Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[SavageGamerGirl]

This is the campaign journal for my Colonial Fantasy campaign. I like to use the TV Tropes website to help define my more unorthodox settings, and here are the entries that help describe Colonial Fantasy.

Alternate History: What if magic and monsters existed in a world otherwise like our own during the dawn of the age of reason? Because of this, Colonial Fantasy is an example of...

Like Reality Unless Noted: I’m not engaging in massive changes to the timeline. Minor things may be different here and there, but the same events happened in the same order, and with the same results. For example, the harsh winter of 1777 at Valley Forge came about as a result of British spellcasters altering the weather to hinder the Continental Army. Basically, history happened as we would recognize it unless I say otherwise. This time period in our world was also known as...

The Cavalier Years: Muskets, rapiers, and swashbuckling! Naturally, the presence of magic and whatnot leads to a big ol’ heaping bowl of...

Anachronism Stew: The setting features technological developments well beyond the era; some inventions even surpass what we can do today! The world of Colonial Fantasy has avoided what TVTropes calls “Medieval Stasis.” Technology developed right along with magic. Because it’s a fantasy counterpart of historical Colonial America, there are many instances of...

Historical Domain Characters: Franklin, Jefferson, and other 18th-century figures are re-imagined with fantastic twists. They are different from reality in that Franklin and Jefferson, for example, are “natural philosophers” who can create...

Fantastic Science: This is a big part of the fun of the setting. This particular genre is called...

Clock Punk: Bizarre vehicles, automatons, and other creations of the astounding world of SCIENCE! The power of REASON! There are even...

Clockwork Creatures: Automaton servants, soldiers, and steeds. Of course, because there are wizards and natural philosophers and all that, there is a strong element of...

Magic Versus Science: Of the “Magic is an Ideology” variety mentioned on that tropes page. Magic-users and natural philosophers tend to rub each other the wrong way. However, natural philosophers are a bit more eager than wizards to share their secrets and fantastic inventions with the world at large, resulting in a...

Purely Aesthetic Era: There are some rather modern conveniences for a setting such as this. And, to be honest, of the things I like most about this era and games in settings similar to it, is the...

Gorgeous Period Dress: Long coats, buckled shoes, tricorn hats, and billowing dresses! Love it!

As always, I’ll add more tropes as I find them!

[SavageGamerGirl]

We originally started playing this in Pathfinder, but I’m switching it to Savage Worlds. To retain continuity within the journal, I’ve made some minor edits in theses entries to remove the d20 trappings.

Due to an unfortunate message board crash, the first two entries in the session journal were lost. I’ve summarized them to the best of my recollection.

At the start of the campaign, the party consisted of:
Janette Herbert, Novice duelist of French descent from New Orleans, and her manservant Frederick
Hitoshi, Novice 1/2 Dutch, 1/2 Japanese monk (using the Adept Edge from the Fantasy Companion) from Japan, the child of a Dutch trader and a Japanese woman (He is indeed far from home, but — with the player’s approval — I’ve come up with a background story to explain why he left Japan.)
Paul Rowlend, Novice freed slave warrior
Kimberly O’Brien, Novice witch (using AB: Magic) of Irish descent from Salem, and her manservant Jacob

Episode 1: Wreck Ashore
The party were hired in Boston by Mr. Elias Putnam to transport lamp oil to the Cape Cod Lighthouse.

When they arrived at the lighthouse, they found it abandoned and in disarray. The party also discovered the bodies of the lighthouse keeper’s wife, Emmaline Waltham, and their two children. They could not find the body of the keeper, John Waltham. They were confronted by the ghost of Emmaline Waltham, and from her nearly incoherent ranting they learned that several men had attacked them. Hitoshi saw a false lighthouse, and the party were able to deduce that the attackers were actually ship-wreckers.

Paul stayed behind to bury the bodies of Mrs. Waltham and the children, while the others ran to confront the ship wreckers. The pirates were led by a cruel woman named Angelica Asher, and had already successfully wrecked one ship, the Lady Jane. They defeated the pirates and Capt. Asher, but were still unable to find John Waltham. (Capt. Asher wanted him for herself, and when she realized that she could not have him, she tied him to the ship’s anchor and dropped him in Cape Cod Bay.)

They returned to Boston to collect their pay and let Mr. Putnam know what had happened to the lighthouse.

Episode 2: Jenkin Lives!
The party were hired by Mr. Nathan Phillips in Arkham (yes, that Arkham!) to help him remove a curious rat problem from a house he had renovated in hopes of opening a boarding house. The boarding house was tended to by Goodwife Blankenship and her two teenage sons.

During their week night there, Hitoshi and Kimberly heard strange noises in the attic. Investigating, they found that the attic had taken on bizarre angles. Paul and Janette joined them, but both were driven out of the attic by the sanity-warping effects of the surreal geometry. Hitoshi and Kimberly chased a large rat into a corner of the room and found themselves in the basement of the cottage. They killed the large rat and everything seemed to return to normal. Kimberly found evidence of a permanent teleport circle spell in one corner of the basement. The following day Kimberly reported the event to the Witch-Hunter General of Arkham, Mr. Lazarus Latham.

(Here begins the part of the original session journal that I could recover.)

Finally, all of the borders were assembled for supper, and Mr. Phillips joined them. He was pale and visibly shaken. He told them that Lazarus Latham had visited him, and that he had worked out an arrangement with the witch hunter to keep the history of the house a secret. A local parson and Mr. Lazarus were going to come to the house on the next Sabbath to bless it and cleanse it of its dark past. Mr. Phillips asked them if they would be willing to remain in the house until then just to make sure that the rat problem was handled. Convinced that the job was now complete and that her terrifying experience in the attic was just a nightmare, Janette packed up her things to return to Boston. She wanted no further part of this strange house or its filthy rodents. The others agreed to remain at the house until Sunday.

Episode 3: The Doom Below Arkham
A new player joined the campaign, running:

Caty Sparrow, Novice pirate of English descent

Janette had left the house, insisting on not returning after her “nightmare” and the death of the large rat Hitoshi had confronted. While going for a run along the waterfront, she (literally!) ran into one Caty Sparrow, disembarking a vessel at the docks. The two struck up a conversation, and soon discovered a remarkable coincidence!

Caty was a sailor on the Lady Jane who survived the ship wreck and managed to make it ashore. She made her way to the town of Wellfleet, where she later learned of the heroes from the Explorer’s Guild who had confronted and killed Capt. Asher. She went to Boston to find them and thank them, and there she learned that they had gone to Arkham. And here, by amazing fortune, she had encountered one of the very heroes she was looking for!

Since Caty wanted to express her gratitude to the others, Janette took her back to the house to introduce them. While they were getting acquainted and remarking on the incredible stroke of luck, Goody Blankenship went into the basement to fetch another round of ale while her sons prepared their supper. The friendly chat ended abruptly with a scream from the basement! All but Paul dashed to the cellar stairs; Paul ran to his room upstairs to fetch his spear.

In the basement, Gdw. Blankenship was cowering in a corner, pointing in hysterics at a trio of large, black rats. The heroes managed to kill two of the rats, but the third vanished through the wall — Kim noticed that the chalk etchings of the teleport circle had been refreshed! She told the others of the magic, forgetting that Gdw. Blankenship was still present. She fled, her fear even greater now that she knew the supernatural was involved, to fetch her sons and leave the house. Paul intercepted her and tried to calm her down, then joined the others as they bravely ventured forth through the wall.

They found themselves in the darkness of an underground cavern, lit by their torch and lantern. The smell of decay was very strong around them. They moved into a room that showed signs of having been worked, with a passage to the left and the right. The right passage was long and dark, extending beyond the reach of their vision, and the stink of death was strongest there. The left passage led to a wooden door guarded with a large padlock. Caty started working on picking the lock as the others investigated the passage to the right. There they were assailed by more large rats, and one of them so confounded Paul that he struck his own foot with his spear and fell unconscious from the pain. One of these rats fled into the darkness down another corridor as the heroes retreated to tend their wounds.

Caty got the lock open, and the heroes found that the room beyond was appointed as a crude bedroom. Janette removed the dusty bedclothes from the bed to give Paul a comfortable place to rest. Another door in this room led to a pantry in which all of the food had long since spoiled. Hitoshi and Kim found some interesting items on the bookshelf; two scrolls, some fragments of paper, some potions, and a dusty copy of the Malleus Maleficarum. Kim finally admitted that she was a witch, not a witch-hunter, and used her powers to read the scrolls. One proved to be a scroll of healing, inscribed by a powerful witch, and she used it to cure Paul’s terribly wounded foot. The potions were likewise curative, and she handed them out to those who’d been wounded in the fight with the rats. The other scroll held the teleport spell. Kim kept that one for herself. A chest at the foot of the bed was also locked, but Paul was able to simply tear it open with his impressive strength. Inside were dry-rotted and dusty clothes, and a copy of a book that no one present could read.

The time had now come to venture down the cave where that last rat had fled to. It took a sharp u-turn, and Hitoshi, in the lead, saw a light at the far end. As they drew nearer, the heroes saw a large, dimly-lit room with an altar of some kind at the far end. Before it stood a rat on its hind legs, his forelegs raised... and it appeared to be chanting! Between the heroes and the chanting rat lay five corpses. The rat before the altar turned to look at the heroes, and they saw that instead of the sharp-tooted face of a rat, it had a hideous mockery of a human visage! It hissed at them in some foul tongue as the corpses began to rise and stagger towards them.

Kim and Paul fell into a deep slumber, lulled to sleep by the foul magic of the rat-thing as the zombies drew near. Caty charged forward, as she bore a longtime hatred of undead things. Hitoshi woke Kim, and the report of Janette’s double-barreled wheel-lock pistol did the same for Paul. The rat-thing hid from view as the zombies engaged the heroes. They hit hard, their decaying sinews bolstered by foul energies, but ultimately the heroes were able to defeat them and return them to their eternal rest. The rat-thing, by now, had moved closer to assail them with spells. It summoned a large rat, which Kim dispatched by summoning an eagle. It tried to cast slumber again, but this time the heroes had steeled their resolve, and all were able to shrug off its magic. They surrounded the hideous, squealing thing and ended its life.

The party lined up to leave the cave, having defeated the evil rat-thing Brown Jenkin. As Kim stepped through the teleport circle, she nearly ran over Lazarus Latham, the Witch-Hunter General of Arkham Township. He was crouched down by the circle, examining it in meticulous detail.

