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…

Qualinost and Sla-Mori (with the not-so-big kids)

Back at the campaign with the kids last week. We covered a LOT of ground!

After the Ambush of the Slave Caravan, the heroes gathered their equipment and fled into the woods with the Elves. Through the night they were pursued by Orcs and Goblins and Draconians. By morning (of Day 11) their pursuers had given up or had been picked off by Elves that had laid behind in ambush.

They marched on through the day and and made camp at a great waterfall. The next day (Day12) took them to the Elvish capitol of Qualinost where they met the Speaker of the Suns. They spent the rest of the day recovering and healing.

The next day (Day13) They met again with the Speaker of the Suns in a great council and were charged with going to Pax Tharkas to free the prisoners and create a distraction by leading the dragons armies off in a wild goose chase after them, to give the Elves some time to pack up and flee Qualinost!?

The following day (Day14) they headed off on their quest. Along the way they came across the scene of a recent battle and were ambushed by some Draconians!


The Draconians were quickly dispatched. Among the dead they found a sole survivor who decided to tag along with the group.

In the late afternoon they came to the valley leading to Pax tharkas and as they looked on a massive Dragon Army marched out from it’s gates. After the army had passed they snuck past the valley and into the next vale following an old stream up to the hidden entrance – The Sla Mori or “Secret Way”. Entering under cover of night they decided to camp out just within the entrance.

The next day (Day 15) they delved deep into the mountainside. Whenthey came to the first crossroads there was some dissent among some of the group as to which way to go. In the end most decided to head on straight into the mountain, but Christopher insisted that Gilthanas would want to go the other way and so the group was split. AS it was only one character (and an NPC) I decided to just take Gilthanas and they rest of the group went on without him.

They entered the tomb of Kith-Kanan and found his ancient blade: Wyrmslayer. Christopher quickly snatched that up for Sturm Brightblade, but I thought afterwards I probably should not let Sturm have the sword – he is a Knight of Solamnia, not a Grave Robber. He would not raid the tombs of the honoured dead and steal their sacred swords!

Passing through the corridor that led out of the room they entered a hall that was blocked with rubble – the far end of the hall had collapsed long ago. Before they could investigate and see if they could find a way through they were attacked by


A GIANT SLUG!!!

This was pretty quickly taken care of and we called it a day.

This week Bruce and his kids were at book club so Christopher came over and we played a separate Savage Worlds game (which I will chronicle as some point) and played a bit of Hordes of the Things. Hopefully next week we’ll be back to our Dragonlance Saga!

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!?

Zombies in Stalingrad

Once again we did not have quorum for our regular ongoing Dragonlance Campaign so I quickly set up another East Front WWW2 game.

Stalingrad, October 1942

SITUATION

A few weeks after our heroes Last Mission a report came to the BPO Stalingrad HQ that a unit of Russians had been attacked by another unit of Russians which had advanced out of the German lines – they did not carry weapons and all attempts to communicate with them were ignored – they fell upon the soviets holding the line and savaged them in brutal hand to hand fighting. Pandemonium ensued. An entire regiment of artillery was tasked to level the area just to get the situation under control. The BPO commander suspected paranormal involvement and the team to the front to investigate.

There they waited a few days until they got a report that a forward observation post had spotted what seemed to be a large number of Russians gathering just beyond the german lines.

The team moved to the front….



FORCES

Soviet Forces

Leytenant Anya Putyatin – BPO Psionik
Serzhant Boris Trotsky
Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski - BPO Sniper

7x Soviet Riflemen
3x Soviet HMG crew (with Maxim HMG)


German Forces

1x SS Bloodmage
4xVeteran SS Minders
27 x Reanimated Russians

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


Amanda (Leytenant Anya Putyatin) and Dave (Serzhant Boris Trotsky)


Patrick (Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski) brought his own hat.


Soviets preparing to hold the line…


Darkness fell….

…and out of the darkness loomed…


The Zombie Horde!!


Slowly they shambled towards the soviet line. The soviets fired buckets of bullets at them – but with very little effect!?

