Session 34: Return to the Center of the Earth

Time 4/16/23-4/21, rest 4/22, active 4/23
PC: Blair, Bigtoe, Braxton
Hench: Selena, -Andi, Goda, Plat, Jahanaray, Kissere, Isabel

#ACKS

We were in danger of having one of those hapless sessions with no plan or stated goal, but the group came together begrudgingly to aid Bigtoe in trying to find more of what he’s calling “purple cake”, a mysterious rock-like substance that appears to have electrical and combustible properties. The Machinist had put in the work in downtime to reverse engineer the revolver and ammunition that they had found on their first trip to the center of the earth and he wanted more.

Not really having a good source for the extremely rare material, they did recall that there was a generator that seemed to use it as a fuel source from their first adventure there that they just couldn’t escape with the first time. So off they went cake hunting.

The first bit of the session was setting a proper Order of Battle for Bigtoe’s MASSIVE ARMY (6 platoons). If they ran into anything overland they were almost certainly going to engage it. Again much frustration was expressed over how in ACKS the General of the Army dictates how rewards are split, but them’s the breaks. I reiterated that if they’re going to get into the mass combat stuff, they gotta get on board with how it works. These are growing pains that I think anyone who’s made that Tier transition in ACKS can attest to.

Unfortunately, they didn’t encounter anything hostile on their way to the wide gash in the plains northwest of Teutch’s domain. They descended down into the canyon along a wide ramp in the northern side, eventually curling into the earth and continuing miles and miles down. They finally reached the entryway to the small dungeon that they recalled from their previous trip, still without an encounter.

They formed up their principals and made entry through heavily verdigrised bronze doors where the gravity promptly reversed and dropped them to the ceiling. Some of the PCs had experienced this already and were prepared (since they reminded me that it was a thing. Listen it’s been months, shut up) but others had to get situated before they could continue.

I had rolled restocking for this place after it had been empty for ages and stopped at an ogre lair that was just gonna squat here and hold it against most other threats. The big bronze doors in the place were notoriously loud and/or difficult to open due to weight and time so I rolled whether or not the guards in the first room had heard the groaning hinges and grinding. They did and the reaction wasn’t particularly hostile, so the ogres gathered a welcoming force of like 5 or 6 and waited in their barricaded room like they’d probably done many times before.

The group did their best to creep up on the door and listen and check for traps and all the things that PCs do. Once convinced that there were no traps, Bigtoe tried the door but it didn’t budge. After a moment a bang on the other side was followed by a poorly voiced, “Go ‘way” from the DM.

Blair tracked around while Bigtoe offered some gold for the inhabitants to retrieve the items that they came for and bring them to him. The ogres were keen on getting gold but not so much with fetching things that they didn’t understand. They opened the door to discuss in earnest and it boiled down to them demanding to see the gold before they let the party through to wherever.

Negotiations devolved due to a mutual distrust which was just tragic, eventually leading to combat. The ogre champion to the rear identified that these conditions were not to the ogres’ advantage and called to pull back to a much larger chamber behind them. Several of them did, but three didn’t follow orders and kept attacking, convinced they could squash the little annoying dwarf in the doorway.

Some military oil was thrown, arrows were fired, and a lot of swings were missed against Bigtoe’s obnoxious ac, but eventually the party got a foothold in the smallish entry chamber. A theme throughout this walking battle was my leniency with firing missiles through doorways, over heads, to back ranks, etc. Looking back it was a little ridiculous BUT had the enemy had any ranged weapons they’d have done the same thing so I guess it’s a wash.

The ogres had pulled back to their primary chamber, the old throne room where Bigtoe found the original pistol. The party formed up to follow, again trying to offer gold to go get the things from underneath. The ogre chief beyond demanded that they leave the gold and once satisfied that it was enough, would allow the party to go get whatever small-people things were so important.

The party threw a torch down the wider entry hall to the throne room, revealing many more ogres than they had previously seen. One of the ogres threw the torch back at the party but now they knew they were facing a much heavier threat. They didn’t have a map from their previous visit here but they had a surprisingly good take on the place. They knew there was a way around the flank to a side passage but the group decided on a frontal assault and the fight was on since they clearly weren’t just going to leave thousands of gold to the whims of stupid and greedy beastmen. Again the DM poorly voiced the ogre chieftain, this time apparently I sounded like a vampire.

Here is where I had to determine how the ogres were going to react. I love the 2d6 gradient for quick decision making. They rolled in their own favor so the chief used his big brain to send a flanking force around the same side tunnel that the party had thought about using. I tracked how long it would take with a penalty for some smaller doors/hallways that they’d have to squeeze through.

