Play Report: Kidnap the Archpriest Playtest

This is technically Tomb of the Chimera Kings 2, but I jumped at the chance to detour into playtesting +Skerples ' upcoming Kidnap the Archpriest module. (UPDATE: At long last, Kidnap the Archpriest has received a full release! You can find it here and read up on it here.)

The party consisted of :

• Orriam, Hirwigo Fighter
• Romloc, Mushroom Wizard
• Elanir, Mountain Elf
• Ezek, Fighter of the Scattered God

All played by still-fresh players.

We open the next morning, after their first successful run in the dungeon. The party wakes up to find that the campsite has doubled in size, and is filled with other S&P mercenaries. Among the chaos is a face they recognize: Scuttlebutt, a rotund black beetleperson who had initially hired them for Plausible Deniability Activities back in Trade Town. He has with him a taller, pale beetle wearing the finery of a bank noble, and calls out "you, you, you and you. Got a new job, you have half an hour to pack your bags."

The pale beetle goes by the name of Izzik. He explains that the party will be put on a a direct whale-flight to Huuston, in order to infiltrate the castle there and kidnap the Archpriest of the Red-and-Gold, bringing him back to Trade Town to stand before the Bank's justice. They agree to the terms swiftly and spend the next day and night in transit.

Upon reaching Huuston the next dawn, the party immediately goes to check out the  marketplace and purchase an room at the Sober Monk Inn, under the story that they are tourists. The morning is filled primarily with information gathering: Ezek scopes out the castle they are to break into, Orriam picks up all manner of gossip, managing to hear the name of Oleg the Wise get dropped, from whom he purchases a map and more gossip. Romloc trundles around poking at dirt, as he is a mushroom.

Elanir shows the most drive of the bunch (her player was really getting into it), and spends her morning fixing the chimera bow she retrieved in the previous session, acquiring a pair of priest's cassocks from a shady part of the marketplace, and securing a whore token from Madam Livia. She pawns off two of the three amulets she received in the Tomb to pay for all this.

The group meets for lunch at noon, to plan and share information.

With the priest robes acquired, Romloc and Orriam get dressed and begin doing some further scouting: the former to investigate the cardinals' villas, the latter to see if he can get inside the castle and look around. Romloc is met with "sorry, the cardinal is out, and you aren't on the invitation list", while Orriam manages to pass a CHA check with a score of 4 to get past the guards. He signs in with reception, is guided by a servant through some of the lower castle to the chapel, where he acts out a few prayers, and then returns.

Elanir returns to gather more market rumors, Ezek continues scouting the castle from the outside.

The group meets a second time at 5pm to share information, and plan.

This is where everything begins to fall apart. The next several hours are spent with more rumor-finding (to the point where I was getting repeats on the list and was picking them at random), with Ezek returning to Oleg for, yes, more rumors. By this point they were not helpful anymore. Elanir, who of the four is the only one now to have a set plan, spends the last of her money rushing the purchase of a perfume bottle filled with a knockout spritzer.

It's now 11 pm, and everything has hit the fan. Discussion of plans have gone nowhere. Elanir has been working (quite effectively) towards sneaking in the side door using the whore token and her exotic elvish looks, then using a combination of the knockout spritzer and some rope (explained to the guard as bondage gear) to grab the archpriest. (She also suggested combining said technique with one of the priest robes in case more kink was required, a move I heartily encouraged as being in the spirit of the PC, but alas, it never came to fruition).

Arguments began. Everyone began sort of wandering off to do their own thing - Elanir went to the side gate to be let in, while Ezek fired his crossbow at one of the Black Endoguards (they are not your friends) watching the river by the main gate bridge "as a distraction"

Describing a crossbow bolt crumpling ineffectually against a helmet, followed by an 8 foot tall potentially-a-person with black carapace armor and glowing red eyes running someone down was quite fun, but not for Ezek. The quick turn in an alley did not avail him, as a gauntleted hand grabbed the neck of his shirt, threw him down to the cobbles, and a horrible axe went snicker-snack.

Romloc tried to interfere with a magic missile, which distracted the Endoguard long enough for Ezekn to get one ineffectual sword thrust in before he was hacked open and killed. Romloc was chased down and tackled, and managed to survive a punch to the head with his spongy mushroom physique. He attempted to call upon the mushrooms for aid (a joke action, but I allowed it, we both knew how this was going to end), but the response from the soil was "Fuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuu" The Endoguard proceeded to axe him a question, something along the lines of "I wonder what a mushroom-person's organs look like."

