The party: Buckle the Platyperson, Agnes Nutter the Harbinger, Stella the Halfling, Rook the Remnant.
Looking west at Port Fennrick on the delta of the Mighty River.
Buckle, Agnes, and Rook have just limped into Port Fennrick on a damaged fairy-ferry that was attacked by a Kraken. Fafnir the Dragon was also onboard, but is nowhere to be found now.
GM Note: Fafnir’s player wasn’t here for this session. One of the concepts for West Marches is being able to mix and match characters into different groups, so I didn’t want to make a big deal of a character’s absence, but that’s what the players wanted to role-play, so we did it.
Rook is especially worried by Fafnir’s absence, since they was dedicated to caring for dragons in their former life. Agnes magically senses that Fafnir is fine, and says not to worry. Rook isn’t happy about this and drags their feet as they floats down the road after her. The party doesn’t know what’s going on in town and looks around for excitement. There’s a commotion at the back of town, where the Mighty River enters. They get closer and see a Giant yelling about pirates upriver. As people listen to the Giant’s story, a damaged longboat arrives with its own story about a battle with pirates. People waiting at the checkpoint to go upriver start complaining to the inspectors. “You say these inspections and regulations are for our safety, but you can’t keep us safe from these pirates! Why are you even here? Get out of our way!” The party decides not to get involved.
It’s evening, so they go to a tavern for food and a room for the night. Stella, the newest player character, has some space at her table in an otherwise crowded tavern and invites the party over. Rook sort of floating through a chair, but can’t really sit in it. Introductions all around. Stella is a halfling. She’s traveling with two friends and a giant riding spider which is out back in the stables. At another table, Sebastina (navigator of an ill-fated charter boat) tells of her brush with the Kraken. She never saw the beast, but our party knows exactly what she’s talking about, because they fought and killed it. Buckle interrupts to tell his story, but he’s not good at public speaking, and the crowd shouts him down. He buys a round of milk, which also does not endear him to the hard-drinking crowd. He does get a big reaction when he says he was traveling with a dragon, since dragons have been extinct for about 100 years. The rest of the party decides that Buckle shouldn’t talk anymore and drags him away. They pile into Stella’s crowded room upstairs for the night.
In the middle of the night, two figures slide open the window and creep into the room where everyone is sleeping. Rook isn’t sleeping, because Rook doesn’t sleep. They screams, waking everyone up. Stella is near the window and grabs one of the figures clambering through. She pulls him into the room, but he rolls with the movement and throws her to the ground. Agnes shoves the second figure out of the window. He stumbles off the roof of the porch and falls to the street below. The one still in the room grabs Stella, but Buckle makes him drop her with a tail-swipe. The invader turns his attention to Buckle and jams a canvas sack over his head. The invader is human-sized, and Platypeople are only four feet tall, so the invader has a big weight advantage. As he struggles to fit Buckle completely in the bag, Rook floats through the window after the second figure. Rook is alone in the dark with an enemy, and, using their terrifying ghostly powers, silently rips the life out the would-be kidnapper. Back in the room, the kidnapper has Buckle in the bag and tries to toss the bag out the open window. Agnes steps in a blasts the kidnapper’s leg, wrenching it into a very unnatural position. Snek (Agnes’ pet flying snake) enlarges and coils around the disabled kidnapper, flicking its tongue in his ear. The kidnapper is unmasked and must explain himself. Outside, Rook casts Speak With Dead on the other kidnapper ot gather mostly the same information.
the kidnappers were sent to grab Buckle and bring him to the boss, because Buckle knew about a dragon, a rare and valuable prize. The boss is Louie, and he runs the underworld here in Fennrick. Anything that’s not above-board belongs to Louie. The live kidnapper that’s being constricted by Snek is Johnny. The other one that fell out fo the window is Jimmy. Agnes takes Johnny’s ring that marks him as a member of Louie’s gang. She says that if Johnny crosses them again, she’ll find him, and she won’t be so kind. She heals his leg. The ruined flesh grows back brand new, pale as a Seattlite, soft as a baby, and hairless. Snek releases him and they send him out the window. Rook returns at the same time and passes through Johnny, an unpleasant cold sensation. Johnny finds Jimmy’s dead body, and, keeping to secret gang traditions, disposes of the body. Only Johnny and Rook know that Rook killed Jimmy. No one else saw anything. Stella’s friends keep watch for the rest of the night, but there are no further disturbances.
In the morning, Stella shares her Halfling food with her new friends. Buckle wants fresh game, so he swims under the city to catch some fish. Port Fennrick is built on a river delta, so most buildings are built on stilts over water. As he pursues fish, he realizes he is being pursued by a Mermaid with a trident and net. A mermaid mermydon. A mermaidon! he outswims the Mermaid and reaches land, where the mermaid can’t follow. He rejoins the party without fish. Agnes holds Johnny’s ring aloft to see through is eyes. He’s on a road, holding a bag. He looks over his shoulder, and Port Fennrick is receding in the distance. Johnny skipped town. Agnes wants a possession from every party member so she can see through their eyes. Buckle doesn’t have many possessions. He won’t give up his hat, and doens’t like the idea of cutting off a lock of fur. He offers a treasure that he took from the Kraken, but Agnes just whips out her runeblade and takes a tuft of fur. Stella refuses to give her a possession. (These new friends of hers are a lot!) They linger and ponder their next step until the innkeeper knocks on the door. The inn is busy and need to either pay for another night or make way, because other people want the room. They leave, and decide to track down the mob boss that keeps sending goon after them.
Characters in Lasers & Feelings (a free, one-page RPG. It’s so good!) are defined by contrast & tension. It’s right there in the name: Lasers oppose Feelings. They pull characters apart instead of leading them to a single point. It’s quite a paradigm shift for me, because I usually build characters around a central theme, with each detail re-enforcing the others. Can I define the stock characters of fantasy dungeon-delving in terms of contrast? Let’s try!
Rogue: cowardice & greed
Heists, reconnaissance, and assassinations are tense activities, so it’s easy to see how a Rogue is torn between making the score and avoiding a fair fight.
Wizard: knowledge & destruction
Wizards are nerds that love books, research, and high-quality paper. Wizards will also turn you into a newt, strike you with lightning, and drop you through a portal to Hell.
Bard: sex & puns
This is the cultural consensus on proper Bard activities, although not many systems provide official support for them.
Fighter: combat
The Fighter only has one stat, because Fighters are one-dimensional and boring. A fighter who tries to do something that doesn’t fall under “combat” fails without rolling.
We pick up immediately after the affair with the pirates, with Rod the Exile & Sapphira the Spider discovering an entrance to a mysterious underground facility. Before they head down the spiral staircase into the ground, they notice a thin, white spire in the distance. It’s a giant, magical taper candle, a signpost where travelers leave notes.
GM note:This is a diagetic way for players to share information about the area with other players. There’s one in every location.
They don’t have much to say to other travelers, so they head down into the darkness, lit by the shimmering of Sapphira’s electric field. At the bottom of the staircase, they find a tunnel running perpendicular to the river above. It’s about 4m across, and half full of water. There are posts in the middle of the tunnel at regular intervals along its length. there are signs that other structures used to be attached to these posts, but they’ve disappeared from decay and neglect. A narrow pipe runs along the top of the tunnel, with periodic vents.
A cross-section of the underground tunnel.
Again, our heroes want to travel by water, but don’t have a boat. They return to the surface and find some logs and branches along the river bank. They carefully carry them down the spiral staircase and Sapphira lashes them into a raft. They have been traveling west, against the eastward current of the river. This tunnel stretches north and south, with the water flowing south. They decide to float with the current and head south. After some time, a tunnel splits from their tunnel, heading west. They take the side tunnel and soon find metal spikes hammered into the stone and brick tunnel walls, like punji sticks keeping something from coming east towards the main tunnel.
The raft encounters punji sticks pointing the other way.
The raft can’t fit between the spikes, so Sapphira picks up Rod & Tobit and climbs over the spikes. Just past the spikes are two alcoves set into the wall of the tunnel, right next to each other. Each alcove is the size of a modest room, about 3m on a side. They are set above the waterline of the tunnel and have dry floors.
Two alcoves, separated by a barrier.
As Sapphira approaches the first alcove, her electric shimmer reaches out and dances over a vertical plane across the tunnel. It’s an invisible magical barrier, blocking their path. The water in the tunnel flows unimpeded. There are some weapons lying on the floor of the near alcove: 2 daggers and a flare gun (ranged, burning, 2 ammo). It’s common knowledge that magical barriers have a power source, and a condition that allows or denies passage. Rod wonders if this is a Dwarven badge-reader. He attempts to swim through the barrier, but is stopped harmlessly.