Meanwhile, the double doors and larger entry way to the throne put the ogres in ranks of two as they charged in under a hail of fire and magic from the party. The fight took a long time, mostly due to the ogres’ large pools of HP and the party’s front line having high AC. I missed so many attack rolls by 1 point that I started to consider having shields start breaking but I’m a big softy and gave in to “but it’s magic!” when I told Bigtoe his shield and shoulder were about to give out.

The ogres did down one of the henchmen and landed a few good blows on Bigtoe and Braxton who filled the gap briefly, but otherwise the bottleneck was working and the party was slowly dwindling them down. The enemy made each of their morale rolls even after the chieftain was slain which wasn’t helping matters.

We joke at our table a lot about Summon Berserkers being extremely useful for a first level spell and this fight was no different, using them to hold a breach in the line and get some much needed damage on target. Coincidentally, of the friendlies that were in position to hear the flanking ogres burst through a door down an adjoining hallway, only the berserkers heard it and immediately rushed off to engage. This would prove to be critical to the party’s survival as they still had several ogres on the front line and their high AC members engaged.

Berserkers have like 2 ac and 1+1 HD. There’s no reasonable explanation why three of them could hold a hallway for more than a round against an ogre subchief. But after the first was immediately crushed, the second and third stood their ground for rounds and rounds of single digit attack rolls by the ogre, giving the party enough time to try to react by closing the double doors leading to the hallway and hammering spikes in and barring door handles and whatever else they could think of.

Finally the berserkers were killed and the subchief, backed by another champion, charged the braced door and slammed into it but was unable to burst it open. The ACKS forcing doors rules are pretty cool, a simple +/- for various modifiers giving you a throw that’s quick to calculate and super tense in the moment. After the third try, the subchief burst in, but the party had positioned and prepared for it as best they could and wore him out. Blair the Nightblade had some absurd strikes, one as a backstab due to clever positioning, before being swatted down. The cleave into Plat the bard was very low damage so the chain stopped there and really it was mopping up time.

Before all was said and done, Blair, Andi, and Goda were downed by ogres with a fate point and luck saving Blair and Goda respectively. Andi the cleric needed too much healing to recover and expired. Braxton was out of arrows, Jahanaray’s staff of healing was smoking from overuse, and the crew was discussing their next steps. They were sure there was a score here but they were worried about going straight at it. Someone commented about there being tiers of rooms so the next one would have even MORE ogres. I don’t think they were joking.

The wounded were left with the mercs outside and the party went the flanking route to see what they could discover. They found a trail of coins and goods leading into a natural cavern mouth in one room and were convinced all of their loot had been stolen! They followed the trail easily through a few winding tunnels, eventually cornering some ogre females and young with armloads of food, clothing, and some small treasure.

Gestures were made about murdering them but I pointed out that ogre noncombatants can still fight and would when cornered, so given their extreme lack of resources Bigtoe and Braxton convinced them to just give them the treasure that they had and they’d let them live. The ogres gladly did so and the party looted the remaining lair treasure from the chamber behind the throne room.

Once convinced that the level of the dungeon was clear of threats, the mercs were able to assist in loading the party’s wagons while Bigtoe and Braxton went down the spiral stairs to the next level to retrieve the ultimate goal of the session, a generator, fusebox, and core of “purple cake” material that powered it all. The generator and fusebox had apparently been bashed and mangled, but the core was intact so they called it a win and exfiltrated with their weird items.

Again there were no random encounters on the way back which was a little disappointing as I wanted them to get a taste of mass combat now that they had it organized properly. But that’s alright, we’ll see it next time.

Musings:

Writing session reports is relatively new to me as a gamer. I’ve been playing for decades but only in the last year or so have I started recording anything. I suppose it’s kind of like journaling in that you revisit what’s happened and what it means. I’ve never journaled either but maybe I should?

This session’s only encounter was many pieces of the party’s makeup fitting together well to keep from being obliterated by a superior force. The decision to attack the ogres head on was interesting, but it worked out ok. The flanking subchief would have absolutely killed most of the party’s squishier members without the delaying sacrifice of the berserkers. Maybe I should have only rolled for the PCs and henches to hear the ogres, but once summoned I treat the berserkers like essentially unruly henchmen.

Braxton lamented the lack of a frontliner that can actually do damage. They’re light in fighters right now so I wouldn’t be surprised if some efforts were made to correct that in downtime.

I love memeing things into play from feedback from the players. When they said my masterfully delivered ogre dialogue sounded like a vampire, I considered making the chieftain a vampire ogre. I draw the line at spontaneously feeding into things that will likely kill the party from a one off joke about a bad accent. Ogre chief is tough enough, adding vampirism was a wrinkle too far. Maybe. Probably. But it seemed dirty at the time so I stand by it. Maybe Ug von Borglstad will make an appearance later.