He stood up and backed away from her, drawing his heavy mace as he did so. As the other heroes, one by one, stepped through the circle, he demanded to know what had happened to scare Goody Blankeship so badly. He told them that since they were not citizens of the Commonwealth, the station of their souls was not his concern. However, if they were to bring negative influences from “foreign nations and heathen lands,” it was his duty to stop them. He could not allow them to cause upstanding folk of Arkham to fall from the Narrow Way. He insisted that they be gone by tomorrow, telling them that should he find any of them in Arkham after tonight, his judgment would be swift and merciless. Moreover, he wanted to know how they knew of such magic as the permanent teleport circle here in the cellar of the house.

As he held them at bay and refused to let them leave the cellar, he listened to their story of what had transpired. Luckily for Kim and her servant Jacob, none of the other party members spilled the secret of their true nature. They managed to convince him to follow them through the circle to show them proof of their claims of having defeated the living dead and an inhuman sorcerer. He made them go first; Paul at first refused, but Latham fixed him with a scowl so fierce and so intimidating that Paul quickly fell into line behind the others.

They showed him Keziah Mason’s hidden bedroom, the many dead rats, the destroyed zombies, the body of Brown Jenkin, and, at last, the hideous altar before which the rat-thing was chanting when they first saw him. Immediately, Latham’s attitude changed. For the first time, they saw a hint of emotion on his stony face. It was fear. He turned to them, and thanked them for what they had done. He told them that they had done the people of Arkham a great service, and on their behalf he was grateful to them. He didn’t tell them what he knew about the strange altar, however. (For the record, it was an altar to Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, the Dark Man of the Woods, the Black Pharaoh, the Tri-Lobed Eye, the Bloody Tongue, etc. Nyarlathotep has 1,000 forms and I can’t name them all here. )

This time he led the way as the party again left the tunnels behind. Now convinced that the party were indeed decent folk and not here to lead the people of Arkham astray, he relented on his earlier proclamation and allowed them to remain in Arkham until their business with Mr. Phillips was concluded.

A short time later, Kim went to visit Mr. Phillips and told him all that had happened. The poor old fellow was rightly disturbed by what she had told him. His livelihood was at risk if word got out that his boarding house was a scene of such evil. He’d have to find a new housekeeper, that’s for sure, and he’d have to find some way of keeping Goodwife Blankenship quiet about what she’d seen and heard.

Kim and the others — except for Janette — remained at the house until the following Sunday, as they’d agreed. Janette was absolutely done with that house and anything in it. She got a room at a local inn and didn’t set foot back the house. For the remainder of the week, Lazarus Latham set up a cot in the cellar to keep an eye on the teleport circle and to make certain that nothing passed through it. Hitoshi tried to befriend the Witch-Hunter, but that was a difficult task given the man’s stoic and humorless nature. That Sunday, Paul attended church services in the chapel, but none of the party stayed in Arkham long enough to attend the cleansing of the house carried out by Latham and the local pastor.

After their experiences here and their few close calls with the fervent anti-magic sentiment of Arkham, the party decided to leave Massachusetts. They set out on the road leading out from Boston on the week-long trek to New York. The region was fairly well populated, and towards the end of each day of their journey they were able to find a small village or town in which to rest.

Three days into the journey, their progress was halted by a fierce storm that rolled through the area, lashing it with thunder, lightning, and torrential rain. To make things worse, one of the wheels of their cart was damaged and they could go no further. Hitoshi noticed a cave opening a short way up the hill, and the party decided to investigate.

Episode 4: A Dark and Stormy Knight
The cave was not a cave at all! It was obviously man-made, as the entry chamber was a large open area at least 50 ft. to a side. The walls were made of worked stone, and there was a set of double doors on each wall to the left and right, as well as on the wall opposite the entry way. It was large enough and dry enough to make for a good camp site, and they could even bring the horses in out of the weather.

Knowing that it would be dangerous to camp here without exploring the place first, they had the servants work on setting up camp as they investigated. The three sets of doors were locked, and as Caty got to work trying to pick the lock on one of the doors, Paul forced one open with his impressive strength. Eight rats scurried out, and the heroes spent some time chasing after them and killing them so they wouldn’t get to the food. Once the rats were dealt with, Paul began setting up his tent to get ready to settle in for the night.

They had just started to move down the corridor beyond the doors when four gray-skinned, hideous humanoids charged at them. Ghouls! The undead things attacked in a fury, swiping at the heroes with their gory claws. Caty and Hitoshi were paralyzed by the disgusting disease festering in the ghouls’ talons, and one even tried to drag Caty away into the darkness for a meal. Kim blasted them with a fiery bolt and Janette cut down the one that was trying to take Caty away. Hitoshi recovered, and joined the battle. It was a hard-won fight, but soon the four ghouls were destroyed. During this battle, Paul seemed to have such confidence in his companions that he never stopped setting up his tent.

After Caty recovered from her paralysis, Kim gave her one of their potions of healing to get her back on her feet. They continued to explore the hallway. It soon came to a large round room with an opening in the ceiling through which an old rope hung. Rain was pouring down the opening, so it obviously went all the way up to the top of the hill. Paul climbed the rope to see what was up there. When he came back a few minutes later he reported that there was a ring of standing stones seemingly surrounded by a ruined tower up there.

Undaunted, the party moved on down the hallway. The hall terminated in another large room, but before the door to this room was a side passage leading off to the right. Kim and Paul investigated the side passage while Caty, Hitoshi, and Janette ventured on into the room. That’s when things got dangerous...

Paul reached the end of the side passage, coming to an open doorway. As he started to walk through, he became entangled in a spider web with strands as thick as his finger. A spider the size of a man scuttled down from its hiding place and buried its dagger-like fangs into his leg. He and Kim attacked it, him with his spear and she with her heavy crossbow, but it proved to be difficult to injure and bit Paul several times before it finally lay dead at their feet.

As the others entered the room, they saw a stone bier across from them, on which were the skeletal remains of a large man clad gear similar to that of an ancient Greek hoplite. To their surprise, the skeletal thing arose from his resting place and hurled his spear at Janette. It struck her a blow so strong that she fell unconscious at Hitoshi’s feet. This battle was up to Caty and Hitoshi alone. The skeleton drew its xiphos as they drew up to it. It was a skilled warrior, and gave the two heroes quite a fight! At long last, however, a badly injured Caty and Hitoshi were victorious. The skeletal thing fell into a pile of bones and decay.

The party then retreated back to the large entry hall to treat their wounds and examine the treasure they’d found. The skeletal champion’s xiphos was untarnished and in perfect condition despite the millennia, and appeared to be made of an unusual metal. Likewise the breastplate was of fine quality and was undamaged. Caty took that for herself, and wore it proudly after a good cleaning. Janette, when she awakened from her injuries, claimed the xiphos. They also found a belt of the mule, which Kim as able to identify, and Hitoshi took that; it made the load he was carrying feel much lighter. There was other gold and valuable to be dispersed among the party, and that was split evenly.

The two side doors in the main entry hall remained unopened, but the party decided to rest a bit before trying to open them.

Episode 5: The Cruel Fate of Kimberly O’Brien
As of this point in the campaign, the party consists of:

Janette Herbert, Novice duelist
Hitoshi, Novice 1/2 Dutch 1/2 Japanese monk
Paul Rowlend, Novice warrior
Kimberly O’Brien, Novice witch (using AB: Magic)
Caty Sparrow, Novice pirate

(This was a short but sad session... we lost a character. Oops. The players finished most of this short adventure last session, so we spent most of the afternoon playing Fluxx.)

After resting up from the harrowing battle with the skeletal champion and giant spider, the party investigated the two other doors in the main entry hall. It took some time, but Caty was eventually able to pick the lock on the right-side door.

A short, dusty hallway led to a room that contained only a dais and a solid stone chest. Hitoshi and Caty approached the chest, and Caty started picking the lock before checking for traps. (She’s new to roleplaying... some things have to be learned the hard way. ). Darts flew from the front of the chest, which Caty was able to avoid. Hitoshi was struck and injured, but luckily the poison that was on them had dried out long ago. (Ok, so there weren’t really any consequences for Caty on that one... ah, well... )

Inside the chest was a simple leather headband with iron rivets. Kim detected magic on it, but was unable to identify its powers. She put it on, but felt no different.

The next doors also took Caty some time to open, and also led to an abandoned hallway that terminated in a room. This room held twelve stone sarcophagi, six of which had a carving of a hideous, winged face. Three of the faces suddenly erupted with life! Their eyes snapped open, emitting an eerie green glow, and they began screaming as they took to the air. Kim as able to identify the hideous things as devil bats! They flew to attack the party, wailing and biting. One of them opened its distended mouth and emitted a high-pitched shriek that paralyzed Caty. Another flew to her immobile form and kissed her — Kim warned that the kiss of a devil bat can cause the victim to transform into one. Luckily, Caty was of stout heart and was able to resist the horrid change. As the devil bats were killed one by one, the three other faces on the remaining sarcophagi came to life as well. This time, their shrieking paralyzed Kim, and yet again one of them flew to her and kissed her. She felt its evil influence wash through her, and she knew that she was doomed. The transformation was inevitable.

Kim, knowing that she was going to change and knowing that no one in the party had anything that could stop it, decided to spare herself and her companions that horror. She asked her servant, Jacob, to kill her. After protesting — he was a loyal servant for her family back in Salem, and killing his mistress was the last thing on his mind — he carried out her order and shot her with her pistol. Before he shot her, Kim told Jeanette that she always did like her perfume.

The following day, they let Jacob take the carriage so he could transport her body back to Salem for a proper burial according to her native customs. Jeanette took her pistol as a memento. She may not have liked Kim very much, but she would never have wished such a fate to befall her.

They purchased a new carriage in Hartford, Connecticut and the remaining days of the journey to New York were peaceful and solemn. May 23rd, 1786, saw their arrival at New York.

Caty and Paul visited a local physician for healing. Paul had taken a wound from one of the devil bats that was refusing to heal, and he had that remedied. They sold some goods and purchased others, spending a few days and taking advantage of the resources of the large port city.

Episode 6: The Hawk of Gold
Two more characters joined the group. They are:

Mercurius Rutherford, Novice American natural philosopher (Using AB: Weird Science)
Bob Chesterfield, Novice American witch of high but dwindling social status

The heroes spent several more days in New York. Janette enrolled in a fencing school operated by a Monsieur Bergeron, while Hitoshi found temporary work on one of the local fishing boats.

