My Geek Life

Chapter 13: Dark Voyage

The heroes sail aboard the Wave Mistress towards the Demon Wastes, passing Scion’s Sound and Stormhome. While aboard ship, a cabin boy is murdered in an occult ritual in the hold. The heroes assist the captain in investigating while the crew’s suspicions of them grow. Marik and Achon suspect the killing was the work of a Vol cultist among the crew, perhaps intended to delay their mission.

Their suspicions are borne out when a strange storm hits the ship at sea. In its wake comes Maralon, riding an undead wyvern. He strikes the ship with a couple of devastating lightning bolt spells before the heroes are able to drive him off. The Wave Mistress founders and sinks amidst the raging storm, everyone forced to abandon ship.

Washed ashore in the aftermath of the storm, the heroes find themselves near the abandoned town called Desolate on the edge of the Demon Wastes. Exploring the ruins as night falls, they hear the distant howling of wolves, which call to the werewolf curse Achon carries. They quickly find a defensible spot in the ruins of the town’s old Sovereign temple as the howling grows louder and closer...

Chapter 11: The Temple of Blood

The heroes arrive in Atur by lightning rail at sunset and begin seeking evidence of Maralon’s arrival in the City of Night. While Corlan and his wolf companion Dapple keep watch on the main entrance into the city, Vandal cases the Crimson Monastery, stronghold of the Blood of Vol, and Marik and Achon explore the central marketplace, where Achon finds Sister Elvinor, a Flamist agent operating in Atur under the identity of an old washer-woman running a laundry in the city. She informs them Maralon arrived in Atur not long before them and created quite a stir at the monastery, where they’re apparently preparing for some important impromtu ceremony. She agrees to help them get into the monastery, posing as a laundry delivery.

Realizing they have little time, Achon goes to get Corlan while Marik goes to collect Vandal. When the gong sounds at the monastery, calling the faithful to worship, Vandal chooses to slip back inside, while Marik returns for the rendevous. Ruffians ambush Achon and Corlan on their way back to the marketplace. They’re easily dispatched, but Achon feels a terrible bloodlust during the fight, just managing to retain control and keeping the lycanthropic curse from overwhelming him.

Vandal sneaks into the priests’ quarters in the monastery to steal a robe to disguise himself and finds the entrance to the catacombs guarded by Karrnathi skeletons demanding a password for entrance. As he returns to the dormatories looking, the rest of the party comes knocking, disguised as delivery men wheeling a cart of laundry (which conceals their weapons and other gear). When Achon kicks the door in on the priest who answers it, Vandal is behind him, blade in hand. They’re able to coax the password (a Blood of Vol prayer) from him, and head quickly to the catacombs.

There they find Maralon beginning an occult ritual, aided by priests of Vol and guarded by several skeleton knights. The heroes burst in and a battle begins, as blood pours down from channels in the worship chambers above: cultists “tithing” to the cause, energizing the undead necromancer and the Heart of Khyber. Achon fights alone against several skeletal knights, fighting down his terrible bloodlust all the while, until Vandal finally strikes Maralon a terrible blow that severs the necromancer’s left arm at the elbow, allowing the dwarf to seize the Heart of Khyber...

... and the temple chamber vanishes in a flash of silver-white flame from the holy symbols given to them in Flamekeep. The heroes find themselves alone in a small, private chapel of the Silver Flame, Vandal holding the dragonshard. The door to the chapel opens to admit High Cardinal Krozen and several Silver Flame Templars.

“Well, well,” the Cardinal purrs, “What have we here?”

Chapter 9: Shadow & Flame

The party takes the lightning rail to Flamekeep in Thrane, where they’re met by a detatchment of the High Cardinal’s guard. Apparently, they’re expected. Taken to the Cathedral of the Silver Flame, they have an audience with High Cardinal Krozen and Baron Jorlanna d’Cannith, where they relate their recent experiences and what they know about the Heart of Khyber.

The arrival of Jaela, the Keeper of the Silver Flame, interrupts the audience. She admonishes the High Cardinal for not having brought the adventurers to her at once, and escorts them from the High Cardinal’s Tower down into the depths of the Cathedral to the Chamber of the Flame itself. There the Voice of the Flame speaks through Jaela, warning the heroes of the dangers of the Heart, and not to trust anyone too much, as the khyber shard’s power corrupts all those who possess it, even those with the best of intentions. It tells them Maralon has taken the Heart to Fort Bones in Karnnath, so they set off at once.