I don’t know what the ogres would have done if offered the gold that was discussed. 2d6 would have driven that for sure. Distrust played a huge role in this session for sure.

Bigtoe got more material to experiment with so I expect a rocketship or a cannon or something here soon. There’s no telling what automatons will pop up soon, although 1:1 time will eat into the bigger ones I’m sure.

Stay tuned for more exciting action from Oberholt, with vampire ogres, mad dwarven scientists, and an all-threatening demonic presence lurking in the shadows.

Session 33: Attack of the notSymbiote!

Time: 4/2/23-4/13, rest 4/14, active 4/15 

PC: Gwendolyn (bard), Luther (paladin), Cracaryn (ranger)
Hench: Amadayo, Mahin, Madrof, Eggie, Jerrod, Jalen, Beydaan

#ACKS

The player group, especially Luther’s player, has done a great job in Downtime trying to get hooks and things situated prior to the game session in the last few weeks. It’s really helped them get the action started. Of course then they decide to hire a bunch of henchmen which slows down the start a bit, but hey can’t win ‘em all.

There was some discussion with Lord Issac (Patron Paladin) about purchasing a treasure map at an absolute steal of a price. It had been sitting on his shelf since the campaign began and was priced to move, so the party snatched it up. Redcorn’s powerful cleric PC was otherwise engaged, so enter Team C’s elven ranger Cracaryn.

They made a special note to visit the grave of Team A’s long time henchman and mascot Cemil, who was slain and failed on a Restore Life and Limb check after the last adventure. They dropped big money on a sweet headstone and Cemil’s hench buddy Amadayo expressed great anger at the loss of his friend and eagerness to take it out on some monster somewhere. Luther the Paladin made some prayers, including an absolutely canon religious gesture suspiciously similar to “jazz hands”.

With map in hand and a general idea of the area to begin the search, they departed for the hills around Bellport, the capital of the region and seat of Baron Heinrick of Donwall. They took an unusual path for this group, traveling the road through the more settled parts of the interior of the region instead of through the borderlands area.

They passed through a town called Millon, a modest sized market where they learned of a local folk hero named Billock who single-handedly killed a band of brigands that attempted to burgle his mill. They didn’t show much interest in Millon and continued on.

Just outside of the agricultural town they discovered a young woman dancing naked around a strange tree in a field. Cracaryn was eager to discuss, you know, anything with her but the party shouted down the idea as a needless distraction and continued on. They made it to the capital with no further interruptions and rested up.

The treasure map that they had was drawn some time ago by an obvious bandit, detailing some hideout with an inventory in one margin of various gems that they had collected and many failed rhymes and verses in the other margins. It appears the author fancied himself a poet but Gwendolyn quickly realized that his talents were not up to snuff on any professional level.

The party trekked out into the hills using one of new henchman’s mapping proficiency to try to narrow in on where to find the score. They surprised a group of hippogriffs and we had to remind Cracaryn that he was not playing Redcorn who is typically obsessed with trying to tame every animal in the wild. For whatever reason that player was struggling throughout the session to separate his new PC from his old, which he doesn’t normally have much trouble with. Made for some laughs throughout as the two personalities are generally quite different.

The hippogriffs were pissed and wanted blood but the party was able to eventually evade them, narrowly avoiding a very dangerous encounter. They were missing the Explorer’s bonus to Wilderness Evasion that the Elven Ranger doesn’t have, but they dodged disaster by virtue of encounter distance.

A few hours into their search they found an area of the mountainous region where the plant life seemed to be afflicted by some sort of pollution or foul magic. They tracked it closer to the source, through a narrow winding cut into a small holler. Several destroyed shacks were in the space, with giant globs and strings of viscous black ooze spread in huge swathes as though exploding from the mangled and destroyed copper stills within. Bodies, undisturbed by scavengers or nature, were strewn about in various forms of death.

Mahin the assassin, who has alchemy and sneaky assassin things, was voluntold to sneak close to see what he could learn. He leapt from being startled and scampered backwards, swearing one of the tendrils of ooze had moved. Channeling their best Imperial Doctrine of the 41st Millenium, the party decided to CLEANSE IT WITH HOLY FIRE.

They didn’t have enough military oil to burn all three of the ooze origin points, so they picked the closest and drilled it dead on with fire. It popped and sizzled and all of the tendrils contracted into larger blobs that were clearly animated. The notSymbiotes had traits like Venom’s symbiote suit from Marvel Comics. When this blog goes viral I’ll have to edit that out so I don’t get sued.