Late one night, well after midnight, Hitoshi was awakened by a noise in his room. He could see no one, and the only other noise was the drone of Paul’s snoring. He then heard a low voice, whispering in Japanese. “Greetings, Hitoshi. You are a difficult man to find.” Hitoshi could still see no one in his room, even with a light. The voice went on to explain that his “Master” had a vested interest in seeing to it that Hitoshi remained among the living. The invisible stranger would not tell Hitoshi who his master was, or why it was so important that Hitoshi not die. The stranger said that he would see to it that no serious harm would come to Hitoshi, and that the human could even call on him should the need arise. At last, Hitoshi asked the mysterious voice what his name was, and he replied only, “I am the Oni with the Iron Hand.” With that, Hitoshi saw a cloud of smoke appear in one corner of the room which slowly trickled away through the open window. Hitoshi was left to wonder why the master of an evil spirit wanted him to remain alive.

Another few days along, Janette entered the Explorer’s Guildhall to see if any new jobs had been posted. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Jacob, Kim O’Brien’s servant! She strode over to speak to him, and the well-dressed gentleman beside him arose first and insisted that she speak to him before his servant. He introduced himself as Ambrose Dexter O’Brien… Kim’s older brother. He told Janette that, in no uncertain terms, that Jacob made it clear to the O’Brien family that it was Janette’s “cowardice” that led directly to Kim’s death. He’d told them that Janette had fled the fight, allowing the devil bats to move up and attack Kim. It made no matter to Jacob that the reason Janette fled was to reload her pistol — she backed down and his mistress paid the price. Apparently, Ambrose believed Jacob’s side of the story. He told Janette that he required satisfaction for his sister’s untimely death. Having heard from Jacob that Janette was a fencer of no small skill, he demanded a duel with her to settle the matter. Also, taken with Janette’s beauty, he offered that he could take his satisfaction from her as a duelist… or as a woman (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge!). She declined the latter “offer” and accepted his challenge.

She selected Frederick as her second, and went to M. Bergeron for advice. He instructed her on the Code Duello. He also managed to set up a location for the duel, far from the prying eyes of the authorities, and hired a physician to tend to the injuries of the duelists. The duel would be held on the farm of Bob Chesterfield, and the attending physician would be Dr. Mercurius Rutherford. (It was a very convenient way to bring in the two new players!)

That night, Frederick and Jacob — with M. Bergeron’s help to translate — worked out the details of the duel between their respective masters over a fine dinner at the George Washington Hotel. The duel would be held at dawn, and would be a duel to the first blood. The seconds would not engage in duel amongst themselves.

By the following dawn, word had gotten round that there would be a duel on Bob Chesterfield’s farm. Dozens of people turned out to see just how good this female fencer they’d heard about really was. Bets were exchanged, most favoring Ambrose O’Brien.

As he was limbering up for the coming duel, Ambrose spoke with Dr. Rutherford. He told the good doctor that he’d pay him triple his fee, but he wanted any injuries Janette may sustain to be well tended to. If nothing else, Ambrose O’Brien was trying to maintain some modicum of gentlemanly honor in the face of swordplay with a woman.

And thus the duel was engaged. Ambrose remained primarily on the defensive — he seemed to be testing Janette’s skill with blade instead of merely dueling her. He struck when he detected weaknesses in her defenses, but her skill with a rapier allowed her to turn aside each of his assaults with a flick of her blade. For her part, Janette did not hold back. She felt a strong need to avenge her own honor at being described as a coward by a mere servant to his master. Not only that, but word had also gotten out that she was a student of M. Bergeron’s fencing school, and he and some of his students were also on hand to watch. Thus it was not only her honor but Bergeron’s honor as well that were at stake. Back and forth the fencers advanced and retreated as first one then the other gained an advantage. At long last, however, the point went to Janette. After a successful parry of Ambrose’s flashing blade, she slipped the point of her rapier past his defense and stabbed deep into his side.

Ambrose at once dropped his blade and backed away, declaring her the winner and the better fencer. To all assembled, he apologized to her and declared her no coward. As Dr. Rutherford tended to his injury — and made certain that he would still collect his triple fee — the gathered crowd cheered Janette’s victory. M. Bergeron was quite proud of his unusual student, and his satisfaction at her display on the field of honor was apparent in his beaming face. Ambrose O’Brien left the Chesterfield farm embarrassed and injured, but with no apparent ill will towards Janette. If nothing else, he was a man of his word, and he did still seem somewhat smitten with her. Despite her rebuke of his advances, she had the distinct feeling that he was not put off just yet…

Later that day, Janette had Frederick deliver Kim’s pistol to Ambrose, along with a letter detailing her side of the events that surrounded Kim’s death. She added that perhaps he shouldn’t be so quick to trust his servant’s stories in the future.

A few more days passed before a job finally became available with the Explorer’s Guild. A Mr. George St. Clair was looking for brave adventurers to help him locate one of his agents, a Mr. William “Big Bill” Hawkins. Hitoshi, Paul, and Janette were surprised to find Dr. Rutherford and Bob Chesterfield also answering the posting — they, too, were members of the guild.

At Mr. St. Cloud’s downtown manor, the party assembled and waited patiently in the parlor as instructed by the butler. At long last Mr. St. Cloud joined them and quickly got to the point. He was a collector of relics and antiquities, and one of his men, Bill Hawkins, had gone missing. Hawkins was following a lead on the fabled Cross of Bartolomeo, lost for over 175 years in the eastern Catskill Mountains. The story was that Havik VanGoud, a Dutch explorer and contemporary of Henry Hudson, ventured into the Catskills on a quest for gold. VanGoud was a wicked man famed for his cruelty and hatred of the native Mohawks in the area. After setting out one fateful day, neither VanGoud nor the dozens of men with him were ever seen or heard from again. Bartolomeo was a Catholic priest accompanying the expedition, and he carried with him a famed relic from Rome itself: a large golden cross studded with precious stones. Apparently, Bill Hawkins had found a Mohawk village that claimed knowledge of VanGoud’s expedition. Hawkins traveled there to investigate, and according to his last communication with St. Cloud, he had discovered that the Cross of Bartolomeo was, indeed, hidden in a cave not far from the Mohawk village of Smallwater. And now, like Havik VanGoud himself, Bill Hawkins had gone missing.

After some haggling, Mr. St. Cloud agreed to pay each member of the expedition $1,000, but only upon the successful return of the Cross of Bartolomeo. He paid them $200 in advance so they could purchase supplies as needed. He ended the meeting with the statement that, should they not return the Cross of Bartolomeo, not only would the not get paid, but he would expect them to repay him some of the money he’d already given them. This was an expensive outlay for him, and he would not accept failure!

The party set out early the following morning, traveling the length of Manhattan Island and to the crossing at Kingsbridge. The end of the first day of travel saw them clatter into a quiet little village on the east bank of the Tappan Zee. Whilst planning the remainder of the trip over dinner at a local tavern, a grizzled old elder of the village regaled them with stories of the region.

The old gaffer told them that they should be glad that the end of their day’s travel found them safe in the village. When they asked why, Old Man VanBrunt replied that they didn’t want to be travelling along Sleepy Hollow Road at night, nor did they want to have to camp in the wilderness north of town. Pressed for more information, the old fellow stoked up his pipe and told them the harrowing tale of the Headless Hessian. The dreadful apparition was supposedly the ghost of a Hessian soldier that took part in a battle north of town. During the battle, it was said, the man’s head was taken clean off by a cannonball. Since that time, nearly 8 years ago, on certain nights the Headless Hessian would ride up and down Sleepy Hollow Road. Some said he was looking for his long lost head, others said he was looking for a new head to replace it, and still others believed that it was merely for the thrill of the kill. The cruel Prussian enjoyed killing so much that even the fires of Hell itself couldn’t contain him.

Although the party members enjoyed the old man’s tale, they weren’t quite sure what to make of it. None of them went out at night to investigate, however. Hitoshi watched the road from the window of the inn at which he was staying, but saw nothing moving along the road before he decided to retire to bed.

They left Sleepy Hollow behind, following the road north for several more days until they came to the crossing at Catskill. There they crossed the river and found that they had to leave the carriage behind. The roads up into the mountains weren’t wide enough for carriage travel. After another day of travel up into the eastern Catskills, they came to the small Mohawk village of Smallwater.

First they passed a trader’s shanty town consisting of tents, lean-tos, and makeshift cabins. Beyond that was MacKinnick’s, a hostel owned and operated by a large, red-bearded, boisterous Scotsman. He welcomed the travelers to his hostel, happy to have paying customers for a change — paying with real coin! Beyond MacKinnick’s on the bank of a small stream was the village proper, a Mohawk tribe protected by a tall wooden palisade. The party acquired beds in the open common area that encompassed the top floor of the hostel, and settled in to rest up for the search for Bartolomeo’s Cross.

Mrs. MacKinnick’s cooking was impressive given the humble kitchen of the hostel. The party had never tasted better venison and fish than at her table that night. Some of the trappers and hunters from the shantytown visited at supper, and they played boisterous music long into the night.

Later that night, after the revelers had departed for the shanty town and the heroes had retired to bed, Bob Chesterfield awoke to the sound of a noise in the common room. In the darkness of the room, he could make out very little. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, however, he could make out a man-like shape skulking around in the shadows. He called out to the stranger, who uttered a strange scream and charged towards him. Bob screamed for the others to awaken as he deftly avoided the thing’s attack. One by one the party rolled from their beds. Dr. Rutherford turned up his lantern, and the mysterious assailant was at last revealed.

It was a hideous mockery of a human being, gaunt and thin. Its fingernails grew into sharp talons, and its face was drawn up in a vicious snarl that showed animal-like fangs instead of human teeth! It swiped at them with its claw-like nails, and they quickly dispatched it. Below them on the ground floor, they heard a loud banging sound as if the front door had been knocked in, followed quickly by the frightened shouts of Mr. MacKinnick. The heroes quickly gathered up their weapons and darted down the ladder as quickly as they could. Hitoshi simply jumped the distance.

On the ground floor, five more of the things were making their way towards MacKinnick, who’d just come from the kitchen. His wife was screaming in fear from the room behind him. Janette crossed the floor quickly and stood by his side, blasting one of the things with her wheellock pistol. Hitoshi found himself surrounded by them, but Bob helped him out by leaning down through the opening to the second floor and shooting one of the things with his repeating crossbow. Paul, too, slid down the ladder in a hurry and helped defend the hostel with his longspear. By now, MacKinnick had made his way to the huge fireplace and removed his ancestral claymore from its place of honor on the mantle. The burly Scot laid about to the left and right with the great blade, cutting down another of the twisted men.

There was one more twisted soul standing by the door, and when it saw that its companions had all been killed, it turned and fled. Janette, quick on her feet, chased after it — she had one more bullet to expend from her double-pistol. Hitoshi dove through the fireplace to check on Mrs. MacKinnick, but fortunately she was shaken but unharmed.

