HYPERBOREA » Khromarium Campaign Journal

Chainsaw · 11/22/2014 11:39 am

AS&SH Campaign Session 7 (Nov 19, 2014)

cadam11 – Gadas the Kimmerian warlock (level 3)
capitalbill – Gunnr the Viking berserker (level 4)
lige – Brandoch the Kimmeri-Kelt barbarian (level 3)

Summary. I thought we had a pretty good session this time, with lots of laughs, action and a few close calls. The snake-man statues they’d seen last week awakened and attacked them with laser pistols, cadam single-handedly took down a mummified snake-man (after capitalbill’s Viking and lige’s barbarian became paralyzed with fear), and they successfully dispatched a gorgon (who of course had claimed to be an imprisoned maiden). They recovered some decent treasure and found a magical portal leading to somewhere outside the city walls in the Lug Wasteland. They suspect Nabazos fled through it and intend to track him down next time.

Blaster wielding snake-men! With three door choices facing them, they selected first one that had some evolutionary drawing of a man slowing morphing into a serpent. What could go wrong? Upon kicking the door open, however, the incredibly life-like snake-man statues awakened and approached them, attacking with laser pistols! The trio set upon them with fury and cut them down quickly, however, taking no damage. capitabill’s Scimitar of Frozen Might encased one in ice, lige bashed a few with his hammer and cadam tore into them with his axe. I thought the battle would be harder, but I rolled really poorly and they rolled really well! Treasure included four laser pistols, which the group greedily collected.

Sacrifice yourself to find new life! With the guardians dead, the party moved into a morgue-like burial chamber. Against the far wall, they saw another snakeman statue with a gleaming sword sitting in his outstretched hands. In front of him, sat a small bowl on a pedestal. The words, “Sacrifice yourself to find new life” were inscribed in the bowl. Sadly, no one spilled his blood into the bowl, which would have triggered a slow transformation into a snake-man. So much for someone being a snake-man PC! Instead, cadam simply grabbed the sword – he could see faint scaling on the greenish metal blade and a pommel ending in an open mouthed serpent. Looked pretty cool! As he stepped away from the altar with the sword, a section of the floor behind them slid open and a mummified snake-man rose up to greet them! Time to roll those mummy fear saves! Capitalbill failed! Ligedog failed! I was pretty worried this was headed for TPK territory. Then, thankfully, cadam made his save and lit into the snake-man mummy with his new sword. I rolled terribly and the mummy never even hit once, but cadam rolled well and killed him easily. Man! I had initially considered putting FOUR mummies in here, but decided that was too hard. I should have stuck with my original plan!

Portal to Lug Wasteland. Next, they backtracked to the main area and went through the eastern door. From here, they discovered two rooms. The first contained a portal that led, think thought, to the Lug Wasteland beyond Khromarium’s walls. Lige stepped through and found some tracks in the snowy leading toward a fortress on the horizon. Nabazos no doubt! He relayed this to the crew, but everyone decided to check out the other couple of rooms before leaving this complex.

Look into my eyes! Checking out the other room, they found what looked like an old chapel of some sort, though it was littered with bones and debris. They saw large, roundish, man-made holes at ground level in the walls and suspected that a huge snake might be hiding in the tunnel. So, naturally, lige’s barbarian took up two laser pistols and crawled into one of the holes, Vietnam tunnel rate style. He looked around a bit, didn’t see much and came back out. Toward the far end of the room, against the wall, they saw another altar and a glowing snake rune in front of it. On either side of the altar was a portcullis blocking their way. They heard some movement back there and went to check it out. capitalbill peered in one side and didn’t see anything. Lige peered in the other side and saw two things: one was a pile of gems, the other was what looked like a giant serpent with a woman’s upper torso and a head full of snakes – their eyes connected! He knew what that meant, but it was too late! He had to roll his save vs. petrifaction. I was pretty sure he would fail, but he made it! So, they got lucky again. The crew spoke with her a bit (she tried to lure them into letting her out) and debated various plans to dispatch her and finally settled on cadam casting sleep into the area, which he did and which worked. They cut off the gorgon’s head, grabbed the gems and left the room.

Next stop, Lug Wasteland. They had one more door to check, which revealed some sort of laboratory set up with six giant glass cylinders, three of which contained unresponsive snake-men suspended in a bluish-green liquid. They destroyed everything and decided to head back to the portal. Next stop, Lug Wasteland!

Time elapsed: 1 day
Treasure won: gems x11 (2,170 GP value), gold pieces (x4000), laser pistols (x4), Serpent Sword of Fal’doon
Enemies overcome: snake-man (x4), snake-man mummy (x1), gorgon (x1)
Maidens rescued: zero
Adventurers slain: zero (but two paralyzed by mummy fear and one nearly stoned by the gorgon’s stare!)

