ROBERTWMARTIN.COM
  • Show Notes (Archive)
  • Gaming
  • Long Form
  • About

A blog about gaming, creating worlds, and writing.

Adventures in Chult - Session 5

30/10/2021

0 Comments

 
(I am not happy with the game session recaps I have done to date. I want to tell the story, and I want to explain my design process, but combining the two goals has just made for long and hard to read posts. For this post, I am going to try posting the text I wrote for the in-game calendar in Foundry, which I will then supplement with my design notes. Hopefully this is a better solution.)
Session 5 - Making a Name - Mirtul 16-17:
The rest of Mirtul 16 was spent cleaning up after the battle with the undead. After a quick examination, Arco informed the party that the supposed human female was in fact a yuan-ti pureblood. This was evidenced by the scales on her arms and the slender, forked tongue. After setting up a tinker's display with a repeating message near the pile of undead corpses, the party returned to Malar's Throat. They talked briefly with Screaming Wind and the Tymoran priest, Lateef Heyns, and then Screaming Wind escorted the party and their journalist charges back to the city gates. 

Once in the city, the young scribe Kara gave Strider a quick kiss on the cheek and ran off to Popnes to make sure the story would be included in tomorrow's edition of "The Port". They decided to spend the night at the Thundering Lizard, where Isa was greeted with great fanfare and appreciation. The crowded tavern was filled with locals, but the party was able to secure rooms. Before retiring for the night, the party looked for a suitable mark to extract a few coins from. Isa decided to challenge the reigning arm-wrestling champion to a match for 5 GP. After getting egged on by Arco and softened up by Burgell, the burly blacksmith heartily accepted the challenge. As they locked arms, Isa flew into his Barbarian rage and easily bested his opponent. Overall, the party was up 4 GP, with Isa up 5 and Burgell down the 1 GP to the loss that encouraged the blacksmith to accept Isa's challenge. 

The rest of the evening in the tavern was spent on a hero's feast, complete with steak, river eel, and greens. After the meal, Isa elected to spend extra money to have a room by himself; Del, Anemin, and Burgell shared a room; Arco elected to sleep outside where he could breathe the fresh air and see the stars. 

In the morning, Burgell was disappointed to see the news in "The Port". While it was clear that Zhanthi paid for the party to assist with the undead in Malar's Throat, the article still raised questions about why foreigners were paid instead of native Chultans. In addition, the story about saving the girl highlighted the damage that was done as much as the heroic feat that was performed. 

After breakfast, the party headed back to Zhanthi's. They were greeted by Kores, who was very happy with the news. Apparently the comment in The Port about not using Chultans was not troubling to him. He gladly paid the full 100 GP. The party elected to give 10 GP to Strider, keeping 18 GP for each of them. 

The next stop was Wakanga's. Wakanga's villa was similar in layout to Zhanthi's, but was filled with books on shelves and tapestries on the walls. Wakanga was happy to meet with them, evidently due to the recommendation from Zhanthi. As he enquired about their reason to be in Chult and to call on him, the party mentioned that their friend Nelison had contracted the Death Curse and that Remallia asked them to investigate. 

At the mention of Nelison, a round-faced bearded individual walked into the room. Questioning the party about Nelison, it was clear this individual knew him, even if he did not know that Nelison was ill. After a few minutes of discussion, the new participant in the conversation introduced himself as the famed author and explorer, Volothamp Geddarm. Anemin quickly becomes ecstatic and giddy with the knowledge he is in the presence of someone so knowledgeable. 

The party shared with Volo the gifts from Nelison, including the stone etched with the maze that was gifted to Arco. Volo and Wakanga briefly conferred, and then escorted the party to a basement room with a large version of Arco's stone. They explain it as portal of some sort, and teleportation circle that can be activated by recreating a specific pattern in the stone's maze. The only problem is that they only know of the pattern for this particular stone.

After reviewing the stone, Wakanga asked the party to deliver a rug to Zhanthi. The party is completely suspicious of what was enclosed in the rug but had the professional courtesy to not examine it. 
​
Walking through the early morning streets of Port Nyanzaru, the party decided their next course of action is to head to Fort Beluarian. While planning their next steps at the Thundering Lizard, they were approached by a tall human male looking to discuss some assistance the party can provide him. 
Design Notes:
This was a fun session to run, but I was concerned how the players would react as it was completely role-play. Feedback was positive, which was a relief. 