Orriam used the distraction to jump into the moat and swim across. He got about half way before changing tact, then flailing about and claiming a thief had pushed him in, calling for the aid of the guards (he was still wearing the fake cassock). the gate guards threw him a rope, pulled him in, and took him into the guardhouse, where he was given a blanket by the brazier and a flask of brandy.

Two guards were inside the guardhouse playing cards, with the two outside returning there, and then Orriam (whose player swore later that he thought he had a chance) leapt up with the warhammer he had smuggled in under his cassock and one-hit braining one of the guards.

The other, of course, screamed HOLY FUCK!, which was met by one of the outside guards rushing in and the other setting off the alarm. A guard was wounded, Orriam took a hit, the scuffle was brief: the wounded guard managed to land a crit on max damage, which turned into an eviscerating blow from purse to sternum. 

With the alarm going off Elanir was barely through the door when approached by a guard saying "come along with me, ma'am." She was escorted to a holding cell (and dropped her perfume bottle on the way, to get rid of evidence, good thinking there), where she stayed through the night.

The terrorist attack on the castle spread like wildfire in the night, to the point that the Archpriest and a handful of his Endoguard left the city by whale ahead of schedule. Elianor was released, and we wrapped the session. (The excavation site near the tomb of the Chimera kings did not fare better, and Sont, the Chromatic fighter who was strangled by a hand last session, came down with mummy rot and began infecting others, to the point where the dungeon was re-sealed with even more undead than it started with inside, and the site was abandoned within two weeks.)

Miscellaneous DM Notes

• They almost had a plan. They were one step away from having a legitimate plan - Elanir goes in as a whore, sneaks her way to the Archpriest, and sneaks him out through the passage to the cathedral with the two who are disguised as priests keeping vigil, then they take it to the fourth member who has the getaway ready.
• This plan was abandoned before it came into being. The arguments (Mostly founded on not knowing enough, not having a plan, poking holes in the whore attempt) drove the planning in circles to the point that they actually forgot that they almost had a good plan. Right back to 0, with no one knowing what was going on, which in turn made everything feel rushed, as if they had to analyze every detail. (A description from Romloc's player)
• It is very frustrating to DM when only one person has a plan.
• It is very frustrating for the players when only one person has a plan.
• Frustrated players tend to make stupid choices just so they can do something.
• The lack of their experience really showed in some places ex: Not buying supplies because "What do we buy? We don't know what we need!", even after I explained exactly how the markets worked. Elanir's player picked it up quickly (getting the robes), but the others not so much.
• They spent loads of time collecting rumors, even after they had ceased becoming useful, but still rushed into action on Night 1 instead of waiting until the next day (which was suggested by Elanir).
• The party didn't end up crossing paths with any of the major NPCs in the module.
• Black Endoguards are the coolest.

The players did have fun, though, sans the circular arguments. I'd like to run it again with a more experienced group. For now, though, it seems the adventures in Fwéa have come to a quick and ignoble close. Might try the WEG Star Wars with this group next, once the 30th anniversary books are out.

Play Report: Tomb of the Chimera Kings - Session 1

I return once again to the depths of Skerples’ introductory dungeon, with a fresh group of players and a DM who now was flying by only one half of the seat of his pants.

The session was set in our group's setting of Fwéa, and our band included:

P, a lv1 Hirwego Fighter

S, a lv1 Chromatic Fighter

N, a lv1 S’sem monk

B, a lv1 Mountain Elf

D1, a lv1 Mushroom Wizard

D2, a lv1 Beetleperson

The session began right outside the dungeon, with the following simple setup: The s & P Bank has begun selling salvage rights to the eastern E-DIN Plateau. The party is working as a PDC (Plausible Deniability Company) for one of the merchant houses in trade town. Mission: break into this untouched tomb of the ancient chimera kings (late 29^th dynasty) and bring anything valuable back. A couple wagons, some underlings to maintain the camp, and we’re  good to go.

It all went swimmingly. The players picked up things fast: Use your tools, check for traps, treasure = good. After the first room of the false tomb they had the smash and grab formula down: s would push open the door with his 10 foot pole, P would toss a rock in, B would go in with a cloth over her face and break open the sarcophagus.

