Savage Eberron IV: The Caverns of the Kobold King
The sitting began with the players getting into a fence about what to do with the young Jenna ir'Wynarn; the half-ogre bard Jon Loger and human duellist Fibulon wanted to fight on with their plan to make an underground organisation around Jenna's claim to the pot of united Galifar, while Galaxy Jones was open and the dwarf artificer Stones McGuffin wanted nothing to do with any of it and only wanted to go look for adventure. 
Morina Wood explained that he and her father Roderick were archaeologists and that they often went on expeditions abroad to explore ancient ruins and get back artefacts so that modern society could better understand its past; it was on his most recent trip, into the monster-ruled state of Droaam, that the older Wood made his close contact. His program was to cover the border between the seacoast and the southern boundary of the Greywall Mountains, and Morina was to travel later by the more traditional - and safer - route and see him in Greywall itself; Morina arrived to see that her mother had indeed crossed the border, but was lost somewhere in the southerly portion of Droaam. She offered the player-characters three thousand gold pieces if they could bring back word of Roderick's fate.
They recognized and fatigued a day or so look for clues and following leads in Sharn, running into the fixer Fennifee, who appeared to be a vampire but was revealed - after some cajoling and threats of violence - to be a poser. They observed that the Forest were less into academia and more into grave robbing for cash, and likewise found out more about Roderick's expedition; he'd taken a grouping of mercenaries with him as protection, and Fennifee was likewise capable to leave a somewhat detailed programme of the expedition's route.
The team felt that they had spent their leads in Sharn, and hired horses and a drag for the journey into Droaam. Just before the edge they were stopped by a grouping of Breland soldiers who inspected their paperwork, and it seemed as if there was leaving to be a fight - players being players - but the episode passed without violence, although the soldiers suggested that the team either go back or have a safer route into Droaam.
Moving on, they crossed the frame and picked up Roderick's trail, which was subsequently crossed by another large grouping of tracks. The bit set seemed to be newer and to be heading off to the north, while Roderick's carried on into the west, suggesting that the two groups had not met; still, there was some brief discussion over whether to be the new trail, and Galaxy Jones took flight on his glidewing Trixie to see if he could get a better thought of things from the air. He saw that the s group were nonetheless quite close and seemed to be made up of around twenty to thirty gnolls, marching at great speed northward. The squad were mindful that gnolls made up a big percentage of the military of Droaam, and so decided to check out of their line and carry on following the Wood expedition.
They presently came across evidence of a camp, and so decided to stay for the dark in the same spot. During the dark they were assaulted by small robed figures wielding daggers, and despite the hard-of-hearing McGuffin's inability to heat up, the team captured or despatched their assailants. The would-be-assassins turned out to be kobolds and were no opportunistic bandits, as they claimed that they had been sent to do away with the player-characters. The squad also knowing that Roderick and his company had likewise been ambushed further on the trail, and had been taken back to the kobold lair to be fed to "the Big Big Boss"; some of the more paranoid members of the group wondered if the Big Big Boss might be a dragon, but their captive assured them that he had no wings, which didn't appear to give them feel any better.
The players did not cover their captive well, and this was one of the unknown parts of the session for me, as they were quite glad to rack the wretched thing to the place of death, heal him with magic, then do it all over again. Perhaps it was fatigue, or blowing off steam at the end of a long week, but it all seemed a bit unnecessary to me. Since we're using Savage Worlds and not D&D proper, there's no alignment - not that I'd use alignment even if I were running D&D, but that's a theme for another day - and Eberron as a scene was designed to be far less tied to that moral framework, but still so this whole sequence struck me as a bit off and I ground it quite uncomfortable.
The team managed to reap the position of the kobold lair from their intent and began to design their assault. A quick flyover from Galaxy Jones revealed that the den was a cave complex within a butte and that there were entrances both at ground flat and on the top; despite the front of a pair of guard stations, and the inherent difficulty of reaching the crown of the butte unseen when only when party member had the force of flight, they decided to fire from the air.
They approached with relative stealth but once again it seemed as if they were expected, and although the kobold guards retreated, the team's path into the composite was plugged by an enormous red kobold they took to be the Big Big Boss; a brief taxonomical discussion followed as the players pondered whether a very big kobold wasn't only a dragonborn, but so he started hitting them with his flaming meteor hammer and that soon stopped all speak of science.
The Big Big Boss was big - obviously - and strong, and besides had some magical abilities, throwing up a mob of fire about the bound of the field and reflecting the energy from one of Stones' inventions right support at the artificer, but still so he did not survive long against a combined attack by the players. Jonark's mind-affecting magic is quite potent against even the strongest creatures and did much to yield the point for the others, aside from poor old Stones McGuffin who spent most of the fight trying to get up with the others after a misunderstanding between myself and Stones' player regarding relative distances. Though I loathe battlemaps, I want to get a middle ground so that such confusion doesn't arise again.