They enter the near alcove and claim the weapons. Rod takes the daggers and Sapphira takes the flare gun. There’s a door at the back of the alcove that leads up a spiral staircase to another concealed entrance. They emerge on a hill. Below them, to the east, the mighty river crashes over impressive rapids. To the west, high white mountains rise like a wall. The river drops hundreds of feet in a powerful waterfall. If there is a pass through the mountains, it’s not obvious from this position. They check for a hidden entrance nearby that hopefully leads to the far alcove, but no luck.
They return to the tunnel and ponder the mystery of the magical barrier. They talk to the barrier, but if there’s a verbal password, they don’t guess it. Rod wonders if living material is blocked and tries to push a dagger through. The dagger’s point touches the barrier and stops. The barrier flares with energy and Rod tries unsuccessfully to push the dagger through. Since aggression didn’t work, Rod tries relaxing and just floating through. It works for the water, but not for him. He bumps into the barrier and stops. Next, they throw rocks, which also bounce off the barrier. Throwing rocks all across the face of the barrier reveals that is has no gaps. Frustrated, Rod charges up and blasts the barrier with electricity. The barrier flares brighter and brighter, matching Rod’s escalating power until the entire barrier is opaque. Rod can’t overpower it. Tobit barks, and the bark echoes down the tunnel, so air as well as water can pass through.
Rod is right up next to the barrier, so he has an angle to look into the far alcove, the one blocked by the barrier. He sees some glowing equipment set into the back wall. This is probably the barrier’s power source. Sapphira notices that the wall between the two alcoves is in disrepair and dispatches her spiderlings through the cracks with instructions to disable the equipment. the spiderlings wriggle through, there’s some creaking and straining, then a crash. The glow from the far alcove fades, and the barrier is gone. Sapphira and Rod enter the far alcove and see that the Spiderlings dislodged some kind of power crystal, which fell to the floor and shattered. It’s no good now. They rest and heal. Rod scoots closer to Sapphira.
Rod: Have any feelings you want to talk about?
Saphhira: That’s the first time you’ve asked me that.
They continue down the tunnel. It’s better preserved than the exterior sections. The central poles hold conveyor belts powered by paddlewheels that could carry things against the current. There are larger platforms on the sides of the tunnels that look like tram stations, but everything seems to be long-abandoned. There are burned and melted trails across some of the platforms, probably caused by lava.
Elevated conveyor to travel against the current.
There’s a glow and a hiss ahead. As they approach, they see that the tunnel has been breached by a lava flow. The water is flowing into the lava and evaporating, causing the hissing sounds and a cloud of steam. Our party exits the tunnel at the last platform. The far wall of that platform is gone. There’s a big chamber carved out of the mountain, cutting right through the Dwarven ruins. Only the bottom is filled with lava.
GM note:One player wanted to discuss contingencies without me overhearing, because she knew that I could literally make her worst fears come true. I assured her that I had already decide what awaited them, and it turned out to be exactly what she feared.
Fearing an ambush by some sort of lava creature, Sapphira attempts to rig the platform with webs, but she’s interrupted as a lava monster does indeed emerge from the lake of lava in front of them! Rod fires his slingshot at the lava monster, attracting its ire. As it approaches, Sapphira interposes herself to keep Rod safe. Rod tries again to knock the creature unconscious with his sling bullets. The creature takes a swing, splattering lava over Sapphira, who uses fast healing to soak the damage. Sapphira deploys a pit trap right at her feet and the lava monster falls in right before it grabs her. The heat radiating from the lava monster’s body sears Sapphira’s armor. While the lava monster tries to get out of the pit, Sapphira deploys webs around the platform, and Rod runs to get some water to pour on it. As Rod returns to the pit, the lava monster climbs up and swats him away with a burning arm. Rod retreats towards the watery tunnel, pulling at Sapphira. She’s not quite ready to flee and uses her webs to fling loose rocks at the lava monster. It pauses and flares with extra heat to melt the rocks embedded in its gooey body.
Rod and Sapphira retreat back into the tunnel, sure that the water will harm the lava monster if it pursues them. Sapphira prepares more webs in the tunnel and Rod is ready with a bucket of water to throw at the creature. They are right, the lava monster does hate water. It does not follow them into the tunnel, but moves back into the lava lake and stares down the broken end of the tunnel at them. Rod pins it down with sling bullets, allowing Sapphira to slip back out onto the platform and fire acupuncture needles form her mouth The monster’s chakras are not in the expected locations, but she finds them and paralyzes the monster. It freezes in place and tips over, sinking partly into the lava lake.
Victorious, Sapphira leaves her mark at the end of the tunnel, then carries Rod over the roof of the chamber and to the exit. The emerge on the other side of the mountain into an ancient forest, and that’s where the session ends.
He’s a Halfling, but knows nothing of Halfling culture, because he was raised in an evil lab and experimented on. This lab, funded by a mysterious and nefarious organization, kidnaps children and brainwashes them to become spies. Rod lost the use of his legs, but can harness the power of electricity, which he channels through the shock collar still locked around his neck. He’s been out for about 1.5 years, dumpster-diving and stealing to survive. Tobit the dog is his faithful steed and closest friend.
Sapphira the Spider
She is almost humanoid. She walks upright on two legs ,but has many arms, web spinners, and can spit poisoned needles from her mouth. Spiders live in fear of each other because they are power-hungry and often resort to cannibalism to consolidate power. Strange electrical current shimmers across their exoskeletons, like that glass sphere toy that sends harmless bolts of lightning to your fingers when you touch it. Spiders can sense each other and communicate via a special electrical frequency. Sapphira carries her babies along with her, which is unusual,since most Spider parents would eat them. She avoids killing if she can help it.
Let’s Begin
Looking west at Port Fennrick on the delta of the Mighty River.
Sapphira, Rod, and Tobit are in Port Fennrick, which is built on the delta of a mighty river. They plan to head up-river to and search for a legendary subterranean Dwarven highway that Rod is sure actually exists. Sapphira uses her spider silk to make a harness that holds Rod more securely on Tobit’s back. As they approach the back of town, where the river splits into a delta, they see a gate where all travelers are being stopped by officials. traffic is backed up and people are grumbling. Rod doesn’t want to deal with that at all! he hasn’t had good experiences with authority figures or law enforcement. Our party slips down a sidestreet to hop a fence out of town. It’s trivial for Sapphira, since she was walk on walls, branches, and ceilings. Tobit is not so agile, so she drops a silk line and pulls him and Rod over.
Outside of town is a jungle. Hunting birds circle overhead, looking through the canopy for weak and isolated prey to pick off. Staring into the dense foliage, Sapphira spots tripwires laid by giant spiders. Lowercase S. These are dumb beasts, used as mounts by smaller humanoids. Disturbing these tripwires will alert spiders lying in hiding to rush out and attack. Rod manuvers around the tripwires as best he can, but is forced to push through a sticker bush & takes damage. Sapphira was made for this challenge. She can easily climb into the trees to avoid the tripwires. If no branches are available, she can use a line of her own silk. She also an expert on webs, so she knows where the tripwires are even before she sees them. She leaves her mark for the other spiders to find, so they know who they were dealing with.
Our party emerges from the jungle next to the mighty river. How will they travel upriver? For now, they walk. After a while, they see a raft coming downriver. It’s 40 feet on a side, but piloted by a single Giant using a tree trunk as a pole. The raft is damaged. If it carried cargo, there’s none onboard now, and the Giant looks scared and a bit hurt. Our party hails him to ask what happened and ask for a ride, but he yells something about pirates and doesn’t slow down. Our party decides to wait for the next upriver boat.
They wait a bit longer, and the next boat that appears looks like a Viking longboat, but without the shields along the side: long, narrow hull that rises at the prow and the stern, one mast, and one row of oars on each side. Sapphira sneakily attaches two lines to the stern and she and Rod let the boat drag them along as if they were inner-tubing, just with no inner tubes. The boat’s high stern blocks them from the view of the boat’s crew. they overhear some chatter from onboard. the crew is worried about pirates. One man goes aloft to the crow’s nest to look about and spots the Rod & Sapphira tagging along. The lookout calls out, but just then the boat hits something! Its forward progress is stopped immediately and the bow is pushed up out of the water! The lookout falls from his perch to the deck. From their position behind the boat, our party can only see something large, armored, and spiky rising out of the water under the boat.
It’s a giant crocodile, covered in metal armor, with an armored platform built on its back. It pulls back from under the boat and faces it, nose to nose. Nose to tail, this fearsome creature must be 40 feet long. A small man emerges from the armored compartment and dashes in a loop around the boat, leaving a roostertail spray behind him as he runs across the surface of the river! He definitely spots our party as he passes by. He returns to stand on the crocodile’s snout and shout to the boat’s crew, demanding that they hand over their valuable cargo.
