Session 58: They Shall Know… Some… Fear
1/14/2-1/18/24, rest 1/19, active 1/20
PC: Alari, Zektel, Brumdor, Cracaryn
Hench: Elizabete, Domeko, Mel
It’s been a hot minute since the last session, a little over a month. The crew jumped in on Team B to chase a treasure map on behalf of Bigtoe the Wombat (PCPatron Machinist) that led to some technology of some kind in the hills west of Bellport.
They had parked in Millon, the domain of John Redcorn III (PCPatron Cleric), and got into the game pretty quick, traveling to Riverstride. Some insignificant random encounters with a few elves and a squire out of Riverstride didn’t slow their progress at all.
Bigtoe had loaned them a truck to help carry the loads and loads of loot sure to be found at the location indicated by the map. Their last interaction had set the truck and it's escort to waiting for them in Northbridge. After 5 weeks, the soldiers were a little grumpy. The weather was cold and somewhat wet, with a bit of snow on the regular, and they were ready to do whatever they were out there to do and then go home.
I didn’t have a plan for this map. With these kinds of things I generally let whoever finds the map kinda meme into existence the general theme. I then try to find a way to apply it that isn’t them just creating customized treasure for themselves. The hook was technology involved so while they traveled I was considering what that could be.
En route to the location, the party came across a lone Medusa in a secluded cabin. Her reaction check was pretty friendly so I played her reclusive. But she’s still a Medusa so when they knocked on the door she “forgot” to put her hood on when she answered. Fortunately they were lucky on the surprise roll and were able to avert their eyes. Zektel the Shaman attempted to woo his new girlfriend to little success and the party bounced. The shaman did leave a small “selfie” of a small picture of a snake for his new gf, but unsolicited snake pics are never popular.
The adventurers found the location indicated by the map on the first search roll. The soldiers and truck camped outside while the party investigated a wide hole in the ground descending at a pretty sharp angle. Brumdor the dwarf was able to determine there weren't any tool marks like it was dug, but it clearly wasn’t natural. Meanwhile, the others located some very large sheets of strange metal that were discarded nearby, kind of leaf shaped and convex and super heavy.
They tied off some safety lines just in case and descended into the earth. The tunnel let out into a large cavern with stalactites, mites, and speleothem (we had to Google that during session). A wide path of destruction led eastward and they could just barely see some sort of artifice at the edge of their torchlight which revealed itself to be a teardrop shaped pod of some sort designed to carry a handful of something the size of hill giants. Exit ramps led down from the pod and into a scene of absolute carnage.
Skeletons of hundreds of goblins and hobgoblins lay in piles all around the pod and led in a path further to the east, their injuries indicating extremely destructive impact and rending damage. They found large shell casings which due to Brumdor’s experience with some other found firearms from the campaign they were able to identify. The group also found a human skull with weird metal bits protruding from it and were lucky enough to determine it was trapped before setting off the grenade placed underneath. Brumdor was able to disarm it and they were picking up quite a little collection of alien artifacts.
At the far end of the cavern, there was a corridor leading out. This appeared to be where the battle broke for the beastmen as the corpses thinned and there were many more kills from behind as the creatures fled. Tracking indicated that it was a single giant sized biped responsible for all the death.
I’ve had 40k on the brain lately. If it isn’t already obvious, an Astartes drop pod delivered a Space Marine to Oberholt. He suffered not the Xenos to live and cut a path through on his own mysterious mission. The party figured this out here. They aren’t 40k junkies or anything, but they were suspicious and I dropped a picture of a servo skull and drop pod and they recognized the aesthetic.
This revelation had them very nervous the rest of the session that they would have to fight a Space Marine. Not being versed in 40k helped because they really had no idea what to expect; they just knew they were tough and could obviously wreck beastmen.
Cracaryn was able to continue to track the Astartes beyond the next intersection, bringing them to a spot where the supersoldier had punched a hole through the deadend and into a gothic chapel of some kind. There was a double-headed golden eagle prominent over an altar before which was kneeling a giant suit of power armor with a chainsword and a bolter tempting the adventurers.
The game halted here for a bit while the players tried to figure out how to approach the situation. They settled on Zektel’s snake companion as a scout. It slithered forward and disturbed some weird purple smoke or mist that wafted around like a heat haze wherever the snake moved beyond the threshold of the opening, but it didn’t seem to bother the creature. It returned to report that it didn’t smell, taste, or otherwise sense anything living in the room.
