Tag: dragons

#Lore 24 – Entry #117 – Sci-Fi Month II #26 – Vellion III – Initial Scouting Report

Scouting Report from Brawnik “Devil Dog” Fangren, dispatched to Vellion III, Southern Continent, Mountain region, Draconic Ruins Site 001.  Decryption algorithm successful. 

Arrived just after dawn on Day 1, landed my scout during a rainstorm.  Sensors registered little in the way of pollutants in the rain or atmosphere, as expected of a primitive world.  Landing  site was amongst the outer ruins, elevation approximately 6500 feet, most vegetation at this level was grasses and vines, air was expectedly thin.  Immediate area, no hostiles, no wildlife.  Setup camp with my scout ship and secured camo netting, dispatched the mapping drones to cover the ruin site.  Specific data from scanners and drones attached.

Even at first glance, I recognized the distinct draconic nature of the ruins; they are practically identical to those found on Feria and other locations beyond the Barrier.  I’ll let the brains figure out the exact details, but these might not be quite as old as the ones we’ve found outside the Barrier; weathering doesn’t seem as bad, damage from vegetation growth doesn’t seem to be as extensive further down.  I’ve recognized a few symbols in the draconic tongue, matching others, so likely the language is the same.

Further down, in the deeper growth areas below the cloud line, humidity is much higher, and wildlife is abundant.  Typical jungle species, with variations of local differences.  Refer to the images attached regarding the snakes here; anyone exploring these ruins will have to be EXTREMELY cautious; think these are another Demon Sector special; they’re the size of a large constrictor but behave more like pissed off vipers, and their heads look more like what I’d call more ‘draconic’ than snake-like.  They’re spitters, too, and they can expel a lot of venom that can blind and begin to decay flesh almost immediately; they feed on the local ape species mostly from what I’ve observed, but had no fear of coming near me.  Their venom is comparable to other extremely lethal snake species according to the scanners, and they’re prevalent throughout the area of the ruins.  Maybe ancient guardians?  Had to kill a few of them; don’t recommend getting close.  Edible, though, once the venom sacs are dealt with.  Not bad.

Haven’t found signs that any locals have been here for a long time; there are old stairways and paths through the more damaged regions at the lower elevations, but these are long overgrown.  Nearest local settlement are kobolds, tribals, roughly ten miles out, to the east by the river.  Did find signs that someone has been here recently, though.  Upper levels, far side of my camp, one of the stone platforms shows signs of recent engine burn from takeoff and landing, probably a few months old.  Found footprints inside the ruins that hadn’t been washed away, just as old.  Looks like a couple light-steppers, kerryn or elves, one rattenvolk with a walking stick, and another with one of those spider-legged backpacks their techs use, and one equinarian, packing heavy gear.  Scents were all gone by the time I got there, and they cleaned up after themselves.  They set up camp inside the ruins for a while, explored internally, but I didn’t venture further in; not my area, leave that for the tomb raiders aboard the ship.  Trailblazer team?  Captain had his idea to search the system from somewhere, didn’t he?  Looked around for any notes and scanned for a beacon, but didn’t find anything of the sort, so no idea where they might’ve gone after that.  Doesn’t look like they descended below the clouds, at least on the outside; no signs of footsteps or spent cartridges down that way.

Weather is a bit temperamental here this time of year, frequent storms, heavy rain and lighting throughout my time here.  Doesn’t seem to be anything unnatural, just the geography.  Gets cold at night high up, stays uncomfortably humid further down.  Kept feeling eyes on me when it rained and I was below the clouds, though.  That kind of feeling that says intelligent, not predatory animal.  Didn’t seem hostile, just kept to themselves, whatever they were; never could find signs of them.  Ghosts or other spirits, maybe.  Worth taking caution; might get hostile if the teams start poking around for treasures.  Have some priests venture down there and have a look about.  Much more pleasant up top, good place to think up here, no distractions, nobody watching.

 

#Lore 24 – Entry #116 – Sci-Fi Month II #25 – Astral Divination and Navigation

From the Personal Journal of Primula Tallfoot, Arcane Support Division Head, assigned UEF-04 Maharani Morgiana. 

Sometimes I can’t help but ponder how I’ve wound up all the way out here…where my life has gone so very wrong that we’re relying on someone like Mizutani to navigate this entire fleet.  He still gets lost aboard the Morgiana on the regular, is still routinely late to work, and yet he’s the most talented diviner aboard?  Somehow.  Some way.  Mizutani, who can’t seem to see past his next date night, is being called upon to navigate the fleet?!  Is one of the gods of magic just fucking with us on this one?  I’d believe it.  Seriously…Mizutani is our go to on this leg of the trip?  I’d better make sure that cage of his is extra tight and prickly so that he stays focused, or we’ll all wind up diving into a quasar or taking the wrong kind of ride through an aetheric current.