Rod and Sapphira don’t want any of this mess, so they disconnect their tow lines and discreetly start swimming to shore. The small speedy man, who calls himself Slick, notices and zooms to cut them off before they reach the shore. “Not so fast!” he says, “Stay fight there and I’ll get to you once I finish my business with the boat.” Poof, he’s back on the crocodile’s snout.
Sapphira and Rod consider their options. Sapphira takes a bear trap from her gear and sets it in the water at their feet. Rod calls out to Slick, saying he’s willing to surrender all the cash and jewels he’s carrying. This is music to Slick’s ears, and he already has his hands in Rod’s pockets by the time the trap snaps shut on his legs. Slick howls in pain and tries to flee, but the bear trap has his leg stuck. The armored crocodile hears and responds to its master’s cry, charging straight for Rod, which means going under the boat! The hull groans and cracks, crew members are sent flying as the armored crocodile rushes forward in uncontrolled fury. Sapphira flees to shore, but Rod and Slick and the bear trap are all damaged by the attack. With the trap broken, Slick flees as fast as his legs can carry him, which is incredibly fast. He’s out of sight in no time.
Rod ends up on top of the crocodile’s armored platform, and squares up to fight the rest of Slick’s crew, but the platform is empty. Slick was the only passenger. Sapphira spits needles at the crocodile’s face and eyes to distract it from her vulnerable colleague. Rod uses the opportunity to charge up and unleash a blast of electricity from his shock collar. Confused and hurt, the crocodile panics and starts swims away, upriver. This presents a dilemma for Rod who is still aboard. He and Sapphira have been looking for a ride upriver all day, but the crocodile is a dangerous vessel, and Sapphira isn’t with him. He bails out and stays with Sapphira and the damaged boat.
Calm settles over the scene as our party ponders their next steps and the crew of the damaged boat try to recover. The captain intends to cancel the trip and return to Port Fennrick. Sapphira offers to protect the ship if it will bear her and Rod upriver. She hopes their swift defeat of the pirate crocodile will reassure the crew. the captain refuses. The boat is too damaged to continue. Half of the oars snapped and many of the crew are injured. The able-bodied will be bailing water the whole time that the current bears the boat back to Port Fennrick. During this recovery period, Rod shares a meal with a sailor named Cooper and forges a bond with him. Cooper says that if Rod ever needs anything, he’ll be in Port Fennrick, ready to help.
Eventually the boat departs and Rod and Sapphira once more start walking upriver. Rod is looking for evidence of a secret underground transportation network that he heard was built by the Dwarves long ago. After hiking upriver for miles, he spots something odd. A rock on the riverbed shifts up for a moment and air bubbles out from beneath it. Observing it for a while indicates that the rock conceals a valve that is regulating the air in something hidden below. Rod looks around and finds a large rock on the riverbank that conceals a spiral staircase leading down into darkness!
Rod the Exile, riding Tobit the dog, is walking around Port Fennrick with Pikano, who appears to be a human child. The sidewalks in Port Fennrick are boardwalks around buildings up on stilts over the river. They look over the edge of the boardwalk and see mermaids swimming around.
Pikano is a good swimmer, so she jumps in and talks to a mermaid. This mermaid just spent weeks swimming up the river and back down, collecting local delicacies. She offers a blue flower with thick, salty petals. Pikano eats a petal and doesn’t like it. The mermaid has a treat for Tobit: fish that only live in a frigid mountain lake far above. They are two inches long and bright red. The mermaid needs to go. She has been away from her family for a long time and wants to get back. Pikano asks about the mermaid. The mermaid says to head to Finsea: follow the river out to the sea, past the seaweed farms, and that’s Finsea. Ask for Allura, who runs a shop of exotic treats. People know her. She’s be happy to receive you.
The mermaid swims away, and a boat passes. It’s drawn by two manatees, and piloted by a platyperson. Someone on the boardwalk calls out to her, and she quacks back. They throw out lines and tie up the boat. There are humans walking on the boardwalk above, and fairies flying everywhere. They don’t need to respect waterways or sidewalks.
There’s a fairy struggling with a heavy load. Pikano climbs out of the water to assist the fairy. She leaves wet footprints on the boardwalk as she approaches. Rod and Tobit climb out of the water and Tobit shakes himself off, getting water everywhere. The Fairy is named Marigold, and her package is too heavy for her. Fairies are only 11 inches tall, so they aren’t physically strong. Marigold says that Pikano looks big and strong, and will she please help her carry this heavy package? Pikano agrees, and can easily carry the package. It’s not that heavy.
Marigold says that her house is just over this way, and flies off, over a house! Rod and Pikano can’t fly! What will they do? Pikano can turn into a spider, so she climbs up the waterspout. She drops a silk line so Rod can tie it to Tobit and pull the dog up. Once all three are on the roof, they see a big tree growing in the back yard, with branches extending over the roof. Marigold’s house in in the branches. The door to her house is very small and Pikano can’t fit inside. She turns back into a human and knocks on the door. Marigold answers the door and is so happy that Rod and Pikano carried her heavy package for her. She was throwing a party soon, and the package contains all her supplies. Now the party is saved! Marigold digs in the package, looking for something she can give to thanks her helpers. She throws flowers and loops of ribbons around until she finds what she’s looking for: a delicious oatmeal chocolate chip cookie! Pikano thanks Marigold and devours the cookie.
GM note: In real life, Pikano’s player received a real oatmeal chocolate chip cookie at this time.
Rod sticks around to watch the party. The party is in Marigold’s “back yard”, the upper branches of the large tree. Fairies of many colors arrive and dance to music played by songbirds. The dance moves are small, quick, and precise. The fairies find seats all over the branches at many different levels. There’s no dance floor or flat table. The whole party is very three-dimensional.
He a slime person who can’t be hurt by normal weapons, and in fact keeps several normal weapons inside his gooey, malleable form to produce and weild when the need arises. The Rain (singular and plural) arrived on this world as fragments of an ice comet. Rain tends to live with other Rain and not in the cosmopolitian, multi-species cities that are common across the world. They all answer to the Ice King, and Melvin is exploring new lands partially because of some unpleasantness back at the royal court. Rumor has it that the Rainwant to create a great Ice City.
Lumen the Lantern
She appears to be a female humanoid accompanied by a small floating light, but really she’s an extradimensional traveller, and the light is closer to the “real” her than the humanoid form it projects. Maintaining the humanoid form is tiring, but makes interacting with others in this world much easier. There are not many Lanterns in this world. She’s exploring to right wrongs, enforce justice, and protect the innocent, and she’s focused all her skill into making her Little Light as versatile and dangerous as possible. Woe to the wicked! Rumor has it that Lanterns can possess other creatures, kind of like they ‘possess’ their humanoid projections.
Grokch the Goblin Tinker
He’s a little Goblin in a big suit of power armor, equipped with a blaster gun and giant drill. Goblins are somewhat shy and stay in their technologically advanced underground cities, never venturing to the surface. Grockch (be sure to to pronounce the guttural ‘ch’ after the hard ‘k’!) was voluntold to explore topside for new materials or power sources to help advance Goblin civilization. In addition to seeking scientific progress, he also wants the chance to show off his cool toys! Rumor has it that Goblins are redirecting underground streams.
Bungo Trotter the Squire
He’s not the champion of humanity. He’s just a guy who’s good at making friends and is a little over his head. He wants to see the sights and maybe discover more about who he is, deep inside. Rumor has it that humans are brainwashing the Goblin scouts that are sent to the surface, so they will go back and infiltrate the Goblin underground cities.
Rumors
There’s a new material that enables a new form of energy
A swamp monster lurks inside a lake
A mystical shrine that lets one recover from grief
Drinking from a certain natural spring brings euphoric feelings
Let’s Begin
Bungo, Grokch, Lumen, and Melvin did not take a ferry like the previous party. They took a charter vessel that was already carrying some cargo to Port Fennrick. It’s a small boat, with barely enough room for the six passengers and crew, plus the carefully wrapped, couch-sized cargo. The boat is pulled by two manatees, commanded by Jensen (a platyperson) and guided through an unconventional route by Sebastina (a mermaid). During the journey, some vast undersea creature passed by. A fast-moving hill of water, pushed up by the unseen monster, overtook the boat and threw it off-course. The manatees broke loose and fled in panic. Sebastina barely held on to the hull, and the boat and its six occupants washed up on an unfamiliar shore.
Our heroes take stock of the situation. No one is injured, and the boat’s hull seems intact, but their propulsion is gone, and they don’t know where they are relative to their destination. Lumen surveys the scene. They are on a sandy beach. The water is shallow, dotted with many islands of strange, unnatural shapes: a hemisphere, a cube twisted at an odd angle, curlicues, and other shapes which wind, water, and time would never create. Inland, there’s dense jungle, and hills rising far beyond. Lumen’s sharp eyes detect giant spiders lurking in the jungle, hunting birds looking for stragglers overhead, and the tops of masts far away to the south. So the main shipping lane is to the south, but how can they get there?
