So,
I fell in love (or in froth) with 13th
Age. I was hacking the Black Hack for a more “heroic” feel, and I
realised while working on it that 13th
Age was doing basically everything I
was
trying to do. So I bought the books and got cracking. Try 13thAge!
The
campaign is a weird one. Set up to be a low-maths catharsis for a
friend in front-line healthcare, I’m using the clickbait
system for setting up the world. Basically, you do as little prep as
possible and discover the world alongside your players. Establish
what you need to prep a session and leave the rest hanging. I
amended the Icons to fit the world as we went along. By the time
character generation was finished, there were nine new Icons and four
waiting to be adapted. Not
that the Prince of Shadows ever doesn’t
apply.
 |
| Lantmor is said to be Father Dragon's slowly sinking corpse. |
Welcome to Waageburg
It’s
smoky, it’s grimy, it’s coastal, it’s gross. It’s a 1600s
Baltic-style
trading town on the edge of the Black Colonies, which
are maintained by the
Amarantine Empire for their valuable oil deposits. It’s ruled… it
was
ruled
by Duke von Waage, the greatest general in the western empire. His
power was such that he personally controlled nine drakes, a feat
unmatched in the lands of men (1).
But
the Duke is dead. His drakes fled
before they could be sedated and reassigned to new masters, and
so the
Seneschal of Waageburg has hired bands of adventurers to hunt them
down. They cannot be allowed to prey on the Black Colonies (2). They
must be brought down. The imperial court in Jamaranz is too far away
to promote a new Duke quickly, and in the meantime, order must be
maintained.
The
party unite in search of the missing drakes and immediately start
looking for clues. With some great rolls to investigate, they
discover that: drakes are born in the mountains; their scales are
made of stone; the Duke might have been poisoned; the Duke definitely
was
poisoned; he was poisoned with a rage potion that gave him a lethal
fit of apoplexy, rage and adrenaline; the Duke’s death infected the
drakes; most of the drakes are injured from fighting in their roost
atop
Waageburg Keep.
Vik,
our gnoll druid from the far lands to the east, got a crucial clue
from a maid who was worried the drakes had been sent out against the
Shorn Men: the drakes went north (3). Wojtek
the Fightbear, an armoured bear, discovered that the Shorn Men were a
radical separatist movement who cut their hair short in defiance of
Imperial fashion and plot to take over the Black Colonies to form a
separate nation.
The Voyage to Bonemire
They
headed out into the wilderness, unerringly led by Akhyar
Nassar,
a former member of the Imperial Corps of Scouts. Seriously, he rolled
so well they were in sight of the main part of the session within
half an hour. Sorry random encounters!
Skollston
the tiefling barbarian (a
former
Alferez in the Imperial army) suggested they rest for the night in
the village of Muddlewood, where they discovered several members of
the village had recently cut their hair and disappeared into the
forest.
And another party of adventurers (or Imperial Scouts) had ridden
through grim-faced that day.
During
the night, their rest was disturbed by a wilderfolk raid (4).
Goatfaced beastmen burst into the village, slaughtering sleeping
villagers and focussing on the inn where Vik and Wojtek slept by the
fire. (4) Waking, the heroes fought hard against two groups of mooks,
a great-axe wielding champion and a shaman. Bloodied – especially
by the shaman’s battle
curse – they eventually triumphed. Vik slew the champion and Akhyar
blew the shaman’s head off with his arquebus (5). It was 2am by
then, so bed it was. As
they headed back to sleep, Vik’s second Icon die revealed itself as
a distant cousin offered him a healing potion and rune for his spear.
They
woke at dawn, learning that the wilderfolk had last been seen by
colonists in their great-grandparents’ day. Heading
out again,
they rolled well again to make their way through the dark woods of
the Muzzle. In fact, they found some semi-hidden paths through the
woods and took them. Finally, a random encounter!
An
armoured bear, sobbing and stinking in the woods, deprived of his
armour. His name was Smirdant, and he was very upset that humans had
stolen his armour because they said he’d broken his oaths. The
party quickly agreed to help him and successfully intimidated the six
men who had taken it. It turned
out Smirdant had
broken his agreement to be a guard when he realised they were
travellers and not stationary miners.
Interrogation
of the six quickly revealed they were Shorn Men, and that they had
set up an HQ in Bonemire Howe. There were several hundred barrels of
gunpowder there, scores of arquebuses, and a garrison of thirty men,
their leader Custas, and their druid Yohn Bone-eye. It turned out one
of the drakes they were chasing had
landed on the Howe, and Yohn had commanded the earth to move to give
the drake sanctuary. The Shorn Men were trying to make it serve them!