Again, a big halt while they hemmed and hawed over how to approach it. Was the warrior undead? A trap? What was the purple smoke? They tried to send henchmen in after long discussions over how likely dangerous it was. They mostly refused, but the thief hench Mel agreed to try to steal the golden eagle for 100gp gem and a PC’s share of the sale. The party agreed and off he went.
He sneaked his way along one wall to the edge of his light, but needed more to properly inspect the decoration on the wall. He signaled to the group who tried to throw like 4 or 5 torches that all went out. I had them roll 1-2 on a d6 to see if they were extinguished by the obviously horrible nature of this place. Eventually, Alari decided to creep in with a torch and light his way.
It was very tense as the thief pried and wrenched at the eagle, eventually pulling it loose. Everyone froze but nothing happened. The thief’s demeanor immediately changed, though, as he tucked the eagle under his arm and strolled past the kneeling figure. He patted the massive pauldron nonchalantly on his way by and exited the room. When prompted to stay and aid in getting the rest of the loot, he snickered and said nah, he’d be at the truck with the eagle. The party let him go.
With the eagle stolen and the armor interacted with no negative effect, the PCs were feeling pretty confident. The next target was the chainsword that was laying on the ground as though dropped. Alari moved in to get it.
Now, I had no idea what this map was going to lead to. Once I determined the Astartes busted into this chapel for… reasons… I wondered ok, what’s here? A random encounter gave me an energy draining wight lair. I turned them ethereal to explain how they could even contest a space marine and there we were. Our mysterious visitor died to spectral enemies his weapons could not harm, a last prayer on his lips, and the warp-magic pocket dimension this chapel was in kept the creatures trapped.
ACKS sneaking is weird at first, but basically check surprise, then if that fails check sneak skills. The thief and Alari were extremely lucky at first with their surprise rolls. I ruled the torchlight made no difference to surprise since the creatures weren’t really “seeing” into the room. Normally, if one side of an encounter has light then they cannot surprise the other. So it was just flat rolls which went their way. Until Alari grabbed the chainsword, which prompted another roll, which she failed.
The enemies materialized out of the warp and surrounded her. She was not surprised but lost initiative and was drained to death immediately. The rest of the party were shocked and most fled, but one heroic craftpriest henchman Domeko passed a massive morale check and attempted to turn the creatures. He got 2 of them but then lost the next initiative and was also drained to death.
The PCs were unwilling to leave Alari’s magical equipment and the space man’s gear, oh and totally wanted to recover their friends’ body for proper rites, so they crept back to the entrance and peeped in. The room was as they left it, two desiccated corpses and the motionless Astartes power armor. They could not see the enemy creatures.
They noticed the skull that they had picked up from the trap was sparking and reacting to proximity to this room. Domeko was Zektel’s henchman and dead right at the door, so he devised a plan to reach in with the servo skull in one hand and grab Domeko with the other to drag him out. The skull sparked to malfunctioning life, whining in wild vox tones that prompted a save vs paralysis due to the shock of it. Zektel failed and dropped the skull in the room but was able to retrieve his henchman’s body.
The skull rolled into the room and wailed and whined and screeched, drawing the wights back to the plane to swirl around and inspect it. Meanwhile, Alari’s body and the loot were 50ish feet further in. While the creatures were distracted, Zektel rushed in to grab what he could, getting a hold on Alari and the chainsword and dragging them both out. I ran this on surprise rolls too, since the wights were distracted. He made it going in but failed going out.
The shaman lost initiative and was certain he was going to be drained to death, but Brumdor the Machinist had like months ago developed a batman style grappling hook shooter thing. He was able to hook Zektel and yank him to safety before the creatures got him, their spectral hands pushing and forcing the threshold at the door to bulge out into the corridor.
Some attempts were made to retrieve the servo skull with the hook but each one revealed that the veil between worlds was breaking and the creatures were piercing further into the hallway. They abandoned the attempt and fled with their loot and allies’ bodies. They loaded up everything they had found onto the truck, all the while hearing loud ripping and tearing dimensional sounds coming from the hole behind them. Pedal to the metal and they were out, the truck heading back to Bigtoe far to the west while the PCs were returning to New Bridge. The thief Mel would not part with the eagle so he went with the truck.
A lot of discussion was had about trying to restore the drained characters but that just wasn’t going to work. They confirmed with a priest in New Bridge and opted to burn the dead on pyres so that they would not return as wights later. They ended the session there.