Melvin walks into the sea and shapeshifts into a manatee. He calls out, hoping to find the lost manatees. Instead, he finds strange fishes, as misshapen and twisted as the islands they swim among. They head towards him, and they don’t look friendly! Fortunately for Melvin. he’s hard to see when he’s immersed in water, and normal weapons like fish teeth can’t hurt him anyways. Bungo still throws rocks to distract the fish and pulls Melvin to shore.
Just then, from behind a perfectly cylindrical island, a small racing yacht appears. It’s zooming dangerously close to the island, it’s lone occupant leaning so far off the side that the pontoon on the opposite side is out of the water. It’s do Rolo, the millionaire thrill-seeker! Bungo knows him! Bungo helped de Rolo select the perfect tree to turn into that yacht’s mast. Bungo hails the yacht and de Rolo swiftly heaves to. The castaways explain their predicament, hoping for a ride on the yacht, or for de Rolo to build a mast for their boat so they can finish their journey under wind power. de Rolo is excited by the strange, large creature that got them into this mess. He’s a thrill-seeker, so of course he wants to pursue the creature immediately. Of course he won’t leave them stranded. They can all accompany him on this grand chase, and then he’ll take them to Port Fennrick. The castaways are not interested in heading into danger, especially Captain Jensen, who really wants to deliver her cargo on time. It’s very important. They convince de Rolo to make a mast for them so that he can go chase monsters and they can go to Port Fennrick.
de Rolo is now fixed on his new mission and marches boldly into the jungle to select a proper tree. He doesn’t see that he’s walking right towards a couple of giant spiders! The spiders’ attention is all on de Rolo, so Melvin and Lumen blast one with their respective ranged weapons. The second Spider pounces on top of de Rolo, but Lumen drops that one with a single,well-aimed shot! Our heroes move forward to secure the area, and de Rolo finds a good tree. He and Grokch attempt to fashion a mast from it, but Grokch has only a blaster and a drill, tools better suited to other uses. He destroys the tree.
de Rolo is frustrated and won’t try again. If the party wants to leave, they had better accompnay him on his yacht. They all return to the beach, but the yacht isn’t there! Neither are Jensen or Sebastina. They’ve stolen the yacht and stranded our heroes! Melvin can move through bodies of water at incredible speed, so he catches up with the yacht and pleads for Jensen to return and pick up the others. She reluctantly agrees, and Melvin owes her a favor. When everyone is onboard, their destination is hotly debated. Jensen wants to deliver the package to Port Fennrick immediately, but de Rolo wants to pursue the creature. During the commotion, Lumen sneaks a peek at the mysterious cargo. It’s a large wooden box, maybe 2m x 1m x 1m, wrapped in canvas and secured by rope. Lumen unites a few knots and lifts the lid. Inside, there’s a creature that has been reshaped so much that no original shape is left. Eyes, limbs, teeth at all angles. It lies perfectly still, because on the inside of the lid is a glowing Symbol of Sleep! Lumen manages to cover it with her hand just before it knocks her unconscious. Now she remembers Jensen’s mannerisms and her insistence on delivering the package. She’s smuggling this beast for some unsavory folks, and if it’s not delivered as promised, Jensen is in serious trouble.
Just as Grokch is convincing Jensen to go on de Rolo’s adventure first and deliver the cargo later, Jensen spots Lumen messing with the cargo! Lumen reveals the secret of the cargo. She doesn’t uncover the Symbol of Sleep, of course, but explains the situation. She gives an inspiring speech about slaying this foul creature and fighting the mobsters who put Jensen and everyone else in danger with it. Most are convinced, but Melvin is dedicated to the freedom of all things, and sees the Chaos Beast as a prisoner. Everyone starts arguing as mutant fish start circling the boat, drawn to the Chaos Beast.
Melvin prevails. They will release the Chaos Beast from its enchanted slumber, but they don’t want to deal with an active Chaos Beast on the crowded yacht. Grokch rigs some floats and a time-release spring so they can set the Chaos Beast adrift, and dump it into the water when the yacht is a safe distance away. Unfortunately, the spring goes off immediately, throwing the box high into the air. The lid opens, throwing the Chaos Beast clear, but also flashing the entire crew with the Symbol of Sleep! Jensen, Sebastina, de Rolo, and Bungo all collapse, but Grokch no-scopes the lid right out of the air with his blaster, destroying the symbol.
With all immediate threats dealt with, the racing yacht heads for Port Fennrick.
Last time, our heroes ran into old adversaries and once again ruined their plans. These folks are prepared for everything except our heroes, it seems. Now they’re in jail.
The morning after the excitement at the docks, Friday the 15th, our heroes prepare to travel to the lost city of Saarland. Gleador the Druid shape-shifts into a Hippogriff, and Lucia the Paladin hops on his back. They fly northeast, across the river. They see the estate and mill of Lady Evelynn behind them and the beet fields giving way to forests in front of them. On the horizon, the forests rise into hills.
As they fly over the canopy of the forest, a flock of flying creatures swarm about them. The creatures are energetic and curious, and seem to have adopted our heroes as playmates. The creatures are HummingDragons. They have lizard-like faces, elongated bodies (about 4 feet, including the tails) and wings that flap too fast for the naked eye to follow, like hummingbird wings. Gleador lands to get a better look at these strange creatures. He has to circle a bit to find an opening in the canopy that admits a horse-sized creature. The HummingDragons follow, but land on branches, not the ground. Their claws are made for grasping and can’t open up flat to walk on the ground. Gleador studies them and finds cocoons nearby. The HummingDragons metamorphose. Their larval form is about the size and shape of a baseball, and rolls up and down tree trunks with the help of long, spindly legs. The larval form has a sharp proboscis to pierce tree bark and extract sap for food. Gleador can speak to the HummingDragons because, as an Elf, creatures of the Great Forest are known to him. He asks if there’s anything cool nearby. The HummingDragons all rush off in the same direction. Gleador has to run on the forest floor to follow, because there’s not enough room for his 18-foot wingspan below the canopy. The HummingDragons zoom over a large patch of brambles, heedless of the danger to those who can’t fly. Gleador leaps and clears the brambles, but a low-hanging branch smacks Lucia off of his back. She tries to hold on to the branch, but slips and falls into the bramble patch. The thorns do nothing to her plate armor, but the fall hurts a bit. The HummingDragons continue to rush off, leaving our heroes behind. To delay them Gleador suggests playing hide and seek. A few dart off in different directions, but most aren’t interested and zoom away. Gleador retrieves Lucia and they try to follow the way the HummingDragons went, but they lose the trail.
Fortunately, Lucia’s quest gives her an unfailing sense of direction towards Saarland. Without that, they’d be lost. Gleador rises through the canopy and they fly for the rest of the day without incident. At sundown, they set up camp in the forest. Lucia casts Sanctuary, so she will know if anyone enters the area with hostile intent. Gleador keeps his Hippogriff form and lies still, using his Camouflage skill to look like a big rock.
Sometime in the night, a figure approaches: a Halfling woman wearing a black cloak. She has a big traveler’s pack on her back, and several large empty sacks, secured to the main pack by their drawstrings. She also has an axe across her shoulders. She sneaks up to the campsite, using a large rock (actually Gleador) to keep out of the firelight. Gleador shifts his eyes over to Lucia, who is not reacting like Sanctuary has gone off. This reassures him, so he shifts his eyes back to watch the newcomer. She comes right up to him and peers over him at Lucia. Gleador reveals himself by tapping her on the shoulder with his tail. She squeals and stumbles back. One hand goes to her axe, the other to a large amulet around her neck. Lucia jumps up at the noise and quickly prays to see what her is evil. She detects the Halfling woman as evil, but, since her quest gives her the power to see through all illusions, she also knows that the evil she detects is fake. This woman can someone pretend to be evil. Lucia calms the situation and invites the Halfling to share the fire. The Halfling agrees and swings wide around Gleador to approach the fire. Her name is Rose, and she’s relieved that Lucia is a real person. Halfling food is best fresh. Meat pies and pastries don’t keep on the road. Rose has some carrots and biscuits which she offers to share. Lucia asks what brings her to this desolate place. Rose explains that she harvests rare lumber in the forest. The axe is for chopping wood, and the empty sacks are for carrying wood. Lucia knows this is all lies. Lucia says she’s going to Saarland. Rose tries ineffectively to stifle a reaction. Gleador can’t talk in Hippogriff form, so he tries Mister Ed shenanigans to prompt Lucia to ask questions on his behalf. He fetches a nearby stick and offers it to Rose. She puts it on the ground, neatly chops it with her axe, and puts the pieces in one of her sacks. Ok, so she knows how to use it as a tool and not just a weapon. Lucia continues to press her with questions about her work, and Saarland, and Rose gets really uncomfortable. She jams the last few bites of her supper into her mouth and starts to leave. Thanks, I must be going, see you around, and so on. Lucia cast Hold Person, paralyzing Rose as she tries to flee. Rose agrees to come clean if Lucia will please release her. Lucia agrees. Rose admits that she goes to Saarland to smuggle out whatever artifacts she can find. Le Grind (owner of one of the three mills back in Sugar’s Crossing) pays big money for such artifacts. She warns Lucia not to go to Saarland, because there are ghosts. She disappears into the forest. Lucia wonders how Rose protected herself from ghosts, but it’s too late to ask. The rest of the night is uneventful.