The fleeing brute made it to the gate leading into the hostel before Janette gunned it down. By the light of the moon, she could see more activity down by the Mohawk village. The anguished cries and war-whoops of the natives drifted down to her ears, and she realized that they, too, were under attack. She cried out to the others to inform them of what was happening, and ran off to help the beleaguered Mohawks. Mr. MacKinnick joined her, as the village folk were his allies. The other heroes, too, dashed off towards the village to lend what aid they could.

Episode 7: The Caves of Smallwater
During the run to the village, Janette suggested to MacKinnick that he remain at the hostel to defend his wife. The only person remaining there was Frederick, and he was hardly a strong fighter. MacKinnick begrudgingly agreed, and returned to his inn.

The heroes saw a dozen of the freakish men battling the Mohawk warriors at the palisade gate. They could hear the sounds of more combat coming from inside the village. The blades and bullets of the heroes dropped several of the attackers as they ran to aid the embattled natives.

On the way there, Dr. Rutherford paused briefly over the body of one of the fallen marauders. He was curious to know who, or what, they were. He’d heard tales of assaults by the living dead, but these creatures were not walking corpses. They breathed, they bled, and, apparently, they reasoned. The body he examined wore tattered cloth breeches, which spoke of at least some form of civilization amongst them. The man had a human face and form, but his fingernails and toenails were warped into cruel talons. Likewise, his mouth sported animal-like fangs instead of the normal incisors and molars of a man. Most curious!

Meanwhile, the combined effort of the Mohawk warriors and the heroes drove off the inhuman attackers. The warriors were cautious about the strangers, but when Dr. Rutherford addressed them in their native tongue and offered to help, they acquiesced and showed them into the village.

The scene was one of disaster. Bodies of the Mohawk villagers and the strange assailants were everywhere. The heroes noticed one young man in the regalia of a shaman, and found that he could speak English. His name was Yontuh, the apprentice of the village elder shaman, and he and Dr. Rutherford worked on healing the injured as he told his tale. He told them of at least 30 creatures that attacked the village. He invited them to join the war council that the Chief would no doubt be convening as soon as it was certain that the attack was over. Janette took this opportunity to return to the hostel and fetch more of her weapons, and to fill MacKinnick in on what had happened at the village. He returned with her to attend the war council. Mr. Chesterfield fetched his cauldron and began working on healing balms and elixirs for the wounded.

At the war council, the Mohawk chief, Wetchon, greeted the strangers and invited them to sit at a place of honor for their help at defending the village and tending the sick. He told them that his scouts had been able to track the attackers back to a cave in the limestone cliffs above the village. The elders of the village were afraid that the Hawk of Gold and his men had returned to seek vengeance on the villagers. Wetchon told the heroes their side of the story, in which the Hawk of Gold, Havik VanGoud, had come to them demanding riches. They had none, and he brutalized their people before wandering off into the hills on his quest. He never returned. During the war council, one of the village warriors brought news that the elder shaman, Shatane, had been killed.

At that point, the elders and Wetchon spoke amongst themselves. Dr. Rutherford overheard some of them talking about “the cross” and how it “must have been moved.” Their tone suggested that they knew something about the fabled Cross of Bartolomeo, and it was somehow connected to the story of Havik VanGoud. He cautiously told the others, speaking quietly in Latin — a language he hoped the Mohawk would not know — what he had heard. After a brief meeting amongst themselves, the heroes agreed that they should investigate. Helping the Mohawks was a noble-enough cause, but they were here for a purpose and wanted to see that purpose fulfilled. Hitoshi tried to get a little more information about the caves and the Cross of Bartolomeo from Yontuh, but the young shaman was tight-lipped. All of the Mohawks appeared wary and nervous when speaking of the Cross and VanGoud.

The heroes announced that they would be willing to help explore the caves and end threat of the inhuman raiders. Wetchon agreed, saying that since it was foreigners who brought the evil upon them in the past, it was only fitting for foreigners to end it. Yontuh and one of the warriors would lead the strangers up to the cave tomorrow.

With that, the party returned to the hostel for a fitful, wary sleep.

The party left the village the following day, just after dawn. Bevin MacKinnick helped supply them with rope, lanterns, oil, and rations should they need them.

Yontuh blessed them all with the goodwill of the Great Mystery as he and the lone scout led the heroes to the cave.

As the heroes approached the cave, the strong odor of decay met their nostrils. They neared the source of the reek and found it to be the days-dead body of a man. His skin was black and bloated, and crawling with maggots, so it was impossible to tell his race. The body was clad in a frock coat and breeches, however, so the heroes realized that it must be the pathetic remains of Bill Hawkins, George St. Clair’s previous agent.

Choking back breakfast as it rose in their throats, they retrieved the backpack found with the body. It held several rounds of powder and shot, other supplies for travel and encampment, and a strange bronze ear. Dr. Rutherford recognized it as an invention known as a Sympathetic Ear, which could be used to communicate across great distances. They also found a heavy object wrapped in a blanket, and Paul opened it to reveal the fabled jewel-encrusted, golden Cross of Bartolomeo.

The idea of simply returning to New York with the easily-won prize immediately arose. However, they also realized, with what Dr. Rutherford had overheard, that apparently this cross was the only thing keeping the inhuman raiders trapped in the cave. If they returned with it now, the villagers would be left to face the consequences. Only then did they realize that Mr. St. Clair could be overhearing their conversation. Had he heard them, he would now know that they did have the cross and were considering not returning with it at once. They stuffed wax into the Sympathetic Ear and Hitoshi buried it deep in his backpack. They agreed to at least further investigate the caves, if for no other reason than to satisfy Dr. Rutherford’s curiosity about the origin of the brutes that lived inside.

Danger came to them as soon as they entered the cave. Two brutes stood atop partial columns, undetected by the heroes until they rose to action. One of them stood and begin spinning a bullroarer over his head as if to alert others. The other leaped into the fray against the heroes. Combat erupted, and gunfire echoed deep into the cave as they battled the two brutes. It would appear that the bullroarer was unnecessary to alert the other creatures...

Unfortunately for Janette, she backed into a cave that assaulted her nostrils with the strong sting of ammonia. Moments later, a swarm of bats erupted from the cave and dove past her. Startled again by the combat in the entry chamber, the bats swirled around for several seconds before darting deeper into the cave.

Four more inhuman creatures awaited them in the next room, leaping out from behind columns and stalagmites. There was a bottleneck between the two rooms, which left only room for Hitoshi and Paul to fight the four creatures.

Janette, Dr. Rutherford, and Mr. Chesterfield explored another exit from the entry chamber, and found the remains of a crude mine. Apparently, Havik VanGoud and his men had tried their hands at digging for gold. Near the crude mine was a deep pool, across which the heroes could see another room.

Paul and Hitoshi brought an end to the four creatures that attacked them, and the heroes explored that room. They found a pit-like room containing three near-starving puppies, which the brutes were apparently going to eat. Paul rescued them, wrapping them up in his blanket and tucking them safely into his backpack.

Janette ventured into the next room, and found it to be the room that she and the others had seen from the crude mine. Two more passages led off from this room, but before she could explore them a large rattlesnake struck at her from a ledge by the pool. It bit her, but her constitution proved greater than its venom. It slithered away down the left-most passage.

Not wanting to follow an angry snake, the party investigated the right passage. It led to a huge natural bowl-shaped depression with three skeletons at the bottom. Three more passageways led off from it. Hitoshi investigated one, while Paul and Dr. Rutherford checked another. Both were empty. The party held a rope for Janette to go search the skeletons in the pit. She found only rusted breastplates and swords. She joined the group again as they decided to investigate the third passage.

It was a wet, slippery, sloping corridor that wound deep into the earth, and would be difficult to walk safely. Once again they held a rope and had Janette, the lightest and quickest on her feet, investigate the corridor. She had no sooner reached the bottom when her lantern illuminated the snarling faces of six more inhuman brutes! She called out to the others, and between her quick feet and their tugging on the rope, she was soon with the party again.

Unhindered by the sloping terrain or the slick stone, the six brutes charged towards the party.

[Radical Ans]

Bookmarked for later reading, but I wanted to throw out that this setting reminds me of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle except with the SF elements turned up a few notches.

[SavageGamerGirl]

Cool! I hope you enjoy it.

The campaign originally started with Northern Crown.

I decided fairly early on to run it in my own version of a fantasy colonial America. I dropped the alternate history elements, and went with a history closer to our own.

[SavageGamerGirl]

This is the first session of my Colonial Fantasy campaign to be played in Savage Worlds. I think it went rather well!

Episode 8: The Cavern and the Cross
Shamus’ player wasn’t able to join us and Hitoshi’s player won’t be able to join us for a while. Since Shamus was only in one session, I’ve written him out of the adventure above and will reintroduce him at a later date when the player is able to rejoin us. Hitoshi’s player won’t be returning for a few months due to scheduling, so Hitoshi mysteriously vanished in this session. (There is a reason for that, tough, all tied to Hitoshi’s mysterious past. I’ll go into greater detail when Hitoshi rejoins the party.)

Also, two new players, joined in this session, and their characters are the last two on the list below. I started this session with the assumption that the two new characters were with the party already, having come with them from the shanty town near MacKinnick’s hostel.

As of this point in the campaign, the party consists of:

Janette Herbert, Novice duelist
Paul Rowlend, Novice warrior
Dr. Mercurius Rutherford, Novice weird scientist
Bob Chesterfield, Novice magician with Pact Magic (a homebrewed AB)
Blue Jay Talking Lorenz, a Novice Algonquian woodsman/shaman (miracles AB)
Wolf, a Novice Algonquian warrior/shaman (magic AB) with wolf ancestry (a feat tree from Northern Crown converted to Edges)

The creatures charged up after them, swarming around the party with their talons slashing. Janette drew her flintlock pistol and finished off one of the brutes before backing away to a better vantage point. Jay and Wolf fought bravely, holding the front line and preventing the creatures from moving much past the entrance of the cave. Dr. Rutherford tried to activate his confusion device, but it failed and he began obsessing over getting it properly functional. Paul backed away from the creatures, trying desperately to keep the puppies he’d rescued from being injured in the ensuing battle. Mr. Chesterfield took what opportunities he could to call upon the spirits of nature to blast the foul creatures with jets of electricity. Even his canine familiar joined the fray! (The familiar has a name, but I can’t remember it at the moment. And technically he can’t have a dog familiar as a Novice, but they’ll soon be Seasoned after the next adventure anyway, so I let it slide.)

The heroes were fending off the attacks of the creatures, felling the horrid things one by one. A lucky strike from one of them badly wounded Chesterfield’s familiar. It tore a gash into the hound’s hide, nearly killing the poor animal, before being finished off by attacks from Paul (who’d readied his long spear and was attacking at reach), Wolf, and Jay. At long last the sixth brute fell dead before them.