Chainsaw · 11/22/2014 10:08 pm

In case anyone is curious, here's an example of the sketch pad we use (Google Drawing). The PCs are the happy faces, the monsters are the lightning bolts and the big arrow's for drawing attention to whatever someone's talking about. Mapping and positioning in an online game can get confusing pretty easily, in my experience, but this simple tool has been an effective way of keeping things moving and everyone understanding what's happening. I know there are more advanced mapping tools for online gaming, but there's absolutely zero learning curve, prep required or cost with this scratch pad.

Chainsaw · 1/14/2015 2:08 pm

AS&SH Campaign Session 8 (Nov 25, 2014)

Cadam11 – Gadas the Kimmerian warlock (level 3)
capitalbill – Gunnr the Viking berserker (level 4)
lige – Brandoch the Kimmeri-kelt barbarian (level 3)

Between Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and the agony of returning to the daily grind here in 2015, we haven’t played since our Nov. 25 game. We’re hoping to ramp things back up this week (Jan. 19). So, time to write up our game from almost two months ago… this one may be less detailed than normal.

Leisurely stroll through the Lug Wasteland. After mopping up the last of the snake-men in the crypt underneath Nabazos’ tavern in Khromarium, our crew hopped through a magical portal that teleported them to the Lug Wasteland, well outside of town. In the distance, they could see a structure that they suspected was Nabazos’ hideout. They marched toward it through the icy wasteland, crushing a frost lizard that ambushed them, hauling ass from a horde of skeletons that broke up through the snow and barely escaping some wandering ghouls (two guys got paralyzed - it was almost TPK), before arriving at the structure’s perimeter.

House with a moat around it, you say? Up close, they could tell the structure looked more like a house… with a moat around it. You might even call it… a MOATHOUSE! They hid in some bushes and watched it for a while, but saw little activity. So, they snuck over a crumbled wall and across the courtyard to the main door. Kicking it open, they found themselves faced with a slew of grisly mercenaries. Too bad for the mercenaries, capitalbill’s Viking whipped out his gorgon head (insert crass joke) and petrified them instantly (insert another crass joke). From here, they found and took some stairs leading down.

So I messed up! It’s all good, you lived. After a few minutes of searching what seemed to be a relatively empty area, except for some junk piled against one wall, capitalbill’s Viking crept around a corner to scout ahead, down a dark hallway. Suddenly he found himself surrounded by about a dozen zombies! From a distance, lige and cadam could tell he might be overwhelmed, so they pulled out their laser pistols and began firing away. Meanwhile, capitalbill was hacking away. So, this where I messed up, heh. The zombies in AS&SH have 1-in-4 chance of biting, which inflicts zombiism if successful, and otherwise they pummel. Well, I had them biting and pummeling every round, which meant a lot of chances of being infected! Whoops! Sorry Bill! Thankfully I noticed my error after a couple of rounds. Anyway, between the lige and cadam’s laser pistols and capitalbill’s Scimitar of Frozen Might, they eventually polished off the zombies.

Time elapsed: 1 day
Treasure won: none
Enemies overcome: frost lizard (x1), pack of ghouls (x4), mercenaries (9), zombies (12)
Maidens rescued: zero
Adventurers slain: zero (but two paralyzed by ghouls, one almost infected with zombiism)

Handy Haversack · 1/14/2015 7:36 pm

The first time my players realized what Hyperborean zombies do was the day they thought one character had survived a TPK.

He hadn't.

Nice work! Though they are really falling down in the maiden-rescuing end of things (insert crass joke). Come on, capitalbill!

Chainsaw · 1/14/2015 8:06 pm

Handy Haversack wrote:
The first time my players realized what Hyperborean zombies do was the day they thought one character had survived a TPK.

Haha! I will admit, I did not read the description carefully before using them. As the encounter unfolded and I read it again, I started laughing - these were way nastier than I realized!

Though they are really falling down in the maiden-rescuing end of things (insert crass joke).

Yeah, I know!

Chainsaw · 1/20/2015 10:01 am

AS&SH Campaign Session 9 (Jan. 19, 2015)

cadam11 – Gadas the Kimmerian warlock (level 3)
capitalbill – Gunnr the Viking berserker (level 4)
lige – Brandoch the Kimmeri-kelt barbarian (level 3)
Rob – Marl the Magnanimous, Kelt legerdemainist (level 1)

Summary. Marl the Magnanimous joins our elite squad of professionals, who chase Nabazos the Ixian necromancer deeper into the snake-man complex, but find only watery tunnels, toxic pools, gateways to other planets and, for some, death by radioactive explosion.

