Recap: Nexus 3 - Minotaur to Bugbear

Getting this recap out a bit late, but still before the next session!

2014.02.05

Characters:
Brother Pick - Arakun Initiate
Clink - Arakun Brute
Tion - Arakun Apprentice

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3138 AP, Second Fall, 7th (continued):
The minotaur did not seem happy to see the party, and demanded their names and what they wanted. They introduced themselves. and asked about the 'seeker', which didn't do much to gain the Minotaur's trust. In fact, he believed that they might be working for the Shadow King.

Eventually they mentioned that they had met Fennor, and were trying to keep the 'seeker' safe and prevent it from falling into the hands of the Shadow King. With that the minotaur, Paul, told them that he had sent the 'seeker' away with his assistant to a cabin in the woods to keep it safe, in case any minions of the Shadow King found the ranch. The party decided to try and catch up with the assistant.

They left back to the forest, but just before they got there they were stopped by a man who had said that he saw them leave the ranch, and that he saw Paul's assistant, Farn being followed into the woods by several gecklings.

The party realized that this might have been the same group they saw previously and decided to try and track them down.

When they got back to the place where they had followed the tracks before, they found that it was too dark to find the trail again. Brother Pick decided to try and find Farn with the Seeker spell, and was let through the woods, the camp site they found before and finally to a cave.

The cave was dark, so Pick also conjured up some light on to Clink's Sword. They ventured in and found several dead Gecklings around the remains of a small campfire. Checking the bodies they found that they had been mutilated. They didn't find any sign of Farn or the Seeker, but they did see some blood leading off further into the cave.

Further in the cave opened up to a wide area. In order to keep from getting lost, they decided to keep to the right wall. As they ventured further in, they were attacked by several giant rats. Despite they group quickly finding themselves surrounded, they were able to defeat the rats, without injury. After the battle, they still heard rats scurrying in the distance, but didn't run into any more as they kept moving along the right wall.

They came to another narrow area, where they could smell some foul odor from the east, but as the wall curved south, and avoided whatever was causing the smell.

Just as they were moving south, the party spotted a change in the ground and realized that a pit had been covered to make it look like the cave floor. The party was able to move around the pit, and continued on, as the wall curved all the way around and started moving back to the west.

Further in they did not spot another trap, and were nearly smashed by two great stones that swung out from the cave sides. Lucky, the trap was designed for larger pray, and barely missed the arakuns' heads.

A sound of something coming from further down the cave was heard, and the party decided to hide and cover their light. They heard the thing check the trap and rushed in to attack while it was confused at the lack of enemies.

Once the light was on, they found a bugbear, who was caught off guard and they were able to charge in while it was stunned. Tion had already had a stone missile ready and it hit the bugbear square in the chest and sent him stumbling back. Clink started slicing the monster up, and Brother Pick charged him, jumping onto his weapon arm.

Pick "rode" the arm, while attacking with his mace, Clink continued to strike, and Tion threw another stone missile just as Pick fell off. These short few seconds though were too much for the shocked bugbear, and as he tried to regroup and attack, his wounds finally overcame him and he fell to the floor. The party left him bleeding and found his lair further down.

The bugbear's lair was covered in filth and bones, but here they found Farn tied. up. They also found some coins, potions, and a magic sword in with the bones.

Farn, thanked the group and asked if Paul had sent them. He told the party how he and 'Mr. Hoppy' were captured by the gecklings, but then the bugbear had attacked them while they were resting. The gecklings were killed, and the bugbear took Farn (who was already tied up). Mr. Hoppy, the seeker, got loose from the bag when the bugbear was searching the gecks' stuff.

Pick used the seeker spell (with the aid of a ribbon that Farn had) and saw the rabbit being shoved into a bag, by a goblin. The goblin then mounted a warg and rode off toward a dark castle in the distance, banners of the Shadow King on it's walls.

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Notes: This session started out with another awkward social situation, where the party needed to get information, but hadn't yet developed a trust with the NPC. Things worked out, but it took a bit of time.

The cave was another example of "over prepping" as less than half was explored by the players. Still, they are not "fortune hunters" at this point, so finding what happened to Farn as quickly as possible was the best outcome for them.

Yes, the gecklings were the same ones they found earlier, and yes they could have found Farn (and the seeker) back last session.

Combat was interesting this time, thought I had several other encounters that I sort of wish we had gotten to play just to see how the party dealt with some different situations.