As was inevitable, the Big Big Boss fell but laughed at the player-characters as they struck the last blow, something which didn't look to faze them one bit, although this laissez faire attitude would get up with them later. They explored the interior of the butte - no sniggering at the back - discovering a beaten and malnourished minotaur chained up in one cave, and a midden in another; after some discussion, they healed and freed the minotaur, and digging through the kobold refuse the company found what was left of Roderick Wood and his soldiers.
Considering their job done, the player-characters fled the cave complex and headed back to Sharn. Upon arrival, and lacking a bathroom and a meal even more than that three thousand gold, they discovered that their home base had been demolished to the earth and that Edie and Jenna had disappeared.
As it turned out, adventure found them.
Edie Stone - occasional player-character and their employer - told them that she'd been contacted by Morina Wood, a Sharn resident whose mother was missing. The team headed off to speak to Wood, finding her in a somewhat disreputable tavern, engaged in a drinking competition that she seemed to win with ease. Any hint that I lifted this scene straight from a classic adventure film would be entirely unfounded, obviously.
They recognized and fatigued a day or so look for clues and following leads in Sharn, running into the fixer Fennifee, who appeared to be a vampire but was revealed - after some cajoling and threats of violence - to be a poser. They observed that the Forest were less into academia and more into grave robbing for cash, and likewise found out more about Roderick's expedition; he'd taken a grouping of mercenaries with him as protection, and Fennifee was likewise capable to leave a somewhat detailed programme of the expedition's route.
The team felt that they had spent their leads in Sharn, and hired horses and a drag for the journey into Droaam. Just before the edge they were stopped by a grouping of Breland soldiers who inspected their paperwork, and it seemed as if there was leaving to be a fight - players being players - but the episode passed without violence, although the soldiers suggested that the team either go back or have a safer route into Droaam.
Moving on, they crossed the frame and picked up Roderick's trail, which was subsequently crossed by another large grouping of tracks. The bit set seemed to be newer and to be heading off to the north, while Roderick's carried on into the west, suggesting that the two groups had not met; still, there was some brief discussion over whether to be the new trail, and Galaxy Jones took flight on his glidewing Trixie to see if he could get a better thought of things from the air. He saw that the s group were nonetheless quite close and seemed to be made up of around twenty to thirty gnolls, marching at great speed northward. The squad were mindful that gnolls made up a big percentage of the military of Droaam, and so decided to check out of their line and carry on following the Wood expedition.
The players did not cover their captive well, and this was one of the unknown parts of the session for me, as they were quite glad to rack the wretched thing to the place of death, heal him with magic, then do it all over again. Perhaps it was fatigue, or blowing off steam at the end of a long week, but it all seemed a bit unnecessary to me. Since we're using Savage Worlds and not D&D proper, there's no alignment - not that I'd use alignment even if I were running D&D, but that's a theme for another day - and Eberron as a scene was designed to be far less tied to that moral framework, but still so this whole sequence struck me as a bit off and I ground it quite uncomfortable.
They approached with relative stealth but once again it seemed as if they were expected, and although the kobold guards retreated, the team's path into the composite was plugged by an enormous red kobold they took to be the Big Big Boss; a brief taxonomical discussion followed as the players pondered whether a very big kobold wasn't only a dragonborn, but so he started hitting them with his flaming meteor hammer and that soon stopped all speak of science.
The Big Big Boss was big - obviously - and strong, and besides had some magical abilities, throwing up a mob of fire about the bound of the field and reflecting the energy from one of Stones' inventions right support at the artificer, but still so he did not survive long against a combined attack by the players. Jonark's mind-affecting magic is quite potent against even the strongest creatures and did much to yield the point for the others, aside from poor old Stones McGuffin who spent most of the fight trying to get up with the others after a misunderstanding between myself and Stones' player regarding relative distances. Though I loathe battlemaps, I want to get a middle ground so that such confusion doesn't arise again.
As was inevitable, the Big Big Boss fell but laughed at the player-characters as they struck the last blow, something which didn't look to faze them one bit, although this laissez faire attitude would get up with them later. They explored the interior of the butte - no sniggering at the back - discovering a beaten and malnourished minotaur chained up in one cave, and a midden in another; after some discussion, they healed and freed the minotaur, and digging through the kobold refuse the company found what was left of Roderick Wood and his soldiers.
Considering their job done, the player-characters fled the cave complex and headed back to Sharn. Upon arrival, and lacking a bathroom and a meal even more than that three thousand gold, they discovered that their home base had been demolished to the earth and that Edie and Jenna had disappeared.
No comments:
Post a Comment