They took a moment to regroup, and Mr. Chesterfield tended to his familiar’s wounds. That’s when they noticed that Hitoshi was missing. His backpack was on the ground where he last stood, as if discarded. The hadn’t heard him cry out, nor had they seen him move. One moment he was there, and the next, he had vanished like the morning mist. They investigated the backpack, and found it to still contain his personal effects, the Cross of Bartolomeo, and the sympathetic ear they’d found on the body of Bill Hawkins. Mr. Chesterfield took the backpack as the party, curious about their companion’s disappearance, ventured down into the cave.

Jay and Janette went first, as Jay wanted to scout ahead and Janette wanted to satisfy the curiosity of the others so they could leave the cave and return to New York as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for Jay, Janette was not the least bit interested in being stealthy, and she was much quicker on her feet that he was. He spent his time muttering about how loud the French woman was being and just trying to keep up!

Soon the party was split four ways, straggled out through the caves as the other party members tried to keep pace. Wolf used his powers as a skin-changer to assume the form of his namesake so he could more easily follow Jay and Janette. Paul and Mr. Chesterfield fell behind, moving at a more leisurely pace. Dr. Rutherford was still in the upper cave, fretting and fussing as he tried to fix his confusion device.

Janette, Jay, and Wolf eventually came to a small cave where the brutes had apparently been cultivating mushrooms. Jay spent a few moments gathering some up after Janette suggested that they might be good to eat. Paul and Mr. Chesterfield were following behind, and took a left-leading passageway that Jay and Janette had decided not to follow. Their passage took them over a natural rock bridge with a madly rushing river below, then into another small chamber.

There, they discovered a moldy human skeleton clad in tattered brown robes and travelling gear. They recognized the trappings of a priest, and realized that this must be the mortal remains of Father Bartolomeo, the holy man who’d traveled with Havik Van Goud. Its bony arms clutched papers to its chest, and Mr. Chesterfield gingerly removed those to see what secrets he died protecting. He was able to read the Latin text by the light of Paul’s lantern, and as he read, one by one the others joined them.

Fr. Bartolomeo’s journal spoke of great evil being perpetrated by Van Goud and his men, and that he feared that they had made a pact with the Adversary in their obsessive search for gold. He had been wounded by them, and knew that he was dying. His writings then took a strange turn, as he spoke of being visited by “an angel,” who had been displaced from her home in the caves by Van Goud and his men. She told him of a way that he could destroy them forever, but he was too wounded to carry out that mission. The cipher she imparted to him to destroy Van Goud’s evil was “Tears make hallowed any ground, and the tears of the Earth make hallowed the tears of the Sun.” He went on to say that the angel assured him that as long as his cross, the Golden Cross he had carried from the vaults in Rome, remained on holy ground, Van Goud and his demon-possessed men would be cursed to remain below ground. He used the last of his holy oils to consecrate the small room in which he found himself, and passed away, his makeshift grave serving as holy ground for the Cross and locking the demonic men in the caves forever. Forever, that is, until Bill Hawkins found the cross and removed it. That’s why the brutish creatures were at long last able to leave the caves and attack the village of Smallwater.

The writings of Fr. Bartolomeo mentioned “going down” deeper into the caves, and Jay took a moment to commune with the great spirits about what to do next. In his mind, he received the cryptic response, “the earth weeps below.” Mr. Chesterfield got a similar message from his familiar, as he, too, was closely tied to the spirits of the wild.

The party left Fr. Bartolomeo’s sad remains in peace once more, and, against Janette’s protests, they elected to venture deeper into the caves to see if they could resolve the matter of Van Goud’s hundred-strong army of demonic men. They found a cave that wound down farther into the earth, and had to leap across the swiftly-flowing river that they’d seen from the stone bridge above. The passageway there led to a round chamber that Wolf and Jay recognized as a former sweat lodge. Sadly, the holy place had been defiled by the brutes. This filled the Algonquian with a fierce rage. Although the Mohawks of Smallwater were his people’s enemies, no people deserved to have their holy places desecrated like this. He could see light and several forms in a room further along past the sweat lodge, and he drew his weapons and attacked.

The room Jay charged into was not a natural cave at all. It had been carved into a large rectangular chamber with a pool at the far end. Several openings in the wall above the pool trickled with water, and star- or sun-shaped designs had been carved around them. Before the pool stood an imposing but twisted man in a cuirass and helmet, surrounded by nine of the inhuman brutes. A tenth one, badly injured, stood in the pool, its wounds healing before Jay’s eyes. This was the “accursed immortality” about which Bartolomeo had written.

Jay charged them, fighting like a mad man as Paul and Wolf ran to help him. Back in the sweat lodge, Mr. Chesterfield had an idea, and ran back towards the river shouting about “the tears of the earth.” Janette and Dr. Rutherford followed, curious about what he was planning to do. As he knelt by the river, filling his water skin, Janette pulled the Cross of Bartolomeo from his backpack, admonishing him for being insane and no longer trusting him with the prized treasure. When the sounds of the battle reached them, they ran to join the others.

Meanwhile, Jay found himself surrounded by the brutes. He was holding his own, however, and expertly fended off their attacks as he concentrated on attacking the twisted form of Havik Van Goud. The demonic man sneered and grasped Jay by the throat, sapping his life’s essence and enhancing his own. Despite the assistance of the others, Jay was not able to fend off all of the attacks directed at him. Van Goud backed away from him and struck him with three withering bolts of Hell-fire, leaving him injured. Paul and Wolf were fighting ferociously, dropping the brutes as they fought their way to Van Goud. Mr. Chesterfield unleashed another powerful blast of lightning, destroying many of the cursed men in the process. Unfortunately for Jay, wound after wound tore his flesh, and he fell before the once sacred pool. Van Goud still stood, barely inconvenienced by the party’s attacks.

Seeing the weeping designs on the wall above the pool, the cipher in Bartolomeo’s writings instantly made sense to her. She drew forth the cross and tossed it into the once sacred pool. Its holy energies blasted out in a wave, banishing the evil that had taken up residence there. Jets of unholy fire erupted from the eyes and mouth of Van Goud and his remaining men as the demonic spirits within them were once more cast back into Hell. Their bodies crumbled to dust and bone.

As the exhausted heroes stood in awe, a blue glow appeared in the pool and resolved itself into the naked form of a beautiful woman. Wolf bowed immediately, knowing it to be a Jogah, one of the spirits of the Earth. The Jogah spoke to Janette, in French, and asked her to name her boon. Thinking a moment, Janette directed her attention to the dead form of Jay. The Jogah smiled softly and said that he had died defending a holy place, and that his spirit was in the Happy Hunting Grounds and did not wish to return. (I roleplayed that with the player. He was happy with his character’s noble sacrifice and was glad to hear that he had gotten such a great reward in death.) Janette then asked the Jogah to look after her family in New Orleans, and keep them safe. The Jogah smiled again, and said she would do so, happy that both of the mortal’s requests were unselfish. She vanished in another blue glow, her form diffusing through the waters.

Curious about the effects of the Cross on Van Goud and his men, Dr. Rutherford fished it out of the pool to see if they would return to life. They did not, even after repeated tests, so the party felt comfortable in taking the Cross with them back to New York. Wolf carried the body of his friend Jay from the caves as they returned to the village of Smallwater. The others were left to but wonder what had happened to Hitoshi, and if they would ever see him again…
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[Talonz]

I *have* to bookmark this as well, because Im on the verge of starting virtually the same kind of campaign, albeit in marseille france ~1650!

I would heartily recomend checking out Savage World of Solomon Kane, thats the system I will be using.

[SavageGamerGirl]

[SavageGamerGirl]

Here are some character pictures using Hero Machine.

Blue Jay Talking Lorenz (RIP)


Bob Chesterfield (Pending player approval)


Dr. Mercurius Rutherford


Hitoshi (MIA)


Janette Herbert


Michael Dooley


Paul Rowlend


Shamus McPherson

_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[FickleGM]

I love your inspiration list and have many of the same titles on my list. I will be running a somewhat similar style campaign in a different setting using Solomon Kane rules. I'm definitely keeping an eye on this thread for further inspiration and entertainment. (b'.')b

[SavageGamerGirl]

Episode 9: The Best of Intentions
Blue Jay’s player made up a new character, an Irish magician named Michael Dooley. Wolf’s player wasn’t able to join us, so he sort of faded into the background for this session.

As of this point in the campaign, the party consists of:

Janette Herbert, Novice duelist
Paul Rowlend, Novice warrior
Dr. Mercurius Rutherford, Novice weird scientist
Bob Chesterfield, Novice magician with Pact Magic (a homebrewed AB)
Wolf, a Novice Algonquian warrior/shaman (magic AB) with wolf ancestry (a feat tree from Northern Crown converted to Edges)
Michael Dooley, a Novice magician (magic AB) with a close tie to the Little People of Irish folklore

While Wolf carried Blue Jay’s body back to the village of Smallwater, the other party members returned to MacKinnick’s hostel. Although he was saddened at the news of Blue Jay’s death and Hitoshi’s strange disappearance, MacKinnick treated them to a wild revelry to celebrate their victory over the creatures in the caves.

Joining the celebration was a short, quirky Irishman who introduced himself as Mike Dooley. When Mr. Dooley overheard that the group would be returning to New York City, he asked if he could accompany them. It was a long road to travel alone, and some company would make it more bearable. He raised many a glass in honor of the conquering heroes, and ultimately wound up in a drinking contest with Helmut, Dr. Rutherford’s Prussian manservant. Dooley won the contest, but he and Helmut were both somewhat worse for it the following morning.

They set out from Smallwater on the two-day trek back to the town of Catskill, with Mr. Dooley and Helmut groaning and holding their pounding heads. By the end of the first day Dooley was well enough to do some hunting, and brought in enough wild game birds for the party to enjoy a fresh meal instead of relying on their travel rations.

After they arrived at Catskill and checked on their carriage to make sure it was prepared for the long trip back to New York, Mike and Paul involved themselves in a game of cards at the boarding house. Despite having rarely indulged in gambling in the past, the luck of the Irish surely was with Mr. Dooley that night; he won $90 from the other participants after several rounds of dealing and drink. Unfortunately, he got a bit boastful and lost all but $80 on the very next hand.