Recap: DF Nexus 2 - The Dark Woods

2014.02.26

Characters:
Brother Pick - Arakun Initiate
Clink - Arakun Brute
Tion - Arakun Apprentice

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3138 AP, Second Fall, 3rd:
The characters got back to town and had Mother Kind look at the druid's crude map. She was able to give them some better directions and clear a few things up. It looked like this trek was going to take them several days so they bought up some rations and decided to rest up and head out in the morning.

4th:
The first day of travel kept them in the familiar areas around Appleton, so and it was uneventful.

5th:
During the next day though, they found themselves in a dark and unfamiliar part of the woods. The forest canopy had gotten very thick and blocked out much of the sun. Here again, they found large webs filling the trees and branches.

Continued on, they didn't hear the quiet sounds above until several giant spiders dropped down all around them.

They readied their weapons as the first round of spider attacks came at them. Clink attempted to block just as he had gotten his shield ready, but ended up throwing it from himself.

Tion decided to take out the two spiders in the back with a rain of stones. Unfortunately, the heavy canopy hindered the stones quite a bit at first.

After the first couple of seconds of confusion and a few mishaps, the group found their footing and did fairly well. Tion parried one spider, then dodged another, just as his rain of stones made their way through the leaves and webs to strike the spider he just dodged dead. Pick smashed down one spider with his mace and Clink gave a few good cuts to one of the others, while parrying an attack from a second spider.

A few spider bites made it past the party's defenses though, and their SM-2 mail didn't protect well against the impaling attack from the spiders' mandibles. Pick was quick with a heal on Tion so no one ended up being terribly hurt.

They managed to finish off the spiders, noting afterwords that some were clearly weaker than others. After healing up they continued on. The rest of the second day and night were uneventful.

6th:
On the third day they found what might have been some sort of camp site, or the scene of some sort of conflict, none of them were skilled trackers. Still, the groups curiosity got the better of them and they decided to follow the tracks off into the woods.

Clink did a pretty impressive job following the tracks, even without any formal training (great roll on skill default), and they camp up on a small camp of Gecklings. The small lizard creatures were just sitting around. A couple looked like they were keeping (very poor) watch, and another couple were in the far side of the camp near a small canopy.

The party, having discovered what the tracks were made by, decided to head back to their own mission, and managed to leave without being seen. But they didn't manage to retrace their steps very well, and spent most of the remainder of the day just getting back on track.

7th:
Now back on track, they tried to make up some lost time. In the afternoon, they were surprised when an elf stepped out from a tree just a few feet in front of them. He was dressed in dark greens (which matched his hair), and carrying a elven bow and sword.

After appearing, he asked the arakuns what they were doing in this part of the woods, warning that it was a dangerous area. After some initial distrust on both sides, the characters mentioned that Durid Oak and after showing the map, the elf decided to help them. He lead them through the rest of the forest and pointed out a house and fenced off area across the field.

"That is the Bunny Ranch," he told them, which is where they would find the seeker. They thanked him, and asked his name before he left. He told them that he was known as Fennor, then disappeared back into the woods.

It was sundown, when the party reached the front door of the modest cottage and knocked at the door. A loud stomping preceded the door being flung open by a huge minotaur!

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Notes: This session had just one combat, but the group handled it fairly well. They did miss the PER roll to spot some loot in the webs and didn't attempted to search around. Next time I'll try to be a bit more colorful with the descriptions of the area to give some subtle clues that there might be something worth searching for.

Again the party an "observation" encounter, but didn't get much information this time around. But this is probably not the last we are going to hear about that group of gecklings.

Dungeon Fantasy and Threshold-Limited Magery

I like some of the ideas behind Threshold-Limited Magery (aka Unlimited Mana). Particularly, I like that it lets mages always have a chance to do something (albeit with some risk). One of the things that annoy me about the standard FP magic system is that you can cast yourself to exhaustion and then there isn't anything else you can do.

But, using TLM has a several issues especially with Dungeon Fantasy type games. DF can be about frequent combats with a bit of rest between each. The standard magic system works great for this. Casters can blast, buff, heal, etc. till they are tapped out. Then can rest for a few minutes then are back at full strength to do it again. Sure power items and other secondary pools might not recover that quickly but the point remains.

With, TLM, things are quite a bit different. Players can run from combat to combat, without the need to rest and recover, and pull off big flashy effects. The down side is that after a several castings they are going to be nearer to the limit and nothing other than waiting days for your tally to wind down, which might not be an issue with long down time and travel times between runs. The way I see it, TLM makes dungeon runs easier earlier on, but as the players keep going, they will get to a point where the best option is to just leave.

