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3/08/2020 10:18 pm  #1


Source Comics and Games Campaign

I'm running a Hyperborea campaign at The Source Comics and Games in St. Paul, MN. I'll post session overviews here, and talk freely about it, as I'm fairly certain my players don't read this message board. 
 
The core group is 5 players, with expansions possible as there are part time players who may take the leap to regulars. We play every two weeks, on Sunday afternoons at our FLGS, so if you're reading this, and in the Mpls/St. Paul area, hit me up. 

 
I'm starting out by throwing in a lot of stuff that I've run at Cons, and developed over time, as I get the feel for how the group dynamic is. If you've played in my games at Gary Con and/or Gamehole, you might recognize some of the stuff I post.  
Speaking strictly as a GM, I've never gamed with most of the players, beyond a learning scenario I ran for them two weeks ago, and I want to see how they respond and interact. I don't want to try shoving certain techniques or adventure types down their throats, so I'm probably going to throw different things at them and see where they want to take them. 
 
Session 1 Overview:
My games tend to have a high mortality rate, and considering the number of part time players, I figured a DCC-esque funnel type opening would probably work nice, so each of the 5 players rolled up 3 characters. 
They eagerly made their 3 PC's, writing down the essentials on note cards. I opened the campaign with my Chains of Minotaurios game that I've run at Cons. 
The players all find themselves awakening, chained to opposite walls from each other. Their ankles fettered, manacles about their wrists, and heads bound in iron. None are aware of how they got there, nor have any memory of what they were last doing. They are hungry, barely clothed, and frankly, a little jittery. The sounds of violence emanate from an unknown distance beyond the wooden door at the head of the room. At the rear of the room, lies shelves filled with basic weapons, 2 torches are on the verge of burning out, their dying flames barely providing light to the room. In the middle of the sandy floor, tantalizingly close, lies a lonely key..
 
The group eventually escaped, and found themselves in a small underground complex connected to a large, and active, gladiatorial arena. They encountered some gladiators, willing or forced, who had made their way down to this small complex, looking to escape or pursue their fleeing prey. There were also some caved in hallways they went through, and came across the old tomb of a cybernetic minotaur, whom they accidentally brought back to life by activating a control panel. They dispatched the minotaur, and one of the players put his hand into the cybernetic glove/hand that had fallen off of the dead minotaur. The character felt the glove become one with the players hand, giving him the ability to alternate between either a green energy sword, or green energy shield. Suffice it to say, the player was pretty stoked about that, lol.
They eventually discovered a lever activated elevator platform, that descended to a second level. We found this to be an opportune time to call a halt for the session. Body count for the session: 2 PC's dead out of 15.
 
Session 2 Overview:
 
Having explored the small complex, the party was faced with the choices of either going out into the arena, and certain death, or exploring the lower level, which clearly had not been disturbed for decades. They decided to the lower level, and immediately came across the crazy scene of an incredibly old Viking longship eminating out of the floor, reaching up to the ceiling. The players noticed an ornate pedestal close to the bow, which had a swirling purple orb on it.  While they were attempting to get their hands around the fact the bow portion of a Viking longship was standing up from a stone floor, with an orb that was defying the laws of physics by resting on the long end of a horizontal pedestal, the group discovered they were being stalked by a shadow type monster. Brave players decided to see what was happening by touching the orb, which caused them to disappear from the room. When the party got down to the last 4 in the room, the shadow/nightmare creature attacked before its prey escaped. Some lucky dice rolls doomed the monster, and the last 4 characters touched the orb, escaping.
The group now found itself teleported onto an incredibly old, but intact, unmanned Viking longship that was adrift at sea. With Lady Luck seemingly hating them, the party was shortly caught in a storm of epic violence. They were able to survive, but were then trapped in an inescapable darkness that never seemed to lift. After several days of being in the boat, with zero provisions, or sunlight, they drifted to an eldritch looking, black tower, that rose out of the depths of the ocean.  
<Disclaimer> This is now my Black Tower of Mylakhrion game that I've run at cons
The group managed to get their ship to the tower, where they encountered a strange, and mostly submerged, metal vessel that was at the water edge where a staircase climbed the outside of the tower. Unable to make heads or tails of the metal vessel, the party encountered a group of odd looking humans with strange looking pikes/halberds at the top of the tower. The NPC's reaction roll of 1 forced the encounter into combat, with the group discovering the pikes were actually "magic boom sticks". The party won the day, but not after 3 more of the group going down below 0 hp. Unable to heal their fallen comrades, the party descended into the tower, eventually making their way into a room with a portal, an iron bound tome, and hundreds of candles, all but 9 being extinguished. The players learned the tome contained page after page of crossed out names, but oddly, the last 9 names were not crossed out.
The party threw one of the lit candles into the portal, and then threw the tome into the portal, which extinguished the remaining candles. They entered the portal, which took them into another solitary room. This was clearly a guard room, as it contained a celestial looking portal surrounded by runes in ancient Hyperborean, warning those reading to forever be on guard over Mylakhrion, master of the black arts. The room also had 10 stasis tubes, containing 9 Viking guards who had only recently expired, much to the regret of the party.
Having no way to return to the previous rooms (1 way portals), the party entered the celestial portal. They found themselves in a sort of dimly lit vertical shaft, with a descending staircase that went down as far as the eye could see. Periodically down the stairs, were single doors. The first of which had the image of an Ixian carved on it. The room proved to some sort of study room, which after an hour of exploring time, yielded a trove of scrolls, and empty spell books, allowing the casters to replace their lost ones.
Upon exit from the study, another party member was brought down by a strange, floating sphere that blasted him with a laser (another reaction roll of 1). During combat the sphere blinked in and out of existence, suddenly disappearing.
The party descended further, and went into the 2nd door. This one having the image of a Pict on it. This room appeared to be some sort of research room. Another hour of searching yield potions, sold bars of metal, and strange arcane devices/items. One of the items discovered was a hollowed out crab leg/arm, which the monk decided was a good idea to his arm into…
Upon doing so, the crab appendage became part of his arm. A monk with a crab arm. This was also the same character who failed his ST when sitting in a cursed chair, and it turned his skin into looking like what can only be described as aged leather. Suffice it to say, the characters charisma is now been lowered to 5.
The group was taking an inventory of the other items discovered when we simply ran out of time. We are picking up again in 2 weeks, and the group seems eager to continue discovering if any of the other items can be useful.

 

3/09/2020 10:39 am  #2


Re: Source Comics and Games Campaign

I really need to put more of this kind of weird into my campaign...


What? Me worry?
 

3/16/2020 10:47 pm  #3


Re: Source Comics and Games Campaign

Unfortunately, our campaign is on hiatus, since our FLGS has suspended open gaming until at least April 1st. We look forward to resuming, and whenever that day comes, i'll continue posting updates here. 

     Thread Starter
 

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