In the morning (Saturday the 16th), Lucia directs Gleador where to fly, and in the afternoon they reach the ruins of Saarland. Saarland’s walls were living trees, 150 feet tall. The ring of closely-packed trees around the hole in the canopy is easy to spot. Gleador circles the ruins to see what’s happening. One side of the city, including the wall, is burned. The other side is overgrown with plants, bushes, young trees. Most buildings are either burned or overgrown. Few are intact. As our heroes watch from above, a few trees move to the burned side of the cities. These living trees are Ents! Three of them surround a small building with a collapsed roof and start to tear it down. Spirits fly out of the building and swirl around the Ents, driving them away. Ents are trying to demolish the ruins to let nature take over, but there are spirits resisting them. Gleador also notices a squat, powerful-looking building whose gate has been smashed in. Soren said that raiders struck important targets while the populace rushed to deal with the fire. This must be one of those important buildings. As Gleador flies near the Ents, they shout, “Begone, grave-robbers!” Gleador lands within shouting distance, but out of reach and turns back into an Elf. Perhaps showing that he is a Druid will convince them of his good intentions. He also whispers to Lucia that they should keep the Saarland coin out of sight. Our heroes call out to the Ents, “We promise we’re not grave-robbers!” “Why did those spirits attack you?” The Ents are not convinced and rip large stones out of the ground and nearby buildings to hurl at our heroes. Lucia dodges, and Gleador turns into an Air Elemental and lets the boulder pass harmlessly through him. They run from the Ents. Knowing no other landmarks, they head for the secure building Gleador spotted from the air. The streets are full of tall grass and bushes from years of growth, but even so, our heroes easily outpace the slow Ents.
A plan view of the Saarland Mint: forge in the center, storerooms on the side, surrounded by a fence.
The building is two storeys tall, mostly stone, and surrounded by a high metal fence. The fence was probably decorated in the past, but now all but the main posts have been stripped by looters. The gates were smashed inwards off their hinges. A sign over the door (carved, not a plaque, so it can’t be removed) indicates that this building was a forge and a storehouse. The front doors are gone, and the sunlight illuminates a small patch of floor inside. There’s a corpse just inside the threshold. Lucia advances to cast Speak with Dead on the corpse. The edges of the shadows around the doorframe stretch and pull towards her, turning into ghastly Spectres, undead spirits who refuse to move on! Gleador unleashes a wide blast of freezing breath, which passes harmlessly through the incorporeal creatures. He shape-shifts into a Fire Elemental to light up the interior. As he bursts into flames, the Spectres shrink back, seeking the shadow. “The Destroyer!” they hiss. The raiders who sacked Saarland and probably killed these Spectres’ mortal bodies used mainly fire. The Spectres remember! Gleador has secured some space, so Lucia can examine the body. It’s fresher than ten years old, so it probably did not fall in the attack on Saarland. Maybe it was a looter and was killed by these Spectres. It carries a number of empty sacks, similar to Rose, and wears a charm around its neck made of leaves and metal. Lucia grabs the charm. This chamber appears to be a foyer. There’s a reception desk in the center, and benches along the sides. Everything that isn’t nailed down is long gone.
Our heroes advance into the main chamber. The center of the room is a huge forge with many openings, surrounded by workbenches. The large chimney goes up to the roof. The second floor is a balcony that overlooks the forge on all sides. There are stair cases at each corner, and smaller doors to side chambers on each side. Most things that could be carried off or pried out have been ,but there are a few dead bodies and some scorch marks scattered around the floor. Gleador advances to secure space, pushing Spectres back into the darkness in the corners of the room. Lucia casts Speak With Dead on an old-looking corpse. She gets three questions. When she asks, the responses come not from the skeletal face of the corpse, but from above. A Spectre peers over the edge of the balcony and speaks for his dead body.
How did you die? Defending the forge for invaders
Why did they invade? To steal our treasures
Why are you still a Spectre? Devotion to my craft exceeds devotion to any god
Gleador and Lucia walk the perimeter of the room. As they approach a staircase, a metal canister, maybe a gallon or two, drops from the top of the stairs. Gleador flies straight up to avoid it and is suddenly face to face with a Spectre with several more canisters nearby. The canister hits Lucia on the head. Her helmet absorbs the impact, but the canister bursts. She’s covered in soft expanding foam. Definitely not a horrible glue trap like in the Dwarven science building. It doesn’t burn, melt, or freeze her. It has a vaguely chemical smell, but there no immediate harmful effects. Gleador roars with flame to drive the Spectre back, and it hurls another canister. Lucia dashes up the stairs to catch it. The canister springs a leak and a stream of foam slashes across Gleador, extinguishes the flames that it touches. Lucia realizes that the Spectres have repurposed flame retardant foam that was used in the forge as a weapon against Gleador. The standoff is re-established. Gleador’s light and heat keeps the Spectres back, so he and Lucia can creep around the balcony and investigate. There’s a lot more stuff up here. It’s much harder for looters to reach. Lucia grabs a fine wooden box containing delicate metalworking tools. Quite valuable for the right smith. In the shadows on the other side of the circular balcony, Spectres manipulate the environment to set traps. At the far side of the balcony, above the foyer where they entered, our heroes notice a wall-mounted cabinet with curved marks on the floor in front of it. Apparently this cabinet swings out from the wall, like a secret door. There’s a big sheet of metal leaning against the cabinet. Our heroes approach, and Gleador reaches glowing arm around the metal sheet to light up the shadow behind. His arm meets the ghostly arm of Spectre, using the shadow as cover to get close enough to strike! The two non-solid arms pass through each other, causing damage to each creature. Gleador blasts a super-heated jet of flame into the metal sheet, heating its center to glowing before bursting through and burning the Spectre behind it. The Spectre howls and flees back into the shadows. With that trap dealt with, Lucia pulls the cabinet out from the wall, triggering a mechanical trap placed by the original owners. Pneumatic pistons fire tiny darts! Lucia uses her shield to smash the mechanism, but a dart finds a gap in her armor and her limbs get heavy. The poisoned darts have paralyzed her! Gleador has a dilemma. As fire, he can’t grab or move Lucia without injuring her, but without fire, the Spectres with overwhelm them. Fortunately, his Chimera ability gives him amazing flexibility. He combines a Salamander for fire breath, and a boyd made of flame, with a monkey tail that is not on fire. He uses the prehensile tail to shove Lucia into the secret compartment and stands guard at the door.
GM note: This is where we had to stop for the evening. Quite a cliff-hanger!
They head to the docks, which are on the west bank of the river, just south of the bridge. Their apartment and the theater is also on the west side of town, so they don’t have to cross the bridge to reach the docks. Most of the boats traffic is barges that drift down the river. They are maneuvered into place by small tugboats. They are really small tugboats because their crews are Halflings. Most people who live in Sugar’s Crossing are Halflings.
The docks and barges at Sugar’s Crossing.
One barge has two Giants that push the barge along with poles, like the gondolas in Venice. The Giants are about 12 feet tall, so these poles are 20-foot tree trunks that are long enough to reach the bottom of the river. The Giants look ready to go to a Goth club. They have baggy cargo pants with straps all over, and mesh shirts made out of rope. The Giants maneuver their barge alongside the dock, and a swarm of Halfling dockhands rush in to begin unloading the barge. The Giants act as cranes. They reach up to the top of the stacked boxes, and Halflings use the straps and ropes on the Giants’ clothes to climb up and grab packages. A bustle of carefully coordinated activity.