Marl the Magnanimous Appears. After blasting and chopping their way through some zombies last session, the group discovered a tall wiry Kelt lurking in the shadows nearby. He called himself Marl the Magnanimous and said that he was a fellow adventurer, but had been hiding in fear after the zombies killed his pals. The crew took this story at face value and offered him a spot on their elite squad of professionals. From here, they raided two nearby rooms filled with weapons and armor, each collecting a black cloak with a serpentine eye image sewn on the back and at least one taking a shield bearing a similar image. Brandoch found a five-gallon keg of brandy and drank a few large swigs, noting its great taste. He then opted to keep the keg, hoisting it upon one shoulder easily and carrying his torch in his free hand. After many battles and much traveling without sleep, curious decisions began to occur…

Into the Watery Tunnel. The group took some nearby stairs down to a lower level, emerging into a room with a large pool of water on the north wall (snake-man statue in the middle) and doors in each of the four corners (magically locked, Marl determined). Rather than sconces and torches, the room had glowing glass bulbs that emitting a greenish light and some heat. Brandoch leapt onto the statue for a closer look but founding nothing – other than that the pool water seemed to flow north, under the wall. Looking carefully, he noticed a foot or so of headroom between the back wall and the water, suggested a small underground creek. Rather than try to kick down the magical doors, the party jumped into chest-deep water and trudged north. After a few minutes, they saw above themselves a narrow footbridge connecting a tunnel leading east-west. They hoisted themselves onto the bridge and headed west. Again, throughout the tunnel, more glowing bulbs.

Toxic Pool, Petrified Snake-men. The passage led to a narrow north-south room. The north and south walls held alcoves with statues of Hyperborean men, but they’d both been broken and disfigured above the waist. Through the middle of the room, running north-south, they saw a trough of hot yellow-green liquid, hissing, popping and releasing some putrid fumes. When Marl dropped in a rock, it seemed to dissolve. On the west wall was a polished steel double-door. Suddenly they heard some footsteps coming from the hallway, so they quickly backed out of view. capitalbill’s Viking pulled out his handy gorgon head and aimed it down the hallway – he saw four snake-men turn to stone on the bridge, then all collapse into the water below! Feeling safer now, they went through the steel door and found themselves in a very hot chamber.

Door to Saturn. Polished steel covered the walls, ceilings and floors of this area. At the far west end of a wide corridor, they could see a giant green orb sunken into the floor, and around it six small seats. To the north and south were openings to smaller rooms, each with two more doors – uncomfortably hot air rushed from these areas. Marl darted west to the giant orb, sat down and immediately placed his hands on it. Suddenly, he experienced a surge of dreamlike visions of Saturn, supposedly home to Xathoqqua. He felt various epiphanies of sorcery and science as the visions continued, but he also felt himself slipping into the globe, so he took his hands away quickly. After a split-second struggle of wills against some unknown cosmic power, he gathered his senses and firmly stepped away, feeling incredibly smarter than when he’d sat down: INTELLIGENCE +1! No one else felt like testing his mental metal, so the party headed back east.

I shoot it with my laser pistol! Always eager for action and adventure, Brandoch moved into one of aforementioned smaller chambers and opened a door. Inside, he saw a circular room with large green-glowing rod stretching from ceiling to floor. The heat was dangerously intense, almost burning his skin even at a distance, so he didn’t enter. The other three rooms were basically the same, except one was missing its rod. Marl speculated this must be the complex’s power center, drawing upon his newfound awareness that some ancient Hyperboreans knew the science of energy creation. Bored with this “discovery” and fueled by that delicious brandy, Brandoch angrily marched back to one of the doors. Everyone else hauled ass, fearing the worst! Brandoch then threw the door open and blasted the glowing column with his laser pistols! Suddenly everyone heard a massive explosion and saw Brandoch’s body fly through the air back into the main corridor, smashing against the wall in front of them! He didn’t move. The front of his smoking corpse was melted and charred, including part of his face. They could see his eyeballs had begun to droop out of their sockets and glow a faint green color…

Time elapsed: 4 hours
Treasure won: none
Enemies overcome: snake-men (x4)
Maidens rescued: zero
Adventurers slain: Brandoch, blown away by a radioactive explosion.

Rastus_Burne · 1/21/2015 6:30 am

I know I've said it before, but your journals are an entertaining read. The laser pistol/radioactive explosion concluded that last write up perfectly. Unless you're playing through S3, it's not often you can say you were killed by futuristic technology in a game of D&D!

Chainsaw · 1/21/2015 7:35 am

Rastus_Burne wrote:
I know I've said it before, but your journals are an entertaining read. The laser pistol/radioactive explosion concluded that last write up perfectly.

Very nice of you to say, Corey, so thanks! It's always a challenge to record all of the pertinent details for our group and also entertain others, though my players usually make that easier by providing some good material, heheh. I'm happy to know someone outside our group enjoyed a write-up.

Rastus_Burne wrote:
Unless you're playing through S3, it's not often you can say you were killed by futuristic technology in a game of D&D!