At first, I was going to have both systems available for character to pick, but now I am concerning using a mixed system. The idea is to have the standard FP based system, where the players can use FP to power spells, but this switches over to TLM when they get to 1 FP. At that point they can keep casting, but all cost (or additional cost if they still had some FP to burn) goes to the Tally. This system has a Threshold of 0, so after burning down FP casters are risking backlash with just about any casting. FP (and energy reserves) still have their normal regeneration rates, and tally is reduced by 8 each morning.

So this system takes the most interesting part of TLM (risking backlash for the ability to keep casting), and replaces the least interesting part of the FP system (running out of energy and passing out).

I'll run this by my group and see if they want to give it a try. I'll post what I find if we do start using this.

Recap: DF Nexus Session 1: Something Wicked in the Wind

2014.02.19

Characters:
Brother Pick - Arakun Initiate
Clink - Arakun Brute
Tion - Arakun Apprentice

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3138 AP (after portal), Second Fall, 3rd day:

So, my players decided to all make Arakun characters, so we are starting in a small Arakun village called Appleton. The town was hopping with a local celebration. The Arakuns decorate the trees with various knickknacks and baubles and let the young gather them up, while the adults drink and eat. Three brothers (our PCs) were setting around drinking. Tion was telling stories of his grand adventure (which weren't true) and Brother Pick was doing his best to remind the revelers that they need to praise Nocta (the Arakun patron god).

During all this, a chill wind blew into the town. Pick felt a dark presences in the wind, and Tion felt something shift in the magical energies around. Other sensitive Arakun were effected and the town wise woman, Mother Kind, was shaken.

The characters asked her what was going on, but she didn't know more than they did. She did suggest that they go out and find the old hermit, Druid Oak. She gave them directions and they gathered their things. Then they were off into the woods.

While trekking through the woods, they group heard some voices. They were off the paths so they decided to be cautious and sneak up closer to see who was in the woods and hear what they were taking about. They got close and found a group of halflings that looked like a rough bunch. They were talking about joining up with the Shadow King.

Rumors of the Shadow King had reached Appleton, but this warlord in the northeast seemed far enough off that it wouldn't bother the small Arakun village. They had heard that he was recruiting for an army and attacking human villages in the north. These halflings seemed to think that the Shadow King was going to be victorious over the humans and wanted to join the "winning side".

The brothers decided that it was best to avoid these halfings and continue on. Unfortunately, they made a bit of noise on their way out and the halflings heard. They continued on there way as the halflings disappeared into the woods. The group didn't see anymore of the haflings after this.

The players also traveled through a dark area of the forest where there were large webs spanning between the tree branches. Again, they made it through without any issue, and finally arrived at the huge oak tree that was the home of Druid Oak.

A great booming voice came from the tree as they approached, and after introductions and offering to share some wine, an old dirty looking Arakun came out of a large hole in the tree and greeted them. He invited them up to his home in the tree, which was just a dirty hollow and they had wine and discussed the dark presence in the woods.

Oak told them that he felt it too and had learned "from the trees" that the Shadow King's minions had entered the woods. They were looking to find the location of the Torch of Unlife. This is an ancient relic that was said to give the wielder the ability to animate any number of remains into powerful undead minions. The torch was sealed away long ago and powerful warding magic has kept it from being found, but there are some things that can find it.

The players decided that they needed to find out where the torch was and prevent the Shadow King from finding it. Oak crushed some dried flowers and bits of dust into a bowl and then blew it onto the faces of the brothers. After studying them for a second he decided that they were fated for this quest.

He then told them that in the north woods there is a mystic animal. This "seeker" has the ability to find lost artifacts like the torch. The players were given some directions and a crude drawing of the seeker, which it turns out is a bunny rabbit. They thanked Oak, then headed back to town to gear up and begin the quest for the seeker.

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Notes: This was a short session just to kick off and get eveyone into character. The players did a great job at role-playing. The interplay in the party and with the sort of silly characters was very entertaining.

I'm a bit concerned that the whole party is made up of a race that is designed for thieves, but they are anything but. We didn't have any combat this session, and I worry that the brute is going to find the small size, low ST and HP is going to not work very well, but we'll see what happens.