The party's decision to not go back to Zhanthi to continue working for her presented me with some challenges. I was thinking of Zhanthi as a quest hub for Port Nyanzaru to help them gain experience and money, and to drop a few plot elements for them. However, even as deserting Zhanthi closes some avenues, others open including fostering some resentment with and towards Zhanthi. 

Another fun aspect was the ability to really introduce the broadsheet. I decided on the fly to call it "The Port". The copy the party bought during breakfast on Mirtul 17 had the following stories:
  • Headlines
    • Undefeated Haddy confirmed for tomorrow's race, jockey still missing
    • Merchant Princes concerned Chult is origin of Death Curse
    • Continued danger to clients and guides forces Jobal's hand
    • Mainlanders save young girl, trash city street
    • Zhanthi's Forces Slaughter Undead
  • Details in the stories
    • Crowd favorite is almost even odds to win her fourth straight race. Regular jockey still missing.
    • News from the mainland is that the "jungle sickness" has spread to the mainland. Several rumors point to Chult as source but no details are known. Article author suggests the rumors are "nothing more than the mainland's continued attempts to oppress and control Chult".
    • The interim measure enacted forcing any party wishing to hire a guide needs personal permission from Jobal has been extended indefinitely due to safety concerns. Jobal is quoted as saying, "We are experiencing an influx of foreigners unaware of the dangers of the jungles of Chult. This unfortunate measure must be extended to ensure we can keep everyone safe."
    • In the act of saving a young girl from being trampled by a startled ankylosaur, a group of mainlanders trashed vendor stalls, ran into city elders, and destroyed a vendor's cart. Luckily, representatives of Merchant Prince Zhanthi were close at hand to assist with clean up and restitution.
    • Zhanthi hired a group of mainland mercenaries to repel undead in Malar's Throat. It is unclear why strong, loyal Chultans were not suitable for the task. While the result is overall good, this is another case of Chultan money flowing to mainlanders.
The dinosaur races in Port Nyanzaru have a good reputation with player and GMs for being a fun experience, however my party was never interested. I even tried to tie in a bit of mystery with the missing jockey, but they were not interested in that either. The storyline about Jobal was suggested to give them a reason to visit another Merchant Prince and to force a decision regarding a guide. With Arco being a ranger with a Favored Terrain of Jungle, they decided a guide was not needed.

The last two stories were about their actions, and it was great to see their reaction. "Hey, why aren't we seen as heroes?" My intent was to show that actions have consequences, and that the characters would not be universally loved and lauded. Mission accomplished.

I really liked planting the element of the stone in Wakanga's villa. This idea of the "Webway of Ubtao" was taken from reddit just as I was preparing the campaign. This is perfect because the party can essentially teleport around Chult at low levels, and the slog of a jungle hex crawl is lessened if the party can quickly travel back to Port Nyanzaru. In addition, as a GM I can drop a webway maze into any location in Chult that make sense to the story, and it provides an avenue to explore the culture of Chult in greater detail. This will be something I will compare and contrast between Camp Righteous and Camp Vengeance later on.

The last point is about Volo. If you recall from the write-up for Session 0, 1, and 2, I had the common NPC Nelison provide Del with an autographed picture of Volo. Here is the specific wording of the gift Del received. 
  • Del: A signed piece of parchment signed by Volo Geddarm that says, "Thanks, I owe you one!", and a reptilian eye preserved in varnish that still reacts to light. For the parchment: "If you are ever come across that traveling scamp, remind him he still owes me a favor! I'm sure you could use this and your considerable charm to extract something of value out of Volo."
Del is drawn to people of power and influence, but it was Anemin that jumped all over the opportunity to interact with Volo. In a classic "I'm your biggest fan!" moment, Anemin was completely focused on doing whatever Volo suggested. This was completely unexpected but completely wonderful because now Volo is not just a purveyor of knowledge before fading out of sight, but a major draw for one of the characters. We will hear more from Volo in future sessions. 
0 Comments

Adventures in Chult - Session 4

27/10/2021

0 Comments

 
PictureThe Thundering Lizard supplement on DM's Guild
The session recap posts so far have been quite long, longer than I think is useful for an ongoing series. I did want to provide rationale for the design choices and my thought processes, and this lengthened the posts significantly. As we go through the next few session recaps, I anticipate they will be much shorter as the major and minor premises of the story are now established. I will still provide links to useful sites and supplements in case there is interest in pursuing some avenue I used.

