus because Curtis brought Root Beer….)

Hopefully I’ll get a game (or TWO!?) with the Kids this week and get them caught up….