Ha! I do like really the ancient superscience elements, so I have to be careful to keep them rare enough to remain strange and cool.

capitalbill · 1/27/2015 12:33 am

I had notes on my character spread across about five scraps of paper so I decided it was time to make a proper character sheet...

All that's left to do now is the character sketch. And then of course he will die, now that I made a proper character sheet for him.

rhialto · 1/27/2015 5:36 am

Now that's a cool character sheet: very evocative.

Handy Haversack · 1/27/2015 5:21 pm

Very nice! What's kept track of on the bagel under the horn of hit points? Rations? Move rate? The XP balance is especially cool!

capitalbill · 1/27/2015 10:52 pm

Handy Haversack wrote:
Very nice! What's kept track of on the bagel under the horn of hit points? Rations? Move rate? The XP balance is especially cool!

Thanks! I have seen some artistic character sheets floating around online and wanted to give it a go.

The "bagel" is actually supposed to be a shield, I used it for the saving throw since I had used the highly historically innacurate horned helmet for the armor class. At the time it was the best thing I could think of to represent a saving throw. And thanks about the experience point balance, when I finally came up with that I thought it was cool too.

Scalydemon · 1/28/2015 12:42 am

Yup, cool stuff. Digging that scale idea as well

Ghul · 1/28/2015 7:54 am

That's excellent Cappy B!

Chainsaw · 1/28/2015 9:00 am

I like the art, Bill! I hope you haven't cursed your guy...

Speaking of art, I hope ligedog shares his PC portrait, hahaah! He didn't have enough dough to pay for a Reverse Mutation spell, so, to hide his eyestalks, he commissioned a copper mask instead.

lige · 1/28/2015 10:40 am

Here it is - Fear the Flumph!

capitalbill · 1/28/2015 10:55 am

I absolutely love the flumph mask, and it's a perfect cover. Everyone will be amazed at how realistic the "fake" stalk eyes look. You might even set a fashion trend for those weirdos down in Port Zangerios.

Chainsaw · 1/28/2015 11:12 am

I agree with Bill - that mask is really flumphthing special.

Blackadder23 · 1/28/2015 11:25 am

That's hilarious!

Chainsaw · 1/29/2015 3:00 pm

AS&SH Campaign Session 10 (Jan. 26, 2015)

cadam11 – Gadas the Kimmerian warlock (level 4)
capitalbill – Gunnr the Viking berserker (level 4)
ligedog – Brandoch the Kimmeri-Kelt barbarian (level 4)
rob – Marl the Magnanimous, Kelt legerdemainist (level 2)

Summary. The party hauled ass back to town with the barbarian’s corpse, then resurrected him. Some carousing, flumph-mask-buying and training was done, then they headed back to the Lug Wasteland dungeon. Once there, they captured some mercenaries, then descended into the snake-man lair, where they found a garden filled with strange and deadly plants, a trophy room filled with strange and maybe dangerous heads and a lounge filled with a couple of snake-men smoking a hookah pipe.

Life of the party! Death Warrants! With Brandoch’s charred, melted corpse in tow, the group returned to Khromarium, where they promptly resurrected him (2,000 GP). His drooping, radiated eyes mutated into full eyestalks, so he commissioned a copper mask to disguise himself and then got hammered. In fact, he got so hammered that he gained a reputation as life of the party around town (“The Flumph Guy!”) and narrowly avoided attracting an entourage of barflies, diseased skanks and bums. Gunr slammed back a few as well and wound up enjoying the company of a cute Hyperborean maiden. Naturally he refused to marry her afterward, so, unbeknownst to him, she hired an assassin to kill him. In the meantime, Marl sourced some additional intel on the snake-man dungeon through his underworld contacts. After the group spent a few weeks training, they headed back to the Wasteland.

Gardens, trophies and hookah pipes. The party returned to the moathouse and used their laser pistols and Brandoch’s eyestalks to blow away the now heavily barred front door, behind which they found some cowering mercenaries who gave up quickly. Continuing downstairs, they traced their old path and found a garden room, where they picked some fruit and avoided black lotus. Beyond this area to the east, they entered a room with six heads on pedestals, including that of an elephant-man, a squid-man, a goat-man, a mi-go, a Hyperborean wearing a copper crown and another hidden beneath a cloth. Suddenly, in the adjacent room to the east, they heard a door open, then footsteps, then a gurgling sound. They all hid where they could, some in the garden room, some in the heads room. Brandoch, who happened to be closest, articulated his eyestalks around the corner and into the room – he saw a couple of snake-men in robes, lounging on couches, smoking hookah pipes.

Time elapsed: 30 days (28 of which spent in training)
Treasure won: none
Enemies overcome: mercenaries (x4)
Maidens rescued: zero
Adventurers slain: zero