D2 managed to get around the hammer trap by investigating the bar solo and hitting one of the trigger buttons. Lucky son of a gun dodged the hammer, too. (Granted, with 11 HP he could have tanked the 1d10 damage)

Of course, they decided to disturb the tombs in room 6, which caused the THREE PRINCES to explode from their tombs, posing flamboyantly.  Yes, I used the song. I am an awful hack job of a human being who should never be allowed to DM. This is what happens.

The skeletons themselves were defeated with little injury to the party, though of note was that D1 managed to kill one of the brothers with a vial of holy water after N had shattered its leg with a well-placed punch.

The statue in room 7 was pulled down after B clambered up top and affixed a rope to it (another great use of mundane items), and the party went into the floor below.

S decided to investigate the pool of water in the center of room 11 (he actually wanted to drink it, the madman), and was, of course, immediately attacked by one of the mummy hands and choked to his last hitpoint before B was able to pry the hand off and someone managed to stomp on it.

B grabbed the bow and three arrows from the terra cotta soldier room, D2 and P took a lightning bolt to the face in room 12 (and lived, surprisingly). N escorted S back up to the surface camp. D2 and P found a way to game the tombs of Xizor’s wives, by opening the lid just enough for B to do a visual sweep for treasure and not enough for the skeleton-wife to actually get out.

This was where we ended for the night, with the rest of the group all returning to the surface. Some miscellaneous notes include:

• P guessed that there were other mummy parts in the pool in room 11 from only the hand. He has not yet found out if this is true.
• A few party members believe that the three amulets in the false tomb will be of future importance.
• S is going to have a real fun time when he learns the result of that save from the mummy hand scuffle.
• The Three Princes were all seen to have ghosts departing from their bones upon defeat. I wonder what that means? 

This campaign, unlike the last run through, will be continued. Perhaps not soon, but they will return to the Chimera Kings.

The world of Fwéa

 

On second thought, best not to go there: it is a silly place

A few months ago I gathered up a band of my friends (none of whom had RPG experience), and ran them through three sessions of Dawn of Worlds. The thought was that, in having hands in making the setting, it would be an easier jumping-in point for them all.

The end result was Fwéa. It is incredibly silly.

The first proper session in this setting is this upcoming weekend, so we shall see how well the test goes.

All dumb references are the responsibility of the friends who made them.

 

Races of Fwéa

Goblobblins

Soft, rotund, pastel-colored creatures. Their bodies are like marshmallow, their hair like red licorice, and they have little trunks for sniffing out gummi-truffles. They are the oldest civilization in the world, and have played at expansionism in the past. Those days are behind them, now.

Omnomlins

Foul, vegetable-eating cousins of the Goblobblins. A primitive people that have waged war against their sugary neighbors for centuries. They have developed broccoli agriculture and simple plant-weapons.

Mantisfolk

Secluded inhabitants of the southeastern jungles, who live in hidden villages along the ashen banks of the Red River. Masters of stealth warfare.

Wraiths

Violent, fiercely territorial undead that haunt the Yellow Wastes.

 

Nutbreakers

Burrowing rodents of the desert, with purple fur, orange paws, and strange, manlike faces. They live in vast underground burrow-cities such as Nutopya, defended by elaborate systems of pit traps and sharp spikes pointed nether-wards.

Hirwegos

A race of portly, mustachiod humanoids (the mode of dress is the only way to determine females from males) that go about cleaning up Oilspill Island from their base in Goodluck. 

 

Luijis

Taller, thinner variants of Hirwegos. They seek to spread the pollution of Oilspill island, though of naiveté, rather than malice. 

 

Groms

Six-inch tall stone men, native to the northern mesas. Driven south to the Minefield Plains to escape the oppression of the Mushroom Men. As they age, they will cease movement and become potent magical totems.

Mushroom Men

Cruel, poisonous myconids, hailing from the Fungal Forest and their rotten city of Mush. A warband marched across the entire continent to attack and enslave the groms for their mineral wealth.

Centitaurs

A nomadic people from the eastern planes, with elongated bodies lined with arms (8-12). Hairless, with distinct, colorful skin patterns. Famous as traveling merchants across the east. Founded Trade City at Blue Fork.