There are two other barges at the dock. One is being loaded. There’s a line of cargo and passengers. Some passengers have carts that they will roll on, tie down, then roll off at their destination, like a modern ferry. Gleador and Opal recognize some people waiting to board. There’s Opal, a Dwarf woman who assaulted Lucia on her first night in Fairmeadow! She’s with two other figures, one taller and one shorter than her. They have a cart, drawn by a pony and covered by a tarp. Gleador was tranformed into a panther when he met Opal, so she would not recognize his Elf form, but she does spot Lucia! There’s a bit of crowd between the two groups. Lucia hesitates to see Opal’s reaction. Gleador splits off from Lucia, trying to look like an unrelated person who happened to be walking alongside Lucia for a moment. Opal tries to subtly warn her companions about Lucia. They furtively glance at her and the short one checks the tarp to make sure their cargo is hidden. Lucia moves towards them. Opal hails the nearest guard, pointing at Lucia. Sugar’s Crossing is a major port, so there are guards everywhere to protect commerce. Gleador tries and fails to shapeshift into a Elf that looks just like himself, but with fox ears for better hearing: Gleador, but more anime. The guard is convinced by Opal, motions a second guard over, and confronts Lucia. They say, “What’s your business here on the docks. We hear you’re a troublemaker. If you’re not boarding a ship or picking up cargo, you need to leave.” She says she’s sightseeing, and there’s no rule against that. There’s a tourist area at the end of the dock with rides and souvenirs and such. The guards say that, if she’s a tourist, she should go down there and stay out of this section of the docks. There’s heavy cargo moving in and out all the time. She could get in the way or be hurt. She and the guards start moving towards the tourist area.
Lucia: “I’m just wondering, who said I was a trouble maker? I don’t even know anyone here.”
Guard: “You want us to expose that person to retaliation? We’ve heard this one before. We’re not fools.”
Lucia’s path takes her close to Opal’s cart. Lucia wants to reach out and move the tarp to see what’s underneath, but decides that drawing her sword to do that would be foolish. Setting the cart of fire is also a bad idea. Gleador wanders close as well. At this distance, Lucia & Gleador recognize the short person sitting on the cart as the pickpocket that they caught in the Brace of Pigs bar, way back in Session 2. Gleador yells, “Lucia, look! It’s the thieves from the Fairmeadow Fair! The ones we were deputized to stop!” The guards are very motivated to prevent thievery, so they demand an explanation. “What thieves, where? What’s all this now?” Gleador says that they caught the short one picking pockets, and that Opal attacked them at night.
Gleador: “Lucia, don’t you recognize them?”
Lucia: “I do! I bet they were the ones who said we were troublemakers, because we did make a lot of trouble for them.”
The guards aren’t sure who to trust. One stays with Gleador and Lucia, and the other approaches the Halfling to search him. The Halfling cooperates. His cloak does have lots of little pockets, but they are empty. He says, “I’ve only got the one coin purse.” The guard by our heroes calls out, “Check under the tarp. Maybe that’s where they’re hiding things.” The second guard thinks that’s reasonable.
GM note: I thought that Opal and her gang were stuck, but then I remembered that I had planned for this a few sessions back, but it never came up. Now I get to spring my amazing plan!
Several things happen very quickly. Opal yells, “Plan Z!” and shoves the guard away from the cart. Her Human and Halfling companions draw swords and cut the harness holding the pony to the cart. Gleador jams his shillelagh between the spokes of the cart’s wheel to prevent it from moving. The Human runs towards the edge of the dock. The Halfling takes a potion from his belt and drinks it. Opal tries to shove Gleador away the cart. Lucia intercepts and shoves Opal up against the cart. The sound of Opal’s body impacting the cart and her head being thrown back into the cargo under the tarp indicates that both the cart & the cargo are metallic. Gleador runs after the human. The human leaps into the river. Gleador takes a flying leap after her. As soon as he is concealed under the water, he transforms into a chimera with dolphin tail, alligator body, and dolphin echolocation. The Halfling moves some levers on his seat. The cart jerks forward, but the shillelagh prevents the wheel from turning. He backs up the cart to try to break the shillelagh. Lucia is holding Opal against the back of the cart and binding her, so when the cart suddenly backs up, they are both knocked down. Lucia gets up first and holds Opal at swordpoint.
Under the water, the Human swims under the barge and pulls out a potion to drink it. The potion is in a leather pouch, so even though she’s underwater, she can drink it by squeezing the pouch like a Capri Sun. Gleador lunges to make her drop the potion. He tries to bite her legs, but she’s doing the breaststroke kick, so she pulls her legs away from each other and Gleador’s alligator maw closes right between them. She’s very surprised.
The two Dwarf guards move to separate Lucia and Opal. The Halfling is still trying to break the shillelagh and move the cart. Lucia uses “I am the Law!” to command the guards to go after the Halfling while she secures Opal. The guards don’t like having their authority challenged, so they attack Lucia. Lucia defends, but badly. The guards don’t land any blows, but they maneuver Lucia away from the cart. Opal sees her chance, pulls the shillelagh out of the wheel, and jumps on as the cart speeds away without anything pulling it. It crashes through the line of people waiting to board the barge, heading straight for the edge of the dock.
Underwater directly below the barge, Gleador & the Human are facing off, when the cart hits the water above and behind them. Gleador slams the Human against the underside of the barge, taking a sword blow in return. The air is knocked out of her lungs, bubbling all around them. She gasps in a bunch of water and does not panic or begin to drown. Gleador realizes that she drank a potion of water breathing. The cart sinks to the bottom of the river and starts driving downstream, kicking up a plume of mud behind it.
Lucia is in the middle of a panicked crowd on the dock with two guards trying to subdue her. She berates them for letting the real criminals get away and tries to fight her way to the edge of the dock to see what happened to the cart. When she turns away, one guard hooks her leg and knocks her down. More guards are on their way, but have to push through the crowd of people trying to escape the brawl. People on the barges are yelling about stuff happening in the water.
Underwater, Gleador tries to break the Human’s arm with a tail swipe. He’s hit on the way in, but she drops the sword and goes limp. As she slowly sinks towards the river bed, the cart tries to get under her and catch her.
Lucia’s on the ground with two guards standing over her. They won’t be distracted by the cart. Other people will be dispatched to handle it. They are going to make sure that everyone who has disrupted the docks is captured, and that means her. More guards approach and try to get a sitrep. There are at least four people and a cart in the water. What’s pulling the cart? That horse right there was pulling the cart. That’s a pony, not a horse. Also, how can it be pulling the cart if it’s here and the cart is underwater? The guards standing near Lucia are distracted, giving her an opening. She can bolt into the crowd, but if she pauses to pick up her sword, the guards will have enough time to stop her. Is freedom worth the loss of her sword?
GM note: We spent a long time trying to answer that question. How much does a sword cost? How difficult is it to find a supplier? What are the chances I could circle back and pick the sword up? In the future, I need to keep the game moving.
Lucia disappears into the crowd, leaving her sword behind. She goes to the edge of the dock. She can’t see anything underwater. All the actors are under the barge, and the cart has churned up a lot of mud.
Gleador can see, because he’s under the barge with the incapacitated Human and the Halfling driving the cart to intercept her. Gleador grabs her and drags her away. The Halfling pulls out a handheld harpoon gun and fires at Gleador. Gleador uses the Alligator Death Roll ability to evade the dart. He returns to Elf form and pushes the Human to the surface.
Since sound travels so well underwater, Gleador hears Opal say, “Shelley’s weak! Drive on!” The cart starts moving downriver, abandoning their incapacitated buddy. Gleador pops up and hands Shelley off the the onlookers at the edge of the dock. “Help her! She’s injured!” He dives back underwater to pursue the cart. He uses the plume of mud kicked up by the cart to cover his next transformation.
The dock workers have hooks, poles, and ropes to pull Shelley out of the water. Lucia’s Quest requires Hospitality. She must help anyone in need, and right now, that’s Shelley. Lucia would really like to pursue the cart, but doesn’t want to lose the quest, so she uses Lay on Hands on Shelley. She fails. The crowd around Shelley sees Shelley react in fear as an armor-clad person pushes through the crowd and grabs her broken arm. Shelley screams and passes out. Lucia wonders if she has fulfilled her quest’s requirements. Does she have to succeed in helping those in need, or is trying good enough? The dock workers, shocked by Lucia’s apparently cruelty, push her back to the edge of the dock with their tools and call for the guards. Lucia tries to push through the crowd with her shield, but is knocked into the river. Her plate armor drags her down.
Gleador changes his transformation when he sees Lucia fall into the river. He combines a water dragon (water jet breath weapon) dolphin (echolocation) and flying dragon wings. Gleador swims to Lucia and she grabs on. Gleador swims just under the surface, so Lucia’s head is above the surface. As they zoom downriver after the fleeing cart, they look behind them. A giant from another barge jumps into the river and starts poking around in the muddy water with his barge pole, trying to find anyone else who went overboard.
The cart rushes downriver on the river bed, kicking up a big plume of mud. Gleador is gaining, his long water-dragon body just below the river’s surface. Lucia looks like a poor water-skier being dragged behind a boat. She’s out of the water to her waist, cutting a big wake in the river’s surface. As they approach, Opal fires the harpoon gun. Gleador fires a water jet, which swats the dart away, knocks Opal and the Halfling off the cart, and rips the tarp off the cart. The cart’s mysterious cargo is revealed: a metal statue of a dwarf, just like the one that came to life and ruined the auction back in Session 4! The cart keeps going at full speed, without a pony to pull it or a driver to guide it.