DF Setting: Nexus

After deciding to return to a Dungeon Fantasy game, I gave some thought to what I wanted to the setting to be like. I looked into some of my old settings, but felt they would not mesh well with the assumptions of Dungeon Fantasy (very few "monsters" or reasons for "dungeons"). Then I thought about drawing up a new setting, and even created a questionnaire for what my players wanted to see in a setting.

The results of all this is Nexus. This is a bit of a "kitchen sink" setting where just about anything can exist somewhere in the world. This is sort of like the Infinity Unlimited setting, but with "lost technology". There are lots of races, monsters, magic systems, guns, and even some sci-fi elements.

http://desigz.deviantart.com/art/Fantasy-city-217359745

The premise is that long ago, a race of now lost being created a stable network of portals to other worlds. From these worlds other races came and established their own regions. At some point in the past the portal creators disappeared, and later the portals stopped working, leaving the many races unable to return to their home worlds. Rumors of working portals still exist, and many adventurers make a career of just seeking out these portals or other lost magics/technologies.

While most of the world is going to appear as a late middle ages, there could be just about anything out in the "unknown lands". There are even areas that are in "flux" where the portals didn't quit shut down and instead created a strange area that transforms back and forth between the "local" and "other" worlds.

So, as you can see, just about anything can be thrown into this world. This gives me an excuse to freely pilfer from myth, fantasy, sci-fi, and still have everything feel like it is consistent with the world. The starting "known world" is going to be a fairly stable middle ages type area, but even here there can be pockets of non-standard fantasy or sudden new transformative elements.

Back to the Dungeon Again

The last session of Dungeon Fantasy I ran was back in August of last year (2014). Since then my group has tried some other games, with myself or others GMing. Unfortunately, these games have had a lot of issues that have prevented them from maintaining momentum or even just taking off.

So after some discussion ...

... we've decided to return to Dungeon Fantasy.

My DF campaign was one of the most successful and long running games I've had. The game ran weekly with very few interruptions. Character creation, equipment lists, and much of the GM lists and pre-campaing prep is simplified.

There were a few bumps in the road last time though. The biggest is that I never felt totally comfortable with some of the game types that I was trying to run. First was the sandbox "Caverns of Chaos" which ended up being too large for me to properly prep before I knew where the players were going to go. Then there was the mega-dungeon which I was never fully comfortable with, having never run one before.

This time around I am going to focus of smaller "seek and return" type games, at least until the game has gotten some solid feet under it.

I am also going to start at a "lower level" this time. Players are going to use the 125 templates from Henchmen. Then we are going to build towards the big powerful heroes that are face punching dragons.

We'll see how it goes. And I hope that this will also get me back to blogging a bit more often!

See you in the dungeon.

Technomancer Campaign Planning Form

Well the Monster Hunters game never took off so after a bit a of break I decided to try something new. I'm going to be running a "monster hunter" game... but in Technomancer. Here is the Campaing Planning Form.

This form is a modified (and reduced) version of the Extended Campaign Planning form from How to be a GURPS GM.

Campaign Planning Form

Campaign Name: D.E.U.S. Exterminators

Genre: Monster Hunters
Tech Level (TL): 8 (modern)

Power Level: Heroic

Realism Level: Cinematic

Synopsis: Demons, Elemental, Undead, and Spirits. There is nothing these guys won't go after ... if the price is right.

Rules

Books Used:

• Basic Set 1&2
• High Tech - For additional weapons and equipment options.
• Magic - For spells
• Bio-Tech - For Spells
• Technomancer - Setting, templates, etc.

Optional Rules:

• Buying Success (B347)
• Player Guidance (B347)
• Flesh Wounds (B417)

Characters:

Starting Points: 180

Disadvantage Limit: -75 (-70/-5)

Suggested Character Concepts: Hellhound, Investigator, Warlock
Secondary Concepts: Alchemist, Criminal, Rescue Team Member, Hacker, Technomancer

Attribute Options:

• ST: 8-18
• DX, IQ, HT: 9-16
• HP, FP, Will, Per: -/+ 3
• Basic Speed: -/+ 0.75
• Basic Move: -/+ 3

Social Traits

Low/High TL: Not allowed

Status: Not used

Wealth: Struggling to Wealthy

Cultural Familiarity: Anglo, Central Asian, East Asian, Eastern European, Latin American, North African, South Asian, Sub-Saharan, West Asian, and Western European

Languages: English (required), any other modern or anchent

Advantages/Disadvantages/Skills:
(see trait list)

Required Advantages:

• Legal Enforcement Powers (Bounty Hunter's Licence) [5]