Crystal Oozes

Slime-beings animated the sapient crystals that serve as their skeletons, native to the Crystal Blight. Their great secret city lies at the epicenter under the Shard Mountain. They worship the Wolf with the Crystal Crown.

Boring Folk

A nondescript, plain people, prone to no passions of any sort. They are fit for civilization (if terribly dull civilization), and have developed many efficient schools of bureaucracy. They have founded three city states – Unnamed, Equally Unexciting, and Other City – along the Straight Road across the eastern plains.

Surrenderists

A subset of the Boring Folk, being a most delicate breed that shies away from conflict of any sort. They will surrender to any challenge, and rarely leave their homes.

Fishdogs

Creatures of piscine anterior and canine posterior. Of friendly and loyal disposition, making them common pets in coastal regions, especially in the West.

Teslamen

Tall, metallic stick-figures, the Teslamen absorb the lightning strikes and use it as both food and a means of communication. They live in Teslopya, more forest of their bodies than city, in the glass-coated heart of the Lighting Wastes.

Flingeels

Anurian-icthian beings from the southern seas. Violent raiders of land-based peoples. Send out parties from their nameless pit-city beneath the sea, while their kings live in a hidden citadel on a forested island, above the subterranean lake where their god, the Flower’d Fish, rests.

Treefolk / Treeple

Thinking trees from the forests of the Horn. Holders of the fortress-grove at Oak, to hold back incursions of necrotic beasts from the Deadlands.

Beetlepeople

Black-carapaced natives of the Chessfields and attendant cities of Succor and Pitch. The two sides wage a formulaic and traditional false-war against each other. They are the founders of the mighty S&P Banking Clan.

Mountain Elves

A semi-nomadic people from the mountains. They hold books, especially those of magic, in the highest regard. They possess a native tradition of warding magic and kinship with the black dragons.

Sky / Space Whales

Great airborne whales, held aloft by buoyant oil and thousands of tiny butterfly wings. In possession of magics that allows them to rise into orbit, where they feed on solar radiation and space-plankton. Their main station is Huuston in the Floating Islands, amidst the spore clouds.

Lava People

Molten rock granted life, shambling about the northern tundra in suits of obsidian. They are lonely creatures without true name, and woe to all in their path.

Marrow-Worms

Two-meter worms that live underneath the Iron Desert. Their mouth-parts form a rotating drill capable of burrowing through the soil, and this is ringed by smaller, similar appendages. 

 

Technicolor Space People / Chromatic Folk

Born of parasites that latch on to the Sky Whales as they swim in orbit, TSP are brightly hued, quite attractive, and live primarily in the vicinity of Lorin, on the Cookie Coast. They hold a secret art of building armor from whalebone, and worship the Red-and-Gold Monarch. They war against the Edizons over the fate of the Whales.

Muffin People

Simple, peaceful inhabitants of the Cookie Coast.

Baguette People

The warrior-caste of the Muffin People, specially bred and baked by Muffinin pastrymancers. Have hats like the French Foreign Legion.

Cupcake People

A foul, frosting-covered race. It is the icing that contains this diabolic evil, for underneath they are but the innocent-minded Muffin People.

Black Mountain Dragons

A race allied with the Mountain Elves through ancestral treaty and geas. 

 

Edizons

Parasites who feed upon the Teslamen. After developing the ability to store electrical energy in their own bodies, they began to expand, founding their city of Edizonville and beginning their war to subjugate the Sky Whales. They have the most advanced technology in the world, advancing to steam-powered engines and firearms.

The Scattered God

Fragments of a god that was killed during the formation of the world, who live in the land of E-DIN, between the two rivers. A chaotic people in constant warfare, each one believing that they are the true successor of their divine parent. 

 

Anglerfish Trenchfolk

A people known to none but themselves, who live in the nameless city at the bottom of the Falus Trench. There they refine the chemicals of the vents and the seafloor snow into the oily sludge that rises to the surface in regions in the northwestern ocean and coats Oilspill Island.

S’sem (Scaly Snouty Eternal Monks)

Reclusive creatures that live in small communes in the northern mountains and on the border of the crystal wastes. They are immortal.

Fisherfolk

Graceful, fishlike humanoids who live in the Lovely Lake, in their city of Plinget.