This session started immediately after the conclusion of the chase scene. Girl rescued, hero status to be confirmed, everything is good, or so they thought. However, as I summarized at the end of the session 3 recap, there were numerous annoyed individuals to deal with. Luckily for the party, a man in blue and yellow robes approached with two bare-chested men with leather bands tied around their biceps. The robed man introduced himself as Kores, one of the senior aides to Merchant Prince Zhanthi. Kores had observed the heroics of the party and offered an audience with Zhanthi at their earliest convenience, implying that a group so adept at helping the young girl would be able to provide assistance to initiatives important to Zhanthi. Kores then proceeded to address the locals, pressing coins into palms both to help offset the damages but also to impress upon them that Zhanthi was on their side. 

Departing from Kores and the locals, the party headed to the Thundering Lizard for a meal and to find lodging. The hardcover adventure mentions the Lizard, as it quickly became called, but without a great deal of detail. Luckily, there is a fantastic supplement at DM's Guild to flesh it out. For less than two bucks, the supplement provides some interesting proprietors, a nice map, an intriguing plot hook, and a great menu. I highly suggest picking this up if you think your party will visit the Lizard.

During dinner, they recognize that two of the official guides are dining in the Lizard. Isa approaches Musharib because his intriguing posting on the Message Board. Musharib's promise of adventure with a subtext of glory at Hrakhamar was the first hint of what is really important to Isa. In the discussion with Musharib, the possibility of fighting fire newts was a huge draw for Isa. 

Sold on Musharib's quest, Isa attempted to convince the rest of the party to proceed. The desire to meet with Zhanthi and the reluctance to move on the first opportunity that was presented to them won out, and the party stayed in Port Nyanzaru.

They decided to visit Zhanthi the following morning. Strider was unclear of his role, but Del offered up another 1 GP for his services for another day. As a result, Strider joined them for the reception with Zhanthi, something that was completely foreign to Strider. 

In the meeting, Zhanthi offered 10 GP to each member of the party for their efforts to rescue the girl. This included Strider which clearly was a serious windfall for the guide. Zhanthi offered the party additional work, including a request to have the party cast Zhanthi as a leader that cared about the commoners in Port Nyanzaru. 

This was an opportunity to tie back to the notice on the Message Board that requested help in Malar's Throat. "Clear the undead out of Malar's Throat. Inquire at Temple of Tymora." was posted on a note on the Message Board, and Zhanthi suggested that they provide assistance to Screaming Wind, an advocate for the poor in Malar's Throat. Zhanthi agreed to pay the party 50 GP for their assistance, and an additional 100 GP if they were to get Zhanthi's assisstance mentioned in the broadsheet news daily. 

The broadsheet was something I created to provide hooks to local news stories that would be of interest to the party. As they walked up the pier, I described two rail thin boys shouting something. The lesson learned with this was that there was no reason for the party to approach the boys. Two screaming boys is not something one typically seeks out. In the future, this plot element needs to directly interact with the party. They should be able to catch phrases from the boys, which would then draw them over to buy a copy of the broadsheet. 

Back to the party, they quickly jumped on the opportunity to make Zhanthi looked good and brainstormed ideas on how to do that. They settled on asking Strider to find a scribe and an artist to come with them as they battled the undead in Malar's Throat. In other words, the fantasy RPG equivalent to embedded journalists. The resourceful Strider quickly found two individuals to assist, a writer named Kara and an artist named Philo. Bolstered with the additional people, the party headed to Malar's Throat.
PictureA City on the Edge supplement available on DM's Gulid
At the Temple of Tymora, the head priest Lateef Heyns introduced them to Screaming Wind. I borrowed the name and inspiration for Screaming Wind from the Adventurers League supplement, "A City on the Edge". This is another supplement available on DM's Guild. There are some good hooks in this supplement and in an Adventurers League​ with a requirement to play a specific story with specific objectives, I can see this to be useful. However, I did not use anything from it beyond borrowing the name for Screaming Wind. Your mileage may vary, of course. 

Conveniently for the party, Screaming Wind was about to head out to search for undead so she suggested they would head out southeast if the party wanted to go southwest. After a short walk, the noise of the jungle silenced and the party was beset by a few zombies. In addition, a yuan-ti pureblood joined the attack. The undead and abomination were no match for the party, and the battle was soon over. 