Taking an airship the Karnnath, they pick up the lightning rail there to Fort Zombie, where they visit “the Slab,” a local inn, and enjoy the “hospitality” of the crone innkeeper Yselda and her deceased husband (now a zombie doing manual labor around the inn). They set out at first light for Fort Bones, but are attacked en route by a pack of wild wolves, led by a werewolf! (This is a grave concern, since the Church of the Silver Flame supposedly wiped out lycanthropes in a crusade centuries ago.) They defeat the pack, but not before the werewolf wounds Achon. Now the heroes must complete their task and find magical aid for Achon before the curse of lycanthropy can take hold in him.

Chapter 7: A Simple Errand

The characters make their way from Vathirond back into the mists of the Mournland, following the track of the old lightning rail to the abandoned town of Kalazart. There, while resting for the night, they encounter a small troop of warforged, bearing broken daggers as amulets worn on crude chains. Ambushing two of the warforged scouts, they’re able to escape the town without needing the deal with the remainder of the troops.

They find their way to the secret Cannith facility of Bluehearth using the maps provided by Baron Merrix. Inside, they discover all the wood in the abandoned facility has sprouted tendrils growing everywhere. Achon sense it is a kind of undead plant life, the dead wood given unnatural growth. That growth apparently includes invasively controlling the bodies of the former inhabitants of the forge, which attack the heroes as “plant zombies”.

They discover the dragonshard mentioned by Baron Merrix, suspended in a web of metal cables above the deep pit into the underworld of Khyber. Marik makes the daring leap to the web to retrieve it as plant zombie warforged break into the chamber and Achon has to hold them off. The party flees the forge, Achon’s silver fire igniting the undead plants, sending flames shooting through the hidden facility. They’re able to return to Vathirond with the dragonshard, where Lord Bishop Olivar Thul of the Church of the Silver Flame informs them he has assumed command of matters involving Angwar Keep. He makes Achon a templar of the Church for his actions (an opportunity for Andy to get that level-up he planned) and the party makes plans to return to Sharn with the recovered dragonshard.

Chapter 5: Shadows of Wroat

The party arrives via lightning rail in Wroat, the capitol of Breland, on their way to Sharn, the fabled City of Towers. Gran the orc druid discovers Prof. Namuras is missing, but his belongings are still in the coach, along with a note from someone asking him to meet in the dining coach of the lightning rail at midnight. A search makes it clear the Professor has been abducted by parties unknown, and the characters inform the City Watch, which begins and investigation.

Lady Elyadren d’Cannith offers to assist and enages an associate from House Tharashk, who locates the Professor in the Citadel, headquarters of the Dark Lanterns, Breland’s intelligence service. Before Lady Elyadren can bring any House Cannith pressure to bear, she, too is abducted, her warforged bodyguard Bulwark badly damaged, although he manages to reach the characters and tell them what happened.

Their investigation reveals Elyadren’s kidanapper is Baron Jorlanna, head of a rival House Cannith faction, rather than the Dark Lanterns. With the aid of Mor’tok d’Tharashk, they find her on a ship anchored on the Howling River. The party rescues Elyadren and narrowly escapes incineration when Jorlanna’s wizard hurls a fireball at them.

Arrested by the City Watch and taken into custody, they’re released when Elyadren’s faction of the dragonmarked house supports them and Jorlanna’s refuses to press the issue. They get a visit in the gaol from a changing agent of the Dark Lanterns, who tells them they’ve learned what they needed from Professor Namuras and warns them about the dangers of the territory they’ve entered. The Mournland is a valuable prize, one many nations and factions will do anything to control....

Chapter 3: Maze of the Iron Minotaur

The party descends into the lower level of Blackhearth to discover it is a maze of twisting tunnels, containing the remains of some warforged apparently destroyed by traps they triggered. They also find the maze’s end: at the entrance to an even deeper underground passage to Khyber, the Underdark. In the antechamber is an iron statue of a minotaur and a pair of ancient pillars flanking the entrance to the tunnel. Old orcish script on the pillars reads: “Those below are bound for all time in Vvarrak’s name,” according to the translation by Maester Namuras.