The symbiotes shot out tendrils to nearby trees and slingshotted at the party. I thought for sure they’d do MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF DAMAGE but single digit attack rolls ain’t it. They learned that non-magical weapons that dealt damage to the creatures would disintegrate and even magic weapons would show visible signs of damage. The same held true of armor/magic armor, with damaged armor reducing the wearer’s AC by 1.

The fight was over in short order and the party poked around, discovering a mine shaft in the back of the holler. Luther’s mage hench also collected a sample of the ooze, which they had used Loremastery to discover was some kind of crossbreed experimental thing gone wrong.

They formed up and entered the mine shaft, expecting a dungeon but it didn’t lead very far in before getting to a dead end and partial collapse. There was a lone survivor of whatever happened crouched in behind the caved in spot. He was a thin, malnourished human male tucked in behind a spear and freaking out. The party tried various methods of calming him, but because he registered on Luther’s Detect Evil, he eventually got knocked out when the Paladin ran out of patience with the soft touch techniques.

Cracaryn’s passive elf senses picked up on some cubbies with gems hidden in them, which prompted a full search of the area and revealed the inventoried treasure from the map much to the party’s delight.

They weren’t getting much out of him even when he wasn’t losing his mind, so they gagged him and carried him back to Bellport. Luther wanted to take him to Issac because Paladin but the party opted to try the biggest temple in Bellport first, mostly because any time they mentioned Tharizdun the dude lost it all over again. Fortunately the Bishop Dante Relos was in, meeting with them at the huge gothic cathedral to Heironeous that overlooked the second highest tier of the city’s several levels.

After some discussion, the Bishop indicated that he may be able to help the poor chap for an appropriate donation to the temple’s coffers which the party obliged, putting many gems into the ornate collection dish set aside for just this purpose. Bishop Relos proceeded to drag all sorts of paraphernalia from a compartment under the primary altar and began his ceremony, splashing holy water and waving incense and casting a spell.

As more time elapsed and nothing seemed to happen, the Bishop seemed to grow more frustrated and aggressive with his actions. The afflicted bandit started frothing at the mouth and his feet raised off of the ground, his thrashing form trapped before the altar of Heironeous. Bishop Relos came around the altar and again grew more frustrated, gesturing forcefully and violently with his aspergillum before finally planting it with extreme force into the forehead of the floating, seemingly possessed man.

His skull was crushed, the Bishop Relos being an accomplished member of an extremely martial religion, and his body collapsed anticlimactically to the floor. Relos withdrew the dented and deformed implement and handed it to a waiting acolyte. While the Bishop wiped his hands clean on a white cloth, he spoke to the party in a relatively nonchalant tone, “I am sorry, my children, but he could not be saved.” He dismissed them to the care of another waiting acolyte and retired further into the cathedral.

While being shown the exit, the party was advised by Titus the acolyte to share any more information that they learned regarding Tharizdun or the black ooze with the temple. The party was pretty perturbed about getting no results from their previous interaction and left on rather tense terms after a back and forth about charging for their services and a gentle admonishment about greed that they took as hypocritical.

They contacted Issac’s store in Bellport where they traded a bunch of gems at a loss and some cash for some magic items. Seemed everyone was happy with the trading that happened so who am I to judge? They departed back through Millon and with session time to spare decided to poke around. Gwendolyn wrote a song in the style of the Hero of Canton (the man they call Jayne) about Billock the folk hero. IYKYK.

An attempt was also made to speak with the mayor after finding out he had three wives and a bunch of daughters but they were stuck talking to the butler. When they offered their services as adventurers, the butler said actually, one of the Mayor’s many daughters had been abducted some months back and he was offering a reward for her return. The party was convinced that the Mayor was up to no good, asking all kinds of prying questions about the health and welfare of the women of the household, none of which were present. They didn’t get much to work with from the butler who stayed mostly professional and started to grow uncomfortable with the prying.

The group decided they didn’t really have time to fool around with this town any longer and left for Talston where they arrived without any hassle and ended the session.

Musings:

The session was driven by a treasure map that has been in the game for nearly a year. The original circumstances of the map and treasure had to have changed in all that time right? So I started working through what that might mean. The bandits got into some things they clearly didn’t understand and the Dark Hymn took its toll on their lone survivor. Plus I like Venom.

I gave a chance for an Atonement to work from Bishop Relos, with a save being required by the bandit to repent and allow the exorcism or whatever to happen. My man rolled a 1, so it went another way. The party ran up against things that I’d written into the game a long time ago in Millon as well that I’d frankly forgotten. We’ll see if they care enough about it to take the Mayor up on his offer in another session and how those circumstances may have changed in all this time.