The end of combat signaled the end of the session. 
0 Comments

Critical Role - Campaign 3 Episode 1

24/10/2021

0 Comments

 
As I said on the Show Notes page this week, I think the story and acting in Critical Role is amazing, but I never finished Campaign 2, or at least have not finished it yet, because I started 30+ weeks late and getting through the backlog was too daunting. 

However, with Campaign 3 of Critical Role launching this week, I have a chance to stay current with the story this time. Episode 1 was streamed on Twitch and the video-on-demand will be available to the general public on YouTube starting on Monday. 

My initial reaction is that the characters are great, and the world Matthew Mercer has created is even more evocative than what we saw in Campaign 2. Detailed notes of each player-character combination are below.
Picture
  • Laura / Imogen - Laura's acting ability really shines in Episode 1. Imogen's trepidation and anxiety are completely believable and endearing, and the combination of telepathy, telekinesis, and sorcerer magic could be really cool. I am really looking forward to watching the reveal of Imogen's backstory and finding out what specific information she is looking for. 
  • Marisha / Laudna - Laudna is freaky, Marisha's voicing is great, and her hand positioning and posture really work to create the image that meeting her would be very unnerving. I always wonder how playing a character that would be hard to fit into society would work, and Marisha's choice to play an undead character made me wonder how she will do that. However, so far there seems to be a good connection with Imogen to make sure having an undead character will work. The multiclass choice of Sorcerer and Warlock should allow for interesting combat and roleplaying.
  • Talesin / Ashton Greymoore - I really did not like Talesin's Campaign 2 character Mollymauk Tealeaf. I am not sure if that is because the Blood Hunter class Mercer created is too one-dimensional to be fun, or if that class just was not a good fit for Talesin. Either way, I loved how Talesin played Caduceus Clay after he switched characters, and I can already see how enjoyable Ashton will be in this campaign. He is a broken person, but the flaws are not the whole character. Talesin has created Ashton to also have redeeming qualities, like loyalty to and friendship with Sam's character. In addition, he has much more personality and a one-dimensional raging Barbarian. Even simple role-play elements like realizing that Ashton will need to wake early even though he typically drinks all night and wakes in the afternoon reinforce that there is a fully-fleshed out personality. Watching Talesin play Ashton reinforced that effective use of Bonds, Flaws, and Ideals can help create a memorable and believable character.
  • Sam / Fresh Cut Grass - Sam created the most immediately memorable character with Fresh Cut Grass who is an automaton, presumably without a soul, and a cleric looking to help others. The possibilities are amazing, and I am super excited to watch F.C.G. develop. In addition, this is of course Sam so there will be many outrageous moments from him. In Episode 1, his "named after her favorite smells" line nearly destroyed the entire cast. If you are looking for a clip, check out the video at 3'15", but please note that this mature content. 
Picture
Critical Role C3E1 approx. 3'15". (critrole.com)
  • ​Liam / Orym - A work colleague and I were commenting how much we liked Liam's cerebral character in Campaign 2, so seeing him come forward with an acrobatic fighter for Campaign 3 took adjustment. Orym still benefited from the depth of description Liam provides and his roleplaying was great, which bodes well for Orym this campaign.
  • Ashley / Fearne - In Campaign 2, Ashley played a character with a completely tragic backstory. It was nice to see her play a character with a lighter and less serious tone. I think Fearne the faun druid will be mischievous and will bring a lot to the party. 
  • Robbie / Dorian - Robbie was introduced as a player in the Exandria Unlimited, which I did not watch. As a result, I knew nothing about him before he walked on the stage. So far, Dorian was great and played a Bard like I wished I would have played a Bard in my recent Curse of Strahd game. Tons of personality with Robbie and Dorian, so I hope he sticks around.
  • Travis / Sir Bertrand Bell - Travis did not show up in the game until 2'17" into the session. Travis is reprising his Campaign 1 character, the now-octogenarian fighter Bertrand Bell. I had no knowledge of Bell since I did not watch Campaign 1, but the Critical Role wiki provides background info (caution: spoilers). Bell is clearly a charlatan and self-promoter, which could provide some interesting situations for the party to get out of. It will be interesting to see if Travis keeps with Bell for the entire campaign.
0 Comments

    Archives

    February 2022
    January 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021

    Categories

    All
    Foundry
    Homebrew
    Imagination
    Kickstarter
    Prop
    Quote
    Roleplay
    Supplement
    Synopsis
    Tomb

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Show Notes (Archive)
  • Gaming
  • Long Form
  • About