In the tunnel, the heroes encounter some darkmantles and fight them off in the magical darkness they create. The minotaur takes the opportunity to seize Corlan as a bargaining chip, but releases him as a show of good faith. The party agrees to help the iron minotaur—a construct created by the artificers of Blackhearth during the Last War—to leave the magically warded lower level of the forge. In return, he reveals there is a wealth of Khyber dragonshards further down the tunnel, the reason why House Cannith built Blackhearth.

The adventurers brave a fire cave and lava flow to get the dragonshards, but a massive fire worm rises from a pool of lava and they’re forced to flee with what they have. The worm doesn’t pursue them and they’re able to leave the abandoned forge, only to encounter a band of warforged marauders. The warforged demand the dragonshards, but the adventurers are able to negotiate with them for access to Blackhearth, as the key only works for the dragonmarked and no warforged has manifested one. The Minotaur decides to remain with the warforged, which are more of “his kind” as part of the agreement, sending his rescuers back to Angwar Keep.

Game Play: Pretty smooth, for the most part. I figured out that initiative worked better dealing new cards each round: much more fluid (I’ve gotten too used to the d20 way of doing it). My house rule for “improvised” powers might be too restrictive, at least, the one opportunity that came up during the game was forgone due to the perceived difficulty, so I’ll need to consider that. Otherwise, the system worked pretty well, although it’s clearly not difficult to have an opponent the characters essentially can’t harm, like the fire worm. Fortunately, they were smart enough to run when faced with a fifty-foot worm made of volcanic stone!

Chapter 1: Any Tor In a Storm...

In the four years since the Day of Mourning destroyed the nation of Cyre, our four heroes have returned once a year to Angwar Keep, where they fought their last battle on the Cyrans on that fateful day. This year, they find a message from their old Captain, Farrik, along with passage on board the airship Silver Princess to the Mror Holds. In Korunda's Gate, the stronghold of House Kundarak, the heroes receive an odd bequest from their former comrade and commander: a locked iron strongbox, but without a key or any means to open it.

The four—dwarf scout Vandal Thorn, dragonmarked elf Marik Pharilan, ranger Corlan Half-Elven, and Achon Vaildos, priest of the Silver Flame—decide to return to Thrane on board the Princess. A storm diverts the airship from its planned course towards the grey expanse of the Mournland then, during the height of the storm, Karnnathi skeletons attack, slaying the crew and crippling the ship before the heroes fight them off. Barely escaping the last skeleton on-deck, our heroes leap from the falling Silver Princess using life-rings to carry them safely to the ground, and find themselves amdist a storm in the dark of night in the middle of nowhere.

They find a small, abandoned tower on a lone tor overlooking the mud-soaked plain. When Achon attempts to use his arcane senses, they are overwhelmed by the terrible wrongness of the Mournland and his companions are forced to drag him into the tower to revive him.

The interior of the tower is strangely bare: two floors and a set of stairs, but no furniture or debris. Corlan's wolf companion Dapple is nervous and edgy, but the heroes find shelter on the second floor of the tower and try to get some rest. That's when Corlan notices something dripping from the ceiling. Rain? No... for when it drops on his cloak, it sizzles and smokes! A massive grey ooze attacks from the ceiling, as the very walls of the tower seem to melt, for it turns out the whole of it is alive: some kind of amorphous creature with an acidic touch. With their torches and Achon's Silver Flame, they are able to hold this living tower at bay long enough to escape its gullet and flee into the storm. Their last sight is the massive creature, tendrils waving, silhouetted against the storm by a lightning flash.

By morning, the mysterious tower is gone, and the companions make their way westward to the Brey River and the border of the Mournland. There they are able to swim across the river into Thrane and return to Angwar Keep. At Olladra's Inn, the halfling proprietess Yollanda tells them a man has been looking for them. He introduces himself as Sul Namuras, Maester Sul Namuras, a professor at Morgrave University in Sharn, and he asks them why it is his old friend Captain Farrik has sent him this small silver key...

Game Play: Overall the Savage Worlds system performed pretty well. There's some definite variability in the system, with the capability of "acing" on a roll: getting multiple re-rolls. We saw a couple instances where aces permitted d6 rolls of 12-18 for some pretty spectacular results. On the other hand, that added some spice to the action. Likewise, characters suffered some damage, but no more than a wound in any given (short) fight, and resources like bennies and power points seemed to last sufficiently for a three hour game session. The system itself is pretty simple, and I like the use of playing cards to determine iniative, since you can leave the cards out face-up and see at a glance who goes when. Overall, a successful first game.