Flowerfolk

Cutesy, harmless beings rooted across the Heart-Land. Enslaved and devoured by invading Omnomnians.

LSD Flowerfolk

Indistinguishable from normal Flowerfolk, this subrace will induce intense hallucinogenic visions when ingested.

Glassfolk Menagerie

A varied and diverse group of glass-bodied folk, who remain at home in their city-state on the White Cliffs. Scattered throughout the region after a traumatic earthquake laid ruin to their city and their own bodies.

Crabfolk

Native to Red-Rock Face. Have heavily armored torsos and claws, but their heads are remarkably un-crablike.

Oceanic Crabfolk

Crabfolk that have retained their aquatic origins, living off the coast of Red-Rock Face.

Glow Worms

They live in the Pit, and generate energy there to give glow to the god at the bottom.

Chimeras

The other natives of E-DIN, chimeras are violent, composite creatures of origin unknowable. Some blame the Bio-wizards, but it is unproven.

Bio-Wizards

Bizarre pseudo-humanoids specializing in reproductive and hybridization biomancy. Live in a mighty tower-fortress upon a motile island. Offer their services for a high, but fair price. 

 

Jungle Elves

The elves of the southeastern jungle have, like their cousins, a great animal companionship – this time, with the bears.

Jungle Bears  

BEAR CAVALRY

Giant Hermit-Crabs

House-sized crustaceans living in the northern sea between the World-Roots and the Red-Rock Face.

Flying Fluffballs

Cute little puffballs, just a sphere of fur and a toothy mouth. They scream obscenities at everything.

Gods of Fwéa

Red-and-Gold Monarch 
God-King of the Chromatic Folk. Surprisingly hands-off for an immortal warrior god-king – he will emerge from his palace only in times of war or other crisis. Teaches his followers the art of scrimshaw power armor.

Wolf with the Crystal Crown 
God of the North and the Crystal Blight. A lonely wanderer in the cold.

Dark-Root Father 
An old and gnarled tree, rising high above the secluded, misty forest in the south. Its roots spread throughout the earth, so it might puppet its worshipers wherever they may tread.

Cess in the Pit 
A great mass of flesh, growing and dying at the bottom of the Pit. The source of both life and disease, this god’s worshipers will often attempt pilgrimages to the impossible island where it lives, to receive its blessings. The glow worms give homange, and the Cess is kindly upon them.

The Flower’d Fish 
God of the Flingeel, to whom they make bloody sacrifice. The Flower’d Fish lives in a deep underground lake, far beneath the island citadel of the Flingeel lords.

The Scattered God 
A god committed suicide during the making of the world, and the thousands of beings that it birthed through that death now fight eternally for the throne of the Many-Faced.

The Golden Corpse 
A comatose adolescent in golden robes, eternally asleep on a stone bed. Ferried between the cities of the Beetlepeople as part of their false wars.

The Black Lion 
A cruel and majestic beast, king of the chimeras. A distant lord of change and violence, whose visage might be seen on the distant hills of E-DIN when the night is dark and stormy.

The Unshattered High Priest 
A leader who emerged among the Menagerie in their times of trial, possessing a body of many colors and an unbreakable countenance. The survivors of the great quake use the shattered fragments of their loved ones as part of the prismatic rituals of their faith.

The Amanthrahamnun Dynasty 
Lords of the Mountain Elves who ascended to godhood through their studies of dragon magic.

The Nutcracker 
A colossal statue atop the hill of Nutopya. The Nutbreakers offer to it their slain enemies as sustenance, in hopes that it will awaken to smash all of their remaining un-slain enemies into a pulp.

The Faintest Courage 
A bodiless deity of the Surrenderites, ineffectively attempting to urge them to bravery. Fails often.

Notable Places in Fwéa

I won’t go into the entire list right now, but that map up there includes:


• Tropical candy jungles
• The roots of a collapsed world-tree
• Floating islands choked by mushroom spores
• Necromantic Chernobyl
• A desert filled with rocks that act like landmines
• A miles-wide pit on a superheated island
• A metallic desert, complete with lightning-rod monolith-trees
• A permanent thunderstorm
• Some of the straightest roads ever constructed
• An island made out of a single ruby
• Mountain Dew lakes
  

This will be our setting for this weekend, when I run Tomb of the Serpent Kings for the same group of friends.