The next evening, the party arrived at the village of Clermont Manor to some upheaval. There were calls of “Fire! Fire!” and various party members heard people shouting that Bryn’s Alehouse was burning. That certainly got Mike Dooley’s attention. He, Dr. Rutherford, and Janette ran to see what was the matter as Mr. Chesterfield and Paul remained with the carriage. On the way, they also overheard enough from others on the street to know that something had “gone berserk” and attacked the pub. Upon their arrival at the alehouse, they saw that the rear portion of it was on fire, and the citizens were forming a bucket brigade to bring water. Janette saw a group of men surrounding a well near the pub, and heard the plaintive cries of a small child echoing up from below.

As the men ran to help put out the fire, she ran to the well to lend aid there. When she arrived, she saw a small boy clinging to the bucket far below. Quickly, she pulled her rope from her backpack and handed it to one of the men, telling him to hold it tight. With that, she quickly climbed down into the well to help the imperiled lad. The thought of a child in danger awakened something in Janette, some latent maternal instinct she’d been keeping buried with her brusque personality. Soothing his fears, she bade him hold tight to her and began the climb back out. The boy’s name was Timothy Veckersen (yes… Timmy fell down the well, and although she wasn’t a collie, he was rescued by a “lassie” ), and as she finally brought him up to safety his father Harry was there to console him. He thanked Janette again and again, saying that Tim was all he had left. Moved once more by Harry’s concern for his son, Janette stayed with him to learn more.

Meanwhile, Dr. Rutherford was mingling with the crowd watching the excitement around Bryn’s Alehouse, curious about what had “gone berserk” and caused the fire. With a few judicious questions (and a good result on an untrained Streetwise roll), he learned that a local inventor named Silas Howe had been working on a “metal man” to replace the need for indentured servants and slaves to work the fields. The lady Dr. Rutherford had been talking to began talking about how the metal man was an abomination and should be destroyed, and he offended her greatly by trying to correct her thinking.

In the alehouse, Paul and Mike were helping the townsmen put out the fire. Mike met up with Amos Bryn, the owner, and found out that indeed a metallic horror had burst into the storage room and stolen some rum and whiskey. Before Mr. Bryn could finish his sentence, Mike ran to the storage room — the poitín was at risk! Seriously, though, the fire had started there, and there were more casks at risk of catching alight. The Irishman threw off his coat and began smothering the fire as Mr. Bryn and Paul came to help him with water buckets.

Finally, the fire was put out, and as Mr. Dooley enjoyed his reward of drinks on the house, Amos Bryn gathered the heroes (except for Janette, who was still speaking with Harry Vekersen) together to thank the strangers for their aid. He confirmed to Dr. Rutherford that Silas Howe had indeed been working on a strange metal man, and around them the townsfolk began calling for the militia and other brave men to find Howe and bring him and his creation to justice. That made Mr. Bryn nervous, as he feared that the good Mr. Howe would be brought to justice at the end of a rope whether he truly deserved it or not. Bryn told the heroes that Mr. Howe had enemies, not the least of which was a local landowner named Brodie Duke. Bryn thought that Duke’s objections weren’t over the uncanny metal man per se, but the greater expense of creating such automatons as compared to the relatively cheap slave labor he already employed. That made Paul bristle somewhat, being a man only recently freed from the horrible state of slavery. If Mr. Howe’s inventions were aimed at bringing an end to such servitude, then Paul was certainly interested in seeing him survive the townsfolk’s wrath. Bryn asked them if they’d be so kind and brave as to fetch Mr. Howe themselves, to bring him to answer for his creation’s actions before the townsfolk got to him.

They agreed, and while Mike attempted (and failed) to follow the automaton’s tracks from the back of the alehouse, Paul, Mr. Chesterfield and Dr. Rutherford followed Amos Bryn’s directions to Mr. Howe’s house-cum-workshop. They strolled down the lane leading out of town, and soon came across two children, a boy and a girl, hiding high in a tree along the path. The children were whispering amongst themselves, and the party overheard them trying to decide if they could trust the strangers. Mr. Chesterfield approached them, and managed to coax them out of the tree. They were Patty and Eddie Kricksmith, and after some questions from the heroes, they revealed that they had seen the “nice Mr. Howe’s” metal man not long ago. From their hiding place in the tree, they’d seen a newcomer in town, a tradesman named Mathias Wickerbee, actually talking to the metal man. They couldn’t hear what he was saying, but they saw him take two bottles from it and after that, much to their astonishment, that “mean ol’ Mr. Wickerbee” vanished from sight!

They thanked the Kricksmith children for the information and continued on their way. By now, they had been joined by Mike Dooley, who’d given up on his attempts at tracking when he lost the automaton’s footprints in the forest. They continued on their way, and soon came to two men chatting over a fence rail. One man was clad in a worn leather apron, and sported a strange contraption of lenses and gears on his head. Dr. Rutherford’s curiosity was piqued immediately! The other man was well dressed, clad in the finery of velvet and silk hose that indicated a man of wealth and distinction.

The well-dressed man spoke first, addressing Mr. Chesterfield properly as a peer in the gentry. Despite their initial suspicions, the gentry man was not Brodie Duke. He introduced himself as Edward Wellington and asked who they were and why they were there. As was socially proper, Mr. Chesterfield spoke first. He told Mr. Wellington and Mr. Howe what had happened at Bryn’s Alehouse, and Mr. Howe scoffed. He insisted that his automaton could not have been responsible for the fire. He told them that at this very moment it was where he had instructed it to be: plowing John Fallon’s field. Not only that, but by his calculations it should have run out of fuel 15 minutes prior. Only then did he fully realize what Mr. Chesterfield had said; the automaton was powered by an alcohol-fueled aeolipile. Although it would be inefficient, it would be possible for it to replenish its own fuel supply with whiskey!

Excusing himself from his chat with Mr. Wellington, Mr. Howe hurried down the lane towards John Fallon’s farm along with the heroes. On the way, Dr. Rutherford engaged him in scientific conversation that quickly outpaced the education of the others with them. Minutes later, Mr. Howe showed them that the automaton was where it should be. The automaton bore a heavy leather harness, and was easily dragging a heavy plow through the field in even furrows. Mr. Howe was admittedly perplexed at how it broke from its instruction and refueled itself — if indeed that is what had happened. He and the others approached the laboring metal man, and Mr. Howe ordered it to stop and stand still until further orders. It obeyed, and the heroes looked the thing over. Even to Dr. Rutherford’s trained eye, nothing seemed amiss. Mr. Howe agreed to accompany the party back to town to clear up the matter, obviously concerned over what had happened.

While the others were assisting Mr. Howe, Janette was getting to know Harry Veckersen. His wife had been killed by the British near the end of the war under circumstances he didn’t wish to discuss. His son was the only member of his family he had left, and Harry was very protective of him. This concerned Janette greatly, having experienced similar tragedy back home in New Orleans. She felt somehow connected to Mr. Veckerson, and was certainly attracted to him. By now, they had reached the door to their farmstead, chatting all the while. Sudden movement caught Harry’s eye, and Janette noticed a stern look cross his face as he moved to interpose himself between whatever he had seen and his son. Looking up, Janette noticed a band of six scruffy looking men, armed with swords and pistols, walking double-time out of town. Surprisingly, she heard snippets of French. The men were questioning their leader about their orders, to which he replied that they’d been well paid to eliminate those who’d gone to help that mad inventor Silas Howe. Quickly, Harry explained that those men were outlaws. Led by the cruel Jacques Maigre, they had deserted from Gen. Lafayette and taken up banditry. He told Tim to get inside the house, lock the door, and do not answer unless he was certain it was his father. He then told Janette that he was going to fetch the local militia to deal with the outlaws.

Curious, Janette followed Maigre and his men out of town. They soon noticed her, and Maigre himself confronted her. He seemed intrigued, as she had been, that a French person was in the little town of Clermont. They talked for a few seconds, and Janette heard enough to confirm what Harry had said about them. They were indeed evil men, on their way to commit an evil act.

At that moment, the rest of the party rounded the bend of the road and stopped when they saw the outlaws and Janette. Maigre turned to face them, and announced who he was in strongly accented English. He boasted that he was the “infamous” Jacque Maigre, and that he had decided it was time for all of them to leave town — or else. At that, Janette drew her rapier, and likewise the other bandits armed themselves. Maigre ordered his men to seize the scientist and kill the others.

Combat erupted as the bandits moved into position. Janette maneuvered to attack Maigre, but Mr. Chesterfield unleashed a jet of lightning and struck the bandit leader and several of his mean dead on the spot. Unmanned by the staggering display of power, the other bandits turned to flee. Dr. Rutherford managed to confound some of them with his confusion device, whilst Paul and Janette ran the others down and ended them. One attempted to flee, but Janette dashed after him and landed a blow to the back of his head with the butt of her rapier. Now they had a man to question!

Afterwards, Janette admonished Mr. Chesterfield for taking out the enemy that she had marked for herself. (GM’s note… the Jet power is extremely powerful for a Novice-rank, low-cost power. It may be meta-gaming, but must remember in the future to not have my bad guys line up so perfectly as to be so vulnerable to it!)

Mr. Howe was duly impressed by the heroes’ display, and thanked them for defending him. They retrieved the weapons of the fallen outlaws, and relieved them of the payment for which they’d given their lives. They continued along the road back to town, and soon came across a detachment of the local militia. Some of the men were wounded, and with them was the town’s mayor, Everett Shirley. Mayor Shirley regretfully informed Mr. Howe that he was under arrest for the actions of his creation. It had damaged Bryn’s Alehouse, put young Tim Veckersen at risk of drowning, and attacked the townsfolk. As Mr. Howe was a man of high standing and social rank, he would be consigned to house arrest until such time as his automaton could be apprehended and destroyed. The arrest was also for his own protection, as even now the good people of Clermont Manor were calling for his head.

Mr. Howe at first tried to defend himself, but ultimately he realized that Mayor Shirley was right: his automaton was proving to be a danger. He surrendered himself to the militia, but not before turning to Dr. Rutherford and pleading from him to see to it that the automaton was shut down without destroying it. He called Dr. Rutherford a peer, a brother in the sciences, and a fellow inventor. He pled for his automaton’s life, saying that it was like unto his own son. Dr. Rutherford understood, being a man also impassioned by the lure of discovery and science. Mr. Howe gave Dr. Rutherford the key to a panel on the back of the automaton, telling him that they must first remove the plow harness to reach it. Once the panel was open, a simple switch would disconnect the aeolipile and shut the automaton down.

So, having succeeded in saving Mr. Silas Howe from an untimely end at the hands of a mob of townsfolk, the heroes set out to do the same for his automaton. Mayor Shirley gave them leave to do so, realizing that if these strangers did the deed it would put fewer of his men at further risk. Speaking on their behalf, Mr. Howe also told the mayor that these fine folk had also dispatched Jacques Maigre and his band of thugs, and were due the reward for it. Mayor Shirley agreed that if this were the case, he’d see to it that they were rewarded.