The Halfling swims towards shore, but Opal reloads the harpoon gun and plans to grapple herself back to the runaway cart. Gleador carries Lucia to the shore. She’s ready to bash this Halfling with her shield. Gleador pauses to see if she’s going to be alright. The Halfling gets to shore, and sees a fully-armored Paladin and a water dragon waiting for him. There’s no way he’s winning this. He surrenders. Lucia takes his sword and dagger. She can use the Halfling-sized sword as a dagger. She ties him up.
Gleador pursues the cart. Opal has grappled back to the cart and is firing darts backwards as the cart drives itself. Gleador pulls alongside and blasts a water jet at the top of the cart. The cart flips out from under Opal, who is then yanked after it by her line. The statue is flung clear and lands headfirst in the mud at a weird angle. The cart lands upside-down on top of Opal, wheels still spinning. Gleador shoves the cart onto its side. It starts skidding in a circle as the wheels kick up mud. Opal uses the controls to stop the wheels. Once again, Gleador has appeared as a weird monster, so once again, Opal panics and lashes out with her sword. Gleador tries to wrestle the sword away from her, but gets stabbed for his trouble. She swims for the statue. Gleador wraps his long body around Opal and constricts her until she stops struggling. He carries her to shore, within shouting distance of Opal, who has secured the Halfling.
They are out of sight of Sugar’s Crossing now, but a few Naga troops have been mobilized and are quickly swimming towards them. Four snake-like heads skim above the water’s surface. Lucia calls out, “We caught them! The cart is down there!” Two Naga heads turn towards the shore, and the other two heads disappear under the water. A moment later, the two Naga reappear, confirming that the cart is there, and no one else is underwater.
The Naga demand an explanation. Lucia and Gleador explain that these people are thieves and muggers that they encountered in Fairmeadow. They name-drop Pepe. They also warn the Naga not to touch the statue that’s underwater, since a statue just like it what wrecked the auction at the Fairmeadow Fair. Especially do not touch any switches on the statue. We don’t know what they do. The Naga will check on their story, but it seems legit, so they will take Opal and the Halfling back to town in custody. Gleador and Lucia are allowed to accompany the Naga under their own power.
Three Naga come ashore to slither along with their prisoners. One Naga swims ahead to fetch someone to recover the cart and statue from the riverbed. The Naga say that if they were on duty instead of the Dwarfs when all this happened, no one would have gotten past the docks. They are proud of their amphibious capabilities. It took a while for the Dwarfs at the dock to call for the Naga troops, which is why they had such a big head start. Our heroes explain that the statue is very dangerous and unpredictable and leaving it unattended may be foolish. One of the three Naga says, “I’m not scared of your statue. I’ll stay behind and watch it.” The leader warns him not to touch any switches or controls on either the statue or the cart, even though the self-driving cart might be cool.
The party (Gleador, Lucia, Opal, Halfling, Naga commander, one Naga tail-soldier) returns to the Sugar’s Crossing dock. There are lots of Dwarf guards around, but not the two that gave Lucia trouble. The commander of the Dwarf security force is there, identifiable by his fancy hat. There’s also a fancy magical Halfling named Lightfoot who has been brought in to confirm our heroes’ story. Lightfoot is using an enchanted tea set to communicate with Pepe remotely. It’s Halfling tradition to get together and share stories over tea. Halflings think it’s weird that Humans throw out the tea and look at the junk left in the bottom of the cup. That’s silly. Pour the tea, let it sit, and look into the reflection. If your friend is also making tea at the same time, you see your friend in the reflection. It’s quite a sight seeing this fancy Halfling sitting on the floor whispering into a teacup surrounded by grumpy Dwarfs.
Pepe confirms our heroes’ story except for one thing. Opal doesn’t have a statue like the one that wrecked Fairmeadow. It’s the same statue. It was stolen from Fairmeadow’s town hall a few days ago. The Dwarf commander says that Gleador and Lucia are OK. They were telling the truth. The people they were fighting were dangerous known criminals. Just one thing, though. It was really mean of Lucia to break Shelley’s arm when she was already injured and half-drowned. Excessive force, to be sure. Our heroes weapons are returned. A Giant sets out to retrieve the cart and statue on a raft that looks small only because its pilot is so large. When he reaches the wreck, the Giant jumps in, sinks to the bottom and picks the statue and cart up over his head to put them on the raft. He’s really strong.
Shelley is with a healer. Opal and the Halfling (named Billy) are in custody. The poor pony that was pulling the cart has been taken to a stable.
The Giant (his name is Ommm. Exactly three Ms. Omm is his cousin.) returns with the cart and statue on his raft. The Dwarf-sized statue barely passes Ommm’s knees. It looks very non-threatening. Opal yells, “That’s mine! You have no right. It’s my birthright, my property! It was lost. I was taking it back.”
Gleador: How can you prove it’s yours?
Opal: My family name is stamped under the statue’s left arm.
Lucia’s senses can pierce lies and she does not detect any lies.
Gleador: Describe your sense of property ownership.
It’s got my name on it. We didn’t sell them. It has to be stolen. Them? How many are there? She is not sure. This is the first functional one that she’s found. She has parts of maybe five. They are miners.
How do you control them? “It’s easy,” she says, gesturing towards the statue. Everyone rushes to stop her from touching anything. Set it to collect. It collects metal. Then you set it to return and it returns. But how do you get to the switch to change it to return mode? (The statue tossed our heroes around when they tried to turn the switch) Just wait until the pack is full, and then it will stop. Our heroes are shocked that it’s that easy.
Lucia detects that Opal and Billy are evil. Shelley isn’t here, so her status is unknown.
The Oolites built the statue shortly before the Oolite family lost their fortune. Opal was not around to see what happened, but something went bad around the time the Oolites opened a new mine with the robots. The exact disaster is a family secret that the old generation won’t talk about. Opal isn’t content to accept the loss of the family’s old status. She wants to regain it by using these mining robots, but she doesn’t know where to mine, exactly.
GM notes: Players are willing to spend forever asking all sorts of questions, and why not? Their enemy is captured. I need a way to make them ask the important questions and then move on.
The Dwarf captain tells them to wrap it up, so they can get the docks back to working order. Lucia re-iterates how dangerous the statue is. Ommm is not impressed and figures he could just throw it in the river if it went crazy. Gleador wishes Ommm was around when they fought the statue in Fairmeadow.
Lucia wonders what the pickpocket was for. Opal explains that the opening bid for the statue was 500 gold. Oolites aren’t rich anymore, so they had to steal the money to bid on the statue. How did Shelley get involved? She was a historian that Opal consulted and she was impressed by Opal’s goal to recover her family’s artifacts. She’s a softy. The guards take Opal, Billy, the cart, and the statue to the fort. The commander anticipates arguing with Pepe about which town was more damaged and who gets to try them first. As she’s dragged away, Opal yells, ‘I’m not responsible for what people who don’t know how to operate the statue did! If I had been able to buy it, none of this would have happened! It’s your fault!” Gleador yells after her, “Who owned it before the auction?” The commander says, “Didn’t you check the auction records?” Our heroes remember that it was sold by Hama, an agent who did not reveal who she was selling the statue for.
The crowd breaks up, and our heroes are free to pursue whatever they want. Gleador is hurt, but he can heal overnight. Is the statue involved with the coins? They were trying to figure out the Saarland coin mystery and didn’t make any progress. The coins were found in the statue’s backpack, but our heroes theorize that the coins may have been in another item at auction, not in the statue originally. They decide to track down Hama, and learn that she’s staying with Lady Evelynn. Lady Evelynn is scary, and they don’t want to go back into her lair. They will go to Saarland instead. They will head out in the morning. They visit the tourist part of the dock and spend another night in the apartment building
She just hatched yesterday, from an ancient egg that Buckle found and incubated. She’s has four legs, wings, and is about the size of a Golden Retriever. She likes to strike from above with her sharp talons, but doesn’t always control her great power. Perhaps other eggs or dragons have survived. She’s traveling to find them. She heard that somewhere out there is a city made of gold.
Long ago, dragons ruled the world, but they were brought down by trickery and almost wiped out. They are vengeful, although not many survive to enact vengeance. Rumor has it that they are also very greedy.
Buckle the beast.
He’s a Platyperson who has electrical senses to detect living creatures, venomous spurs, and the ability to breath underwater. Incubating eggs is normal for platypi, but it’s quite unusual for dragons to emerge from those eggs. He’s traveling for a reason that he has not shared with his companions. He heard about a underwater crystalline cathedral.
Platypeople keep to themselves & don’t interact with outsiders much. Their ‘cities’ (small compared to the cities of Elves or Orcs) can be underwater, on land, or both. There’s a great festival called Platypalooza scheduled for the next full moon. Platypeople have a reputation of being ignorant, backwater folk.
