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6/09/2014 8:36 am  #1


Under Urth Campaign

I.m still waiting for a papery copy of the players manual to cross the Atlantic but having processed much of the rules I am preparing to run a campaign. My concept is broadly the Odessy. After an introductory adventure, the PCs will be cursed or something (haven't quite decided yet) and transported to the temple of Goscuth'ar, deep under the earth. They will then have to journey home, should they want too. I will run it as basically a comparmentalised mega dungeon inspired by the structure used in Fight On! mags Darkness Beneath. But it will be much more Hyperborean tales and weird fiction inspired (The seven Geases in particular). Depending on what route they take, they could end up on the Plain of Leng in hyperborea, or in a city/ land i will create somewhere south of the north wind. I've included the 1st version of my map below. I have several ideas for some of these locations, others are just words that conjure thoughts in my mind. The Cave of the Magistrate for instance will contain a city on the back of a giant crab. The people of the city will have to perform rituals and grow fungus to keep the crab in its slothful state and prevent it burrowing off into the rock. There will be various friendly locations and I will also allow the PCs to retreave dead characters from the lands of the dead. 

 

6/09/2014 11:27 am  #2


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Sounds great, Great_Lestrade! I hope you post updates on how it all goes.

Where will you let them generate new characters from to replace the slain--or is that what you mean for the Kingdom of the Dead? Otherwise, will you keep them to Hyperborean new characters even though this version of Underborea touches other places?

Will you use the Dreamlands supplement for Call of Cthulhu, or do you have something else in mind of they go that way?

 

6/09/2014 12:00 pm  #3


Re: Under Urth Campaign

To the Dreamlands is currently undefined, but will probably lean heavily in the Cthulhuoid direction. 

I will allow them to generate new characters. Either new characters that get sent to the depths, or inhabitants of this underworld that decide they want to see the Sky.

If they go 'To the Stars' I might use Terminal Space to modify ASSH a little and go to saturn or somewhere.

Next session is in two weeks, so i hope to start it then.

     Thread Starter
 

6/12/2014 6:23 pm  #4


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Heres a map of a bath house for the opening adventure im working on. I'm going to fill it full of demons. Could have a very high fatality rate, but the idea is to teach the players that caution is the better part of valour.

     Thread Starter
 

6/17/2014 11:20 am  #5


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Nice!  Are you a GIMP user?  Look forward to reading about your campaign!

 

6/18/2014 4:19 pm  #6


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Cool stuff, thanks for posting the maps - always fun to see maps.


Blackadder23: Insanely long villain soliloquy, then "Your action?"
BORGO'S PLAYER: I shoot him in the face
 

6/19/2014 12:49 pm  #7


Re: Under Urth Campaign




currently the finished work, both done in gimp. Hope to run it this sunday

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6/22/2014 6:51 pm  #8


Re: Under Urth Campaign

ran this today with 3 players. they all wanted to play magic users, so I ended up with a necromancery, a magician, and a warlock. They recruited two mercenary swordsmen before they departed on their voyage to the northen islets chain to investigate, with some students of the Mage Tygrippa, what was believed to be the remains of a ruined bathhouse from the ancient atlantean kingdom.

On arrival one the magican hunted crabs on the beach with his fireball spell providing a good meal.

The following morning the party including some of the students slashed their way through the islands thick scrub and came across the rather intact bath house. complex. They investiagated the two out houses activating both the traps. They then went in to the courtyard awoke two smilodon guards and fought them mostly in mele for five or six rounds. The smilodons armed with glaives diced up one of the mercs and nearly finished the necromancer. The warlock threw his weapon at one to kill it and then refused to help the other two (everyone is chaotic). 