As the soldiers marched Mr. Howe back to his house, the heroes quickly ran to John Fallon’s field to retrieve the automaton. As they suspected, it was not where they’d left it. This time, however, they were aided by the fact that Paul was an experienced tracker, and the heavy metal man had left deep footprints in the freshly plowed earth. They were easily able to follow its trail back in the direction of Mr. Edward Wellington’s manor house!

They soon caught up with the metal man, indeed making its way towards the manor house. It had crashed through the iron gate and was making its way up the manicured path to the front door, apparently with intent to do harm to the gentry man. The heroes ran after it, slowly overtaking it as it was somewhat slower than they. Mr. Chesterfield attempted to slow its flight by causing the very grass around it to spring to life and hold it, but the automaton proved too strong for such a tactic. Mike Dooley at last displayed some of his magical ability, sinking into the earth and travelling beneath the surface on paths laid out before him by the Little People. (By way of explanation, this is the trapping for his Burrow power. He literally ‘goes underground’ and takes shortcuts through the faerie realm.) Mike finally caught up with the metal man, and grappled it from below with all his strength. His muscles proved up to the task, and he held the thing still until the others caught up with it. Mr. Chesterfield and Paul managed to cut the straps on the plow harness, and Dr. Rutherford was able to open the panel and shut the automaton down.

As the leather plow harness flopped away from the machine’s back, Mr. Chesterfield noticed a small metallic medallion fall away. It had apparently been held tight between the harness and the automaton’s back. He picked it up, and saw that it had been decorated with a peculiar dragon-like icon.

They dragged the now inactive automaton back to Mr. Howe’s house, assuring the nervous militia men that it would not attack them. Once he was able to examine it and the curious medallion Mr. Chesterfield had found, Mr. Howe deduced that the medallion was a magical device by which one could assume control over an automaton. (In game terms, it allows one to use the Puppet power to control the actions of a construct.) Mr. Chesterfield brought up what the Kricksmith children had told them about Mathias Wickerbee. Interrogation of the surviving member of the Maigre gang revealed that, indeed, Wickerbee had hired them to take out the heroes. For some reason, Wickerbee had a strong desire to see Mr. Howe and is automaton discredited. The bandit also confirmed what the Kricksmith children had said: Mr. Wickerbee could indeed vanish from sight with a mere wave of his hand!

Once this news reached Mayor Shirley, they attempted to arrest Mathias Wickerbee at his room in Millie’s Boarding House. They found that Wickerbee had quickly gathered up his things and fled town. True to his work, Mayor Shirley also paid out the promised reward for bringing the Maigre gang to such swift justice.

Peace, at last, returned to the small town of Clermont Manor, New York. Mr. Howe remained under house arrest, and although his innocence was proven he decided that perhaps he should continue his experiments elsewhere.
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[SavageGamerGirl]

Episode 10: The Sinister Secret of Kingsport
This adventure is a modified, Savage Worlds-converted version of the old 1e AD&D module U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. Since I’ve already included “Lovecraft Country” in my campaign, I’m swapping Saltmarsh for Kingsport. As it turns out, there is a strange old house on a seaside cliff in that city which is perfect for the old “haunted house” in the module.

Wolf’s player is taking a bit of a leave from my game, and I’ll return his character to the roster when he’s able to play.

Janette’s player decided that he wanted a new character, so he’s retired Janette. His new character is “Pirate Pete” Tork. No relation to the Monkee of the same name… and he’s never met Davy Jones… either one of them…

As of this point in the campaign, the party consists of:

“Pirate Pete” Tork, Seasoned sailor
Paul Rowlend, Seasoned warrior
Dr. Mercurius Rutherford, Seasoned weird scientist
Bob Chesterfield, Seasoned magician with Pact Magic (a homebrewed AB)
Michael Dooley, a Seasoned magician (magic AB) with a close tie to the Little People of Irish folklore

The story resumes in Boston. Just over eight weeks after the party returned to New York and they received their payment for bringing Mr. St. Clair the fabled Cross of Bartolomeo, Janette and Paul were called to Boston. The maritime courts there had finally reached an agreement with the owners of the wrecked ship The Lady Jane (from the very first adventure). The owners were only willing to pay 10% of the total value of the ship and its cargo for salvage. Hoping to get a higher percentage, Janette and Paul hired Dr. Rutherford — who happened to have “lawyer” on his already impressive résumé — to argue for them in court. The invited Mr. Chesterfield along as well, as having a member of the New York upper crust vouch for their character would certainly be a help. Michael Dooley tagged along for the fun of it. Much to Janette’s chagrin, Ambrose O’Brien was also returning to Boston to claim his deceased sister’s share of the settlement. He and Jacob shadowed the party during the entire journey back to Boston.

While there, Mr. Dooley made the acquaintance of a boisterous sailor in a dockside bar. The sailor, nicknamed “Pirate Pete,” handily won all of Dooley’s money in a card game. The cards, as it turned out, were marked, and Pirate Pete and Dooley quickly fell into a partnership in which they cheated their way to a windfall of $1200 through various card cheats and schemes. Narrowly escaping a bar fight after one failed scheme, the two decided it was best to lay low for a while.

Paul, Janette, and Ambrose O’Brien eventually won a salvage settlement of 15% of the total value of The Lady Jane and her cargo. Hitoshi’s share would be held by the court until his ultimate fate could be determined. With her newfound cash, Janette returned to Clermont Manor to settle down and hopefully win Harry Veckersen’s affection.

Before the party could return to New York, they heard a tale from a grizzled old sea salt named Capt. Wills. Somehow, Wills had found out that they were members of the Explorer’s Society, and let them in on the yarn of the Old High House in the Mist. It was an abandoned house high on a cliff in Kingsport, and rumor said that it was haunted. The good people of Kingsport believed that it was the Devil’s playground, and that witches — not the decent folk in Salem or Naumkeag, but ones what eat babies for breakfast — hold court in the basement. Why, old Capt. Wills himself said that he’d seen strange figures on the roof of the house, and lights moving in the empty rooms where there should be no light. Pirate Pete and Dr. Rutherford scoffed at his story, as neither one of them were wont to believe in ghost or the Devil himself. Capt. Wills went on to say that other rumors said that the place was once the home of a powerful magician with wealth and secrets untold. Such was his power, the old Kingsporters said, that he transported his entire ancient manor house to the cliff top just like Merlin of old, who summoned forth the stones of the Devil’s Circle (i.e. Stonehenge). The talk of wealth and treasure piqued Mike Dooley’s interest, whilst the promise of ancient secrets made Dr. Rutherford scoff a bit less than before. Each man soon found themselves pondering a visit to Kingsport, lured by the promise of treasure and knowledge, or, at the very least, a chance to get to the bottom of a long-standing mystery.

They made the day-long journey to Kingsport easily enough, and found lodgings in a comfortable-looking inn. True to Capt. Wills’ word, one could see the dilapidated old house from just about anywhere in town. It sat perched precariously on the edge of a seaside cliff, looking for all the world as though a good stiff wind from inland out to sea would topple it into the waves below. The people of Kingsport were cordial enough, but clammed up or reacted with fear when any of them brought up the topic of the old house. As he had done in Clermont, Dr. Rutherford managed to alienate several Kingsporters with his insistence that there was no such thing as Satan or covens of evil witches.

The following day, they party gathered their supplies and made their way to the long-overgrown carriage trail that wound up the hillside towards the old house. In many places the trail passed dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, and the party decided to give up following it an merely follow the rise of the hill a safer distance from the brink. Soon they were nearing the house, and saw that it was a T-shaped structure; the cross bar of the T faced the sea, with scarcely 50 ft. between the front steps and the cliff face.

They had to break open the door, as the lock had long since rusted solid. The inside of the house was a shambles of cobwebs, decaying furniture, dust, and fallen plaster. Mike Dooley, Pirate Pete, and Dr. Rutherford (as well as his manservant Helmut) scaled the rickety stairs to the second story, whilst Paul decided to follow some recent tracks he’d found in the dust that led towards the back of the house. Mr. Chesterfield saw the tracks, too, and followed them down a hallway to the left.

(It’s funny… ever time I’ve run this module, the party immediately splits up and goes to different parts of the house. It never fails! I shall detail the actions of the individual groups below.)

Mike Dooley, Pirate Pete, Dr. Rutherford, and Helmut
Although concerned about the condition of the stairs, the four men made it to the second story without incident. They looked into the first room along, and found it to be an old bedroom. A glassy glint caught Dooley’s eye, and he crossed the room to the old fireplace to examine it. There was something shiny in the mantelpiece, and as he began prying it out with his dagger two large black widow spiders, their bodies as large as gourds, sprung out of the flue and attacked him. He managed to impale one with his dagger, whilst Pirate Pete charged across the room and stomped the other one. The shiny glint turned out to be simply a chunk of quartz crystal.

Bob Chesterfield and his two dogs
Mr. Chesterfield, his two faithful hounds as his heels (one is a familiar, and the other is an animal companion gained via the Beast Bond edge) followed the tracks down the leftward-leading corridor. The hallway ended in three doors; one straight ahead, one to the left, and the other to the right. The leftmost door opened up into a demolished and moldy library, a sight which caused Mr. Chesterfield some grief. The right door was at one time a study. To his amazement, the wooden desk was intact with one drawer closed and locked. After some attempt to pick the lock, he finally just pried the drawer open with his dagger. In the drawer he found a supple piece of sheepskin wrapped around a vial that bore a paper label with an image of Asclepius. There was some sort of liquid in the vial. Intrigued, he pocketed the vial for later examination. The door at the end of the hall opened into what was once an elegant ballroom that looked out onto an exquisite marble patio. Like the rest of the house, its glory days were long past. The tracks he’d been following ended in the middle of the room, and after some searching, he found a trap door in the floor that doubtless led into a cellar of some kind.

Paul Rowlend
Paul followed the tracks straight to the back of the house to an old kitchen. The trail bent off to the right into a pantry and down a flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs, the powerful smell of decay assaulted Paul’s nose. He proceeded with caution into a destroyed wine cellar, and found the source of the stench to be a dead man face down on the floor. He called out to the others, who joined him as quickly as they were able. Soon, the party was reassembled.

Mike Dooley, in particular, was interested in the wine cellar, but was heartbroken to find that all of the wine bottles were ruined. The others searched the body Paul had found, but discovered little of interest. Pirate Pete realized that the body was that of a sailing man, judging from his clothes and weapons — knee britches, a loose shirt, no shoes, a dagger, and an old nicked cutlass. While Dooley busied himself with trying to find enough tinder to start a fire to burn the house down, the others searched the room. Paul found that the tracks he’d been following ended abruptly at the wall, and sure enough they soon located a secret door that led deeper into the cellar. They convinced Dooley to delay his arson until more of the place could be investigated.