(at this point the players were getting VERY nervous and making comments about how they’d really enjoyed playing these characters and that I wasn’t being very nice….)


During the five or so turns to advance to the Soviet lines the two machineguns, six riflemen, sniper rifle, submachinegun and BPO Psionik only managed to drop three zombies.


The HMG team was the first to be overrun – despite hundreds of bullets being shot downrange they hadn’t caused a single casualty with their fire. On their first turn of close combat the team leader bashed in one of the zombies head with the butt end of his SMG and it reeled back and crumpled to the ground.

In following turns the two gunners would beat a number of them to death with their bare hands!?


Zombies continue to shamble forward – and who is that skulking behind them?! An SS Blood Mage and his minders (bodyguards, yes, but also there to kill him if it seemed capture was immanent).


These two riflemen beat one zombie down with the butt ends of their rifles and were feeling so confident they rushed out to beat on some others that were separated from another group before they could converge and overwhelm them.


Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski had started dropping zombies like crazy when they came out of the shadows and tried to cross the street in front of the building, but eventually his position was overrun… well with one zombie. After the first one got through, BPO Psionik Anya Putyatin turned her attention there and started melting zombie brains with her mind…


AT the other end of the line one zombie had stumbled into the wire and became entangled, but others behind him simply crawled over top of him…


The MG team holding the gap in the wall, holding off the three or four times their number.


The pile of zombies outside Dizaleski’s hide. There was some debate as to who was responsible for the pile. Dizaleski claims he shot them all point blank as they rushed out of the shadows and across the street. Trotsky, however, had also spend turns (and entire drums of ammo!) blazing away down that street and thus claimed he was responsible for the majority of them. Truthfully had they been examined more closely a number of them would have had no sign of gunshot wounds at all but rather looked like their heads exploded from within or had simple melted…


Another pile of corpses mounts in front of the MG position – mostly due to the gunners fists!

I missed getting a shot of him while he was down – but the team leader of the MG team was wounded and knocked down, but Leynant Putyatin rushed to his aid and got him back on his feet and into the game again! (lets hear if for the Combat Medic edge! HIP! HIP….!?)

(bah, my first kill of the game and I didn’t even get to reanimate it! Fie! FIIIIIEEEE!)


A Zombie crawling over the other zombie caught in the wire finally gets over and attacks the rifleman beyond.


The riflemen who had earlier rushed out from their position being overwhelmed as the SS Blood Mage strolls on by – expecting there to be a number of fresh Russian corpses to animate at this position soon enough.


More of a mess in the center.


Another Russian is finally overwhelmed – his comrade fled and leapt over the wall!


The Blood Mages first victim – REANIMATED! Unfortunately no one else was around to witness is so no guts checks…


His comrade didn’t last long… From his position behind that wall he tried to fire on the Blood Mage – but the minders were on hold and interrupted. They tied their opposed agility rolls and thus went simultaneously. The Russian went down in a hail of submachinegun fire…


…but not before he shot one of the SS minders!


Another zombie over the wire while four flank through the building to the side.


Trotsky decided to run and help out his sniper (not having any more zombies to shoot out in the street). The two of them finally beat down the last two remaining zombies at their end of the line.


Mopping up in the middle.


The SS saw that it was lost and scarpered, but not before…


… they raised one last zombie and sent it on it’s merry way towards the soviet lines. It almost made it to Anya Putyatin – who had advanced a little too far into the “no man’s land” beyond the soviet lines.

Wow… from certain doom to total victory. The Soviet only lost two dead – another had been only slightly wounded and returned to the fight with the aid of Anya Putyatin. The SS lost one of their minders – who turned out to be only wounded and was captured by the BPO. The Germans had started with 27 zombies (and animated two more Russians along the way) and they were all beaten down – mostly with fists and rifle butts…

Afterwards, Serzhant Boris Trotsky successfully persuaded his superiors to have the riflemen holding this position to be transferred to the BPO (and replace the rifle squad he’d lost in his last action….).

Fun times!

Coming Soon to Savage Timmy’s Playhouse:

Well, with any luck, next week we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled Dragonlance Campaign… Assuming we can get quorum!?