The Demon Lizard Naa Hosh a little while later emerged from the portal in room 16 to frequent the bathhouse. The warlock being in that room bowed down and grovelled thus earning the mercy of Naa Hosh. The necromancer hid on a step above the mercury pool in room 5 and the magician waited until Naa Hosh entered the sulphur room (3) and then through a some flames in deducing that the sulphur dust would explode. It did. Both the necromancer and Magician failed a test of constitution (perhaps i should have used some sort of save instead, no difference though really) and each took 1 d6 damage from the blast that leveled about a quarter of the bath house and killed Naa Hosh. Amazingly both survived. 

After this they explored the ruins a little never finding the underground. The necomacer found the portal in the base of the pool in room13 and left the overworld, the warlock prized two saphires out of the eye sockets of a statue to Khalk-Xu in room6 earning the gods wraith, who responded by sending a tsunami wiping out the island. 

I have an over arching plot of a conflict between Apollos and Khalk-Xu mostly described in mosaics around the bathhouse. It is implied that Khalk-Xu was involved in the destruction of the Atlantean empire and that Apollo failed before him. This plot will losely involve Apollos using the players to exact vegence upon Khalk-Xu.  Before the wave hit Apollos intervined to snatch the remaining two characters away. The next session will start on the underground map deep in the underborea. I need to rework it abit now i have an over arching plot to give the players the opportunity should they choose to take it to deal with Khalk-Xu in some form.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-jkAzINP6sq1pqQ85CoUAiMztxDhKMyp5zDges_HG0w/edit?usp=sharing

Heres a link to my notes if you're interested. I might edited it up a bit more an submit it too a zine at some point.

     Thread Starter
 

6/23/2014 3:42 am  #9


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Nice. You should check this thread then: http://hyperborea.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=222

I really dig the maps too!!

--Ron--


"No interruptions! I am El Jefe!"
[url=www.unseenservant.us]Unseen Servant[/url] for all your PbP needs.
 

6/23/2014 2:06 pm  #10


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Just wanted to chime in and say I love what you're doing, Great Lestrade! Your campaign sounds and looks fantastic.


HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
 

6/27/2014 7:49 pm  #11


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Thanks Ghul.



Now that my  players are in the Underborea I've started designing the dungeons and locales for it. I do want a city down there. I think the party will need a place of relative saftey and somewhere to restock on characters, gear, mercenaries etc. I figured rather than just sticking the city in a cave, I'd put it on the back of a giant crab that dwells in one of the caves. It is a giant burrowing crab species called a Magistar Crab and the original settlers of the city worshipped it as a deity until Xathoqqua's faithful arrived. Having a weird city concept creates lots of interesting world building opportunities. For instance, how does the city get water? How do they get food? What stops the crab burrowing off and damaging all the city buildings in the processes. I've decided that the crab is lazy and the citizens have come up with a system of rotational farming various fungi around the cave to keep it fed and prevent it from burrowing off. A large sheet and some water towers are used to collect rain as it falls from the stalagtites above. This water also turns several water wheels to power elements of the city. The main reason the city is on the back of the crab is defence. The Children of Acto (probably going to be like the Grue from Eyes of the Overworld by Vance) and the snake people oft raid the cave floor, and other cave critters prowl. Parties are sent out from the city to farm the fungi and do other dangerous tasks avoiding such threats. 
 

     Thread Starter
 

6/28/2014 7:55 pm  #12


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Wow, that is so cool. Please move to my town here in the U.S. and be my referee.


Blackadder23: Insanely long villain soliloquy, then "Your action?"
BORGO'S PLAYER: I shoot him in the face
 

6/29/2014 12:26 pm  #13


Re: Under Urth Campaign

thanks Chainsaw but I doubt I'l be leaving Northern England soon.

I actually find it quite hard to get players. Most Rpg players around here prefer game based around popular IP's such as Starwars or A Game of Thrones, or Warhammer 40k. I'm running this campaign essentially as a time filler until the next set of books come out for FFGs starwars and then the people I play with will switch over to that. 