Smirdant
proved himself to genuinely be a terrible person when Wojtek failed
his Charisma
check to convince the bear to join them in their fight. Despite owing
the party big
time
for getting his armour back, he just sidled off saying he was going
back to Karalistland and
never coming back to human lands.
Bonemire
Howe
The party took one of their Shorn Men prisoners as a guide and tied
the rest up in the woods (6). He guided them not to the top of the
Howe, but the main gate, which Yohn had opened to let the dragon in.
Skollston lit a torch to light the way and its smoke triggered a
trap! A hail of stakes came flying out of the ceiling and only
Skollston failed his PD save. Of the party, at least. Their guide
also lost half his HP to a stake, and Skollston took the chance to
use his injury as a motivational tool… the party soon knew
everything about the Howe’s layout.
It was decided that Yohn Bone-eye was the key, because only he could
move the earth to let the dragon out. So he had to be eliminated.
They “snuck” down towards his room in the belly of the Howe.
“Snuck”. Skollston and Wojtek attracted the drake’s attention
as they passed it on the stairs and took fire damage.
Then the labyrinth. This was a group skill check with two halves;
finding their way through, and surviving the mind-rending geometry of
this ancient place. They broadly succeeded. They found their way
through and only took 1 psychic damage each.
The
battle against Yohn was brutal (7). The party almost slew him in turn
one, aided by Akhyar’s incredible stacking critical hit ability,
but he survived long enough to call a clayguard forth from the
ground. Yohn called the very clay in their bones to rebel, and
everyone took
serious damage. The clayguard was almost impervious to damage, and
took a long time
to
slay, even after Yohn was slain. Vik
cut his head off and put it on his spear to intimidate any survivors.
Wearily,
they re-ascended. I gave them an offer: sacrifice a recovery and beat
the remainder of the Shorn Men. They agreed, and didn’t
have to try
and stop
Custas Yolvus escaping.
Lucky them.
Vik wanted to talk to the drake instead of killing it. He rolled 29
in the end, and learned that while drakes have a heartfelt genetic
need to be psychically bonded to a partner, it did not want to go
back to being mentally dominated as it was under the Duke’s
command. A slight swamp of moral quandary briefly enveloped the party
before Akhyar once again led them past my random encounters and back
to Waageburg.
Session Conclusion
There
the seneschal refused to pay them properly for the dragon, since
while it was contained, it wasn’t exactly returned dead or alive to
Waageburg. However, the party were rewarded for their slaughter of
various Shorn Men and the noted renegade Yohn Bone-Eye. The
party wanted to keep Bonemire Howe for themselves, but the Seneschal
derisively denied them a huge prehistoric fort and a drake because
they were four randoms who had just come together that morning.
Real
life intervened and the session ended right on schedule, 3.5 hours
after it started. The campaign to discover where
the Duke’s drakes went
shall
continue. Especially since the players want to try and bond with
drakes themselves. DC35… Pre-requisites not yet established!
Campaign Notes
-
The wilderfolk have returned to attack human lands after three generations of peace.
-
Drakes are born of the mountains and return there half on auto.
-
The Shorn Men are a real and growing force in the Black Colonies, and they are well-armed.
-
Custas Yolvus escaped from Bonemire and may now have a grudge against the characters. (I mean, he definitely does – they killed his druid!)
-
Drakes want to be bonded, but they don’t want to be dominated.
-
Four of the nine drakes are now accounted for; one is trapped in Bonemire Howe, and three others were slain by other parties of adventurers (d3 roll).
Addenda
(1)
The Cid caste of the Amarantine Empire are founded on the notion that
they are dragonblooded,
and thus the only people in the world who can bind drakes to their
will. The great warriors of the empire control one or more drakes
each. Mechanically, they can dominate 1 drake per level.
(2) A drake is like a warplane; expensive, ultimately expendable, and
not to be left in the wrong hands.
(3) This was the info his Icon die (Ashen Empress) won him.
(4) I used goblin and orc stats to represent different sizes of
beastfolk in classic GW style.
(5)
Arquebus: A
home-brewed weapon. D10 damage, reload requires a move and a quick
action consecutively.
(6) When they got back to Waageburg they realised they had forgotten
the other nationalists that they’d tied up in the woods. No-one
seemed too bothered.
(7)
Yohn was a Derro Sage, and the clayguard was a Derro Maniac. I
reskinned
all abilities to be earth-based. This
was two level 4 monsters vs one party of four level one characters…
they survived – without
the Escalation Die!
That’s
on me.