The next room along amazed them. It was well-lit by torches, and was full of bunks, lockers, barrels, a table, several benches… it looked like the somewhat comfortable living space for at least a half-dozen men! At one end of the room Mr. Chesterfield noted a set of stone stairs that most likely led up to the trap door he’d discovered in the ballroom. They found three more doors, one at the far end of the room from them and two more in a little alcove across from the secret door they’d entered. One of those doors was nailed shut from this side with the word “DANGER” crudely etched into it.

They had little time to explore further, as suddenly the farthest door opened and a mean-looking ruffian strode into the room. When he saw the interlopers, he shouted, “OY!” and called for help. The party sprang into action as several more thugs charged into the room, drawing weapons. Mr. Chesterfield blasted a few of them with his power over lightning, and Paul hurled his spear at another. Pirate Pete, who carried no weapons that the other party members could see, merely charged into combat with his powerful fists. Mike Dooley blasted away with two guns. The thugs returned fire, but quickly realized that they were out-manned. One of them turned to flee down the stone steps they’d just come up, and Paul ran after him. Mr. Chesterfield also loosed his dogs on him. The dogs caught him first, and held him in their jaws until Paul caught up to him and brought him down with his spear.

The mystery deepened. Who were these men? Why were they here? And what was so dangerous about that one door?
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[SavageGamerGirl]

Episode 11: The Caverns Beneath
Ok so I killed another character this session, and the sad coincidence is that it was the same player who lost Blue Jay Talking just a few sessions ago. I’m afraid he’s going to start thinking that I have it in for him! I want there to be a risk of death for the heroes, but I don’t want them dropping like flies, either. I like running stories, and I don’t wear character kills or TPKs like some macabre GM badge of honor. So, I’m considering a house rule on the Incapacitation results that leaves in a risk factor but makes it easier to survive if a character is taken down. I haven’t made up my mind yet which variant of many I’ve found on the Savage Worlds message board that I’ll end up using, but when I do decide I’ll post it in the session journal.

Paul wanted to continue down the stairs to see where the armed men had come from, but the others persuaded him against that course. If there were murderous armed men (other than themselves ) wandering about, they should stick together. Mike Dooley gathered up the weapons of the six bandits and went about reloading all the pistols. Bob Chesterfield tried and failed to pick the lock on the locked door, and with Paul’s help finally managed to just force the lock.

Just then, more men came up from below: four more thugs and a well-dressed Middle-Eastern man. The thugs opened fire as the heroes took cover and returned the attack. The well-dressed man, later revealed to be a wizard by the name of Sanbalet, stepped into the room an uttered a blasphemy so great that Helmut, Dr. Rutherford’s manservant, was stunned into insensibility. (That was the trapping I chose for Sanbalet’s stun power. I tried to get Paul, Bob Chesterfield, Dr. Rutherford, and Helmut, but only Helmut failed to resist.) Upon hearing the vile word, Mike Dooley blasted Sanbalet with both barrels of his flintlock pistol. The wizard’s chest exploded in a fine red spray and he fell dead. Pirate Pete waded into the fight and dropped another few men with his powerful fists. After the fight, Dr. Rutherford took Helmut over to one of the water barrels and dunked his head into it repeatedly until he came to his senses.

The formerly locked room was revealed to be another sleeping quarter. Still Spartan by most standards, it was considerably more well-appointed than the simple cots out in the common area. They found a nautical lantern and, beneath it, a sheaf of paper containing a strange code of lines and Xs. Pirate Pete was able to identify it as some sort of signal code, but without context he wasn’t able to tell exactly what the code meant. The room also contained a book of erotic poetry (fully illustrated), a naval almanac listing tide times for the area of coast containing Kingsport (a total of 100 miles of coastline was covered), and a book describing the methods and effects of mesmerism. They also found more potion vials, unlabeled, which Mr. Chesterfield took in order to perform more research later to determine their properties.

While they were searching the room, Paul had placed an ear to the boarded-up door upon which DANGER had been carved by frightened hands. He could hear something scrabbling and scratching in the room beyond. Suddenly, something very strong laid a hammer blow on the door, rattling it severely. Paul backed quickly away and told the others — but they had heard the pounding as well. The hammering on the other side of the door then became louder and more insistent. There was something on the other side of that door that very much wanted out. Much to his concern, Pirate Pete saw that the door was beginning to give way. Something tore at an upper corner of the door, ripping through it with some difficulty. He caught a glimpse of a heavy, gleaming claw through the hole. Pete threw his weight against the door to hold it, and just barely in time. The hinges gave way, and it was all Pete could do to keep whatever it was on the other side from coming through! Paul ran to help him as the others prepared for another fight. The door was simply not going to hold out forever, so Paul removed the door of the other room and used it as a brace to give Pete a chance to back away to safety.

Pete did so, and within a matter of seconds the barricaded door broke asunder. Four hideous creatures flew out, hissing and quivering at the scent of the blood that had been spilled. Their bodies resembled desiccated hounds, and their smooth black skin glistened with some unholy ichor. Great wings spread from their backs, and fearsome claws dangled from their gnarled limbs. The heroes had never seen nor heard tell of such monstrosities, and fear rose in their bellies. (In the original module, that room contained six skeletons. Since I placed this adventure in Kingsport, I felt it was only proper to include another reference to a Lovecraft story set in that town. I replaced the six skeletons with four Byakhee from Realms of Cthulhu!)

The Byakhee swarmed the heroes, who bravely stood their ground and returned the attacks. Dr. Rutherford tried to use his confusion device on them, but once again it failed him and broke. He wasn’t sure if it was a natural mechanical failure or just the odd nature of the creatures he was trying to affect, but once again he’d have to spend hours on repairs. Very frustrating! Paul took a nasty hit from one of the creatures’ claws, but took the wound well and speared his attacker. Mike Dooley unleashed some of the magical power he’d been holding in reserve, blasting the Byakhee with glittering green-gold bolts of fey magic. Unfortunately for him, as he tried to retreat to a better position he caught a claw deep in the belly, which spun him into the claws and teeth of another Byakhee. He fell dead before he could take a step. (Leaving close combat is dangerous…) After initially fighting a losing battle, the heroes started gaining ground on the horrid creatures. One of them fell dead from a spear thrust, another died from Mike Dooley’s magical bolt and assorted gunfire from the other heroes. As they died, the blasphemous things sublimated into sticky black goo and wisps of acrid smoke. Dr. Rutherford made sure to take samples of the goo for later study.

They mourned the loss of Mike Dooley, and began considering what to do with his body.

There was another door in the room that had once contained the Byakhee, marked by a strange pentagram-like sigil. None of the heroes well-versed in arcane studies recognized it, but the Byakhee appeared to have never touched that door. They surmised that it was perhaps a protective ward of some kind, and the Byakhee were used as guardians to prevent entry into that room.

The door was unlocked, and opened to reveal an alchemist’s laboratory. That certainly caught Dr. Rutherford’s interest! Although alchemy contained elements of mysticism and was mostly bunk (Dr. Rutherford has the Doubting Thomas hindrance), it formed the basis of modern chemistry. There might be something of value in there after all. They found an ancient skeleton slumped in a chair before a writing desk, apparently that of the “magician” that was rumored to live in the old house. On the desk was a collection of odds and ends seemingly made of solid gold: a human skull, some balance weights, a rose, and an apple. A book open on the desk bore the title Ye Secret of Ye Philosopher’s Stone. The presence of the golden objects seemed to indicate that the old alchemist had discovered a powerful secret shortly before his death. Clenched in the skeleton’s fist was a glowing yellow stone. The philosopher’s stone, perhaps? None of the party were willing to touch it, so they knocked it into an empty box they found in Sanbalet’s room and locked it up tight.

They interrogated one of the surviving thugs, who refused to talk unless they brought him to the Kingsport magistrates and ensured that he would not be hung for his crimes. They considered the offer, but eventually managed to intimidate him into telling everything he knew. They were smugglers, running contraband and guns all along the Massachusetts coast. They noted a strong British accent in his speech, and he admitted that their purpose was to arm various native tribes and Loyalists to help foment uprisings against the newly independent colonies. The ship, called the Sea Ghost, would be arriving at midnight that night to receive the most recent cargo. The cargo was stored in the caves below the house, which opened to the sea. (This is only a slight modification from the original module’s plot, in which the weapons were going to lizard folk).

The party debated what to do, and ultimately decided that they were a strong enough force to take on the crew of the Sea Ghost. The ship was only a sloop, a single-masted vessel with a crew of about ten men. There could be a considerable reward at stake for disrupting a potentially dangerous gun-running operation like this one. Pirate Pete simply drooled at the possibility of owning his own ship, so he was definitely on board with the idea. They began to make their plan.
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[newForumNewName]

[Jordan Peacock]

Regards hero mortality:

* I think I would have gone through 2 PC deaths in my "War of the Dead" campaign if not for the Adventure Deck. There are a number of cards that have the basic effect of negating damage from a single attack, making an attack miss, etc., or otherwise helping to avert catastrophe - and quite often in any sizeable group (especially at higher ranks), SOMEONE has one of those cards on hand. Due to the random nature of the card distribution, however, it's not to be counted on.

* Whenever my PCs end up at the point of Incapacitation, the big killer is the idea that you've still got to suffer a wound penalty to your Vigor roll when you roll on that chart.

That seems like a double-whammy, because you're not going to GET to the Incapacitation table unless you've already gone down the wounds scale, and odds are you don't have any bennies, either (or you would have used them on soak rolls before you got to this point).

Sure, there's the Hard to Kill Edge, but I've yet to see a player invest in that Edge. That would represent some very peculiar planning on the player's part. You'd have to plan on the very high possibility of getting Incapacitated now and then for it to even come into play, and even WITH this Edge there's a very real chance that you'll end up dead anyway (bad roll, no bennies). That Advance might be better spent on other things to avoid being Incapacitated in the first place.

For heroic, pulpy games where I want heroes to get "knocked out" more often than killed outright (but the possibility of death is still on the table), I generally just institute a setting rule that everyone gets "Hard to Kill" for free (thus ignoring wound penalties to the Incapacitation roll).
_________________

[SavageGamerGirl]

[Jordan Peacock]

[SavageGamerGirl]

[Clint]

[SavageGamerGirl]

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks Clint!
_________________
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here.'
The Order of the Dice... OF DOOM!

[Sitting Duck]