     Thread Starter
 

6/29/2014 2:47 pm  #14


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Have you considered running a G+ hangouts game? I must admit that I was very, very skeptical of how well it would work, but joined one recently and have been pleasantly surprised. Sure, there is the occasional internet failure and the natural, expected social and logistical limitations of the medium, but I would run a game in G+ hangouts with no hesitation. Plus, it does have its benefits, like allowing for more flexible times (late weeknight evenings, when most people wouldn't normally travel to be in a game) and participation (geographic location irrelevant).

Anyway, you seem pretty good with compters, so you have probably already looked into it.


Blackadder23: Insanely long villain soliloquy, then "Your action?"
BORGO'S PLAYER: I shoot him in the face
 

6/29/2014 5:40 pm  #15


Re: Under Urth Campaign

I'll look into G+ hangouts. I know a lot of people do use it. I'd never given it serious consideration.

     Thread Starter
 

6/29/2014 9:03 pm  #16


Re: Under Urth Campaign

The_Great_Lestrade wrote:

I'll look into G+ hangouts. I know a lot of people do use it. I'd never given it serious consideration.

Trust me, I had not either, but as I said, it's not a bad substitute for face-to-face if you have no other options. Certainly beats any sort of playing-by-post/e-mail/text chat format by leaps and bounds. If you ever want to check it out sometime, PM me. You'd be surprised how easily you can set it up. I was!


Blackadder23: Insanely long villain soliloquy, then "Your action?"
BORGO'S PLAYER: I shoot him in the face
 

7/06/2014 6:48 pm  #17


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Ran a session today. The Warlock absconded but a Viking Shaman of a god of revilry and wine joined the party. The player with the necromancer character gen'd up a barbarian with 18 str. (at the start i couldn't find the necro character sheet, but found it later). He then proceeded to murder his original character with the new one in a corridor of the dungeon later. The magician Mentes was also in attendance. Each of the players awoke in various parts of the temple of Apollos, where in they had been rescued too. It was pitch dark so they had to feel their way around until they found torches and managed to light them. They took about 3 hours to make a mess of 16 rooms in this temple. The barbarian tried to break through a door to the laboratory of the snake people and got paralysed by some gas. He ran to a pool known to having some sort of healing properties and jumped in before it completely kicked in and nearly drowned. He then pass a feat of strength to get out. The Shaman befriended a flock of birds that can cast lighting and were roosting in the shoot above the cremation room and used them to fight the Children of Acto (basically a riff on the Grue from Eyes of the Overworld). I also put a load of jars of incidinary fluid in one room that the party made extensive used of. At the end of the session we nearly had a tpk. The barbarian was paralysed and had generally refused to work with the other party members (he did kill a lot though, low level fighters are pretty bad ass in this game), the other two fought an outcast member of the Children of Acto who could cast sleep and promptly did on the 3rd combat round with both failing their saves. Fortunately the lightning birds shocked him to save them.

heres the link to my notes;
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hVahte-UB--ZX68K47hvC9oAPcFuB8TblSSkapWjlBw/edit?usp=sharing
 

     Thread Starter
 

7/09/2014 7:27 pm  #18


Re: Under Urth Campaign

continueing the trend of absurdly over done maps, heres a map of the cave the giant crab city will wander around in;

Each of the numbers will correspond to a location. The only ones decided so far are 4, 3 and 1. 4 and 3 are just entrances/exits to other regions. 1 is going to be a spiral stair case up a rock column to the ceiling of the cave. Some nastie flying things will roost on ledges on the way up and at the top, built into the column is going to be a malfunctioning huge lighthouse that acts as the sun for the cave. Its going to be a bit sci fi and probably ancient Hyperborean. Will make a good quest target / dungeon. 

 

     Thread Starter
 

7/09/2014 10:44 pm  #19


Re: Under Urth Campaign

This is great! Absolutely brilliant. Please keep us posted!

 

7/10/2014 8:47 pm  #20


Re: Under Urth Campaign

Love it!

 

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