Rook the remnant.
They is an incorporeal ghost, unable to touch or be touched by anything. They died near the end of the war against the dragons, but they remains. They remembers. They heard that somewhere out there is a temple with the power to restore the dragons.
Long ago, their people served the dragons, but they were all killed in the same war that killed the dragons. Rumor has it that dragon sympathizers like Rook remain because they were cursed by witches!
Agnes Nutter the harbinger.
She’s a blind prophet, who has sight beyond sight. She riding a flying snake named Snek, who can shrink and coil around her neck like a scarf when flying is not needed. Agnes has a ring that lets her see through Snek’s eyes. She also has a vague sixth sense of things near her, so she won’t run into things, even without Snek’s help. She travels to find a legendary library of powerful magical tomes.
The blind prophets are nomads, and avoid each other, since multiple prophets close together cause magical interference, distorting the prophesies. When prophets dream, they are possessed by some magical force and recite or write prophesies. These prophesies come from several different sources. Rumor has it that the prophets are just high all the time, and their visions are drug-induced hallucinations.
The “new to them” world
This is not like Europe 500 years ago declaring that lands were unknown and uninhabited just because Europeans didn’t know about or didn’t live there. Our characters know that the world is bigger than what they’ve traveled or heard about. They are going past the limits of their experience, not to some undiscovered country. There will be people and nations out there. Our characters’ ignorance of those people does not invalidate them.
Let’s begin
Agnes found a Fairy Ferry that runs across the sea to the land they will explore. This ferry is made of two enormous leaves. One forms the hull and another forms the deck. The stem of the hull curves up, providing an elevated platform like the bridge of a human ship. The ship is driven by two propeller shafts, one on each side of the ship. The propeller blades are shaped like giant maple seeds. The shafts run inside the hull and are connected to basically bicycles. Teams of fairies take shifts pedaling to propel the ship. Fairies are about a foot tall, extremely skinny and delicate humanoids. They fly on transparent insect wings. Their skin can be any pastel shade, and they favor flower names. They are nude, except for accessories, like Captain Periwinkle’s impressive tricorne hat. They have a constant glamour that makes it impossible for one to get a clear view of their bodies. They always seem obscured, un-detailed, PG-rated.
Buckle stands at the prow. He’d rather swim. Boats seem like big-city nonsense to him. Rook lurks at the entrance to the lower deck. They can’t enter without permission. Agnes & Fafnir are below. Fafnir is hungry and licks a bench. Maybe it’s salad. Fairies powering the screws change shifts. A fairy named Crocus notices Fafnir and yells at her, Agnes gets a glimpse of something strange in Crocus’s locker that he’s trying to conceal. Agnes convinces him to give Fafnir candy in exchange for taking a shift on the bicycle. He gets fruit & candy from the locker, revealing an evil charm. A large splinter of wood with a dried tentacle wrapped around it, secured with twine. Agnes takes a piece of fruit & uses it to look through Crocus’s eyes. He’s looking at he evil charm, muttering about “soon, close!”
Agnes goes above to gather the team & tell of the danger. Only now do Fafnir and Agnes notice that poor Rook was left outside in the rain. Rook sinks through the deck to stick their head into Crocus’s locker, but is spotted. Buckle’s electrical sense & Agnes’ ley lines detect something approaching from starboard, connected to the charm. They go to warn the captain. Periwinkle sends Rose, the burly first mate, to check on Crocus, who is running up to the deck to complain about Rook.
Just as Rose & Crocus meet, the Kraken emerges! Tentacles threaten the ship! Rook tries to distract a crushing tentacle. It works! The tentacle attacks them, but passes through them and smashes through the deck of the ship. Another tentacle grabs Rose. Fafnir runs to pin Crocus & hopefully take his charm. She was thinking of just killing him, but restrained herself. Crocus dodges & blasts her with fairy dust, damaging her Sense. Also, the charm is still in Crocus’s locker, not on his person. Since no one helped her, Rose is yanked overboard.
Agnes goes overboard somehow. Snek flies out to look for her. Buckle jumps into the water and asks the Kraken to please let them pass. The Kraken is surprised to hear someone speak to it, so it emerges to look at the situation more closely.
The Kraken’s squishy, bulbous head and giant yellow eye tower over the ship. One tentacle is still wrapped around one of the propellers. Snek picks up Agnes & Rose & carries them back to the ship. Fafnir flies up, drops onto the Kraken’s eye, and tears at it without restraint. Chunks of squid-flesh rain down on Buckle, who dives under the ship to safety. The ship can’t dodge & takes more damage. The Kraken submerges, leaving Fafnir in the water.
Under the boat in relative peace, Buckle notices farms and buildings on the sea floor. He swims down to seek help.
Agnes sends Snek to retrieve Fafnir from the water. Rook pretends to have Crocus’s charm. Crocus approaches, trying to get it back. Rook backs up to the edge of the ship, hoping that Crocus will fall overboard, but Crocus can also fly, so they both float past the edge of the ship.
The binding tentacle that no one dealt with snaps off the starboard propeller shaft.
The Kraken re-emerges on the port side of the boat. Fafnir does the same trick to score another hit, disabling the Kraken’s tentacles. She restrains herself and does not inflict collateral damage. The Kraken submerges & Fafnir is left in the water again.
Buckle swims into a cave in the sea floor from which light is shining. Inside, there’s a mer-person working metal over a volcanic vent. Buckle asks for help, but the smith demands something precious first. Buckle hands over a crocodile tooth, a trophy of a previous hunt. The smith starts planning how to turn it into an impressive necklace, but then remembers the business at hand and swims up to engage with his smithing hammer.
Fafnir swims over to the ferry and tries to climb aboard. Coco, Fafnir’s scheming Kobold minion, has planned for just such an occasion and helps Fafnir aboard.
Under the ferry, the mer-smith charges in, striking mighty blows with his hammer. Buckle is going to use the distraction to strike with his venomous spurs, but the Kraken attacks with its beak. The smith is caught in the terrible jaws and drops his hammer.
Agnes manipulates the ley lines to open a path to a closed space: the inside of Crocus’ locker. She grabs the charm and destroys it with her runeblade. The Kraken convulses as the blow is struck, and sinks limply to the sea floor below.
Buckle takes a trophy from the Kraken as it sinks. The smith claims the carcass as salvage, since it fell on his fields. Even with half its propellers gone, the ferry is able to limp to port under the expert guidance of Captain Periwinkle.
Port Intrepid is built on stilts in a marshy river delta. Folks move around in town either by boat or on boardwalks. A platform overlooking the bustling dock has three important features:
Crew bosses shouting orders to workers below
A clock tower
A big Ogre, who is making a show of being menacing, but seems a bit uncomfortable with the role.
The party heals. Fafnir and Buckle level up. Fafnir teaches Agnes the “Dragoon” move that was so effective against the Kraken. Buckle gains another animal trait and teaches Fafnir how to use electro-sense.
Thus ends the first session of Chasing the Sunset. Next time, a different group of characters will have different adventures.
Here’s a cheap easy way to make tokens to represent characters in tabletop games using basic office supplies.
Materials:
a multipack of those winged paper clips. I spent a few bucks on a jar of them in 1- and 2-inch sizes and a variety of colors.
Index cards. I prefer index cards over paper for stiffness. Blank is better than lined, but I have a solution for unwanted lines.
Scissors to cut the index cards to size
Drawing implements. Pen, pencil, colored markers. Whatever level of art you’re on is fine.
To avoid lines on our tokens and to make them stiffer, we’ll fold the index card over. Each index card will fit 1 large token, 8 small ones, or, as illustrated above, 1 large and 4 small. Cut on the red lines and fold on green lines.
Now you have some folded pieces of paper that will fit into your winged clips. If you have multi-colored clips, you can use clips to sort tokens into teams.
The slips of paper fit into the clips as seen on the left. We still need turn those paper slips into tokens. Before writing or drawing on them, consider fitting them into the clips and marking how much of the paper the clip will cover, as seen on the right. You’ll be sad if 30% of your beautiful character drawing is eaten by the clip.
Depending on your artistic abilities and how much time you want to spend on each token, you can draw a picture of a character, or write her name, title, class. Whatever will help you quickly identify the token when it’s on the map.
Slide the completed drawing into the clip, then remove the “wings” by squeezing the two wires towards each other until you can unhook one side from the central piece. Now you have a token that will stand up by itself.
Here are a few tokens on a map. If counting squares is important, the small tokens fit in a 1-inch square and the large ones take up 2 squares.
Don’t lose the “wings” that you remove from the clips, or if a slip of paper is pulled out of its clip you’ll have no way to get it back in. You could use the wings to protect the paper for storage, as shown above.