Captain Silvercask is the one to blame for this mess we’re about to find ourselves in.  We’ve been following the course that was approved by the ASC before we left, and out of the blue, the captain showed up this morning to inquire about long range divination for a system outside the planned flight path.  He never told me where he got the idea to view the system from afar, and was actually pretty tight-lipped about it, simply asking for an indulgence.  Fine, whatever.  Everyone has secrets.   I get it.  Maybe he’s got word from one of those trailblazer teams?  Regardless, since we’ve still not overcome that long range interference that plagues the fleet’s sensors out here, we’ll have to rely on our diviners.

I still can’t understand how Mizutani specialized in divination, with a special focus on astral divination, and somehow excelled at it at the academy.  Yeah, I had to pull his records again just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it when I’d read it the first time.  Did someone give me falsified records as a joke?  The captain and I have arranged for tomorrow morning, first thing, to find out.  The ship’s due to drop out of hyperspace at 0900 and the ASD is due to begin divination immediately once we revert to realspace.  I’ll be overseeing the operation, of course, but Mizutani’s the lead on this one.  The twit looked like he was about to panic when I told him about him finally taking on some serious responsibility.  I had to get pretty stern with him to make him understand that being late in the morning was not an option if he ever wanted his dick free again and might have implied some additional restrictions if he screws up.  Think I got my point across.  I’m sure he’ll be plenty motivated to perform tomorrow.  If it’s one thing arcanists are good at, it’s working under pressure.  At least, I hope that’s still how they teach them at that fancy school…

Entry Update:

I guess anything’s possible, even Mizutani getting to work on time and performing his duties as expected.  I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it today, but he actually knows what he’s doing.  Apparently when properly motivated, he can perform admirably.  Will it continue beyond today?  I have my doubts, but we’ll see. 

The astral divination went splendidly, with Mizutani leading another half dozen of our diviners in a circle, their gazes focused on the system in question.  It looks like another fairly standard star system, a dozen planetary bodies, though only one appears to be in the habitable zone, the third one in line.  Several of the larger outer planets will likely serve well for construction materials and other resources, and there were no immediate dangers found in the system itself, no signs of modern tech, but there are definitely more primitive civilizations on the planet, pre-industrial, equivalent to most of our own societies during the Age of Legends.  Thus far, the diviners have seen humans, orcs, kobolds, and a few elvish enclaves; there are likely others in the mix as well.  So far, my prediction of encountering no truly alien species is correct.

Mizutani was drawn to a particular region as he focused on the planet’s surface, in the mountains on one of the southern continents.  He sensed lingering arcane ripples coming from the area; his scrying mirror revealed ruins there…draconic ruins in fact.  Though mostly hidden amongst the jungle overgrowth, the higher elevations revealed undeniably draconic architecture and statues.  It seems that we’ve finally got a proper ruin to explore!  Captain Silvercask is changing course as I write this and has already dispatched a scouting team to secure the area for us and other teams to study.  We should be arriving within the week, and I for one am anxious to finally set foot outside the ship and get to some serious work!

#Lore 24 – Entry #100 – Sci-Fi Month II #9 – Trailblazer One

 

From the Personal Logs of Captain Durgen Silvercask, decryption algorithm successful, translated from original Dwarven Script:

I certainly didn’t expect to see the CEOs of Veylani Transport AND RestrainTech when I awoke this morning, especially not aboard the Morgiana, but apparently Ms. Veylani was in the mood for a surprise inspection this morning.  Having finally met her, I can say that my earlier impressions were somewhat in error, though I still think she’s far too lacking in experience for the position.  Perhaps that’s one reason why she’s latched onto that Varmyrl fellow?  They seemed happy together, hells, I could almost swear they were talking to each other with just a look between them at times, so maybe they were made for one another.  Not really my place to consider such personal matters, though.

The meat of the conversation came after the inspection, when we retired to my cabin and Ms. Veylani discussed our initial flight plan and objectives for this expedition.  She was quite adamant that we attempt to follow a particular course on our way to Marchosias, even if it may conflict with our proposed course that has been submitted by the ASC.  Though not significantly different, there are several diversions indicated, all of which she promised would hold significant supplies of useful resources, but also sites of significant interest to the research teams aboard.

I had multiple concerns about this, not the least of which was how she had gotten this information, and why she had come to me directly with it instead of following the standard procedure of dissemination through the Council.  Though somewhat reluctantly, when pressed she finally revealed that her source was one of the Trailblazer teams and would only give me the designation Trailblazer One.  Apparently, this source, whoever they are, has been sending information directly to Ms. Veylani, through methods she did not elaborate upon.  When questioned as to how trustworthy the source was, she was even more adamant that she counted them among her most trusted allies but gave no further details.

What information she did share with me indicated that most of the significant sites of interest were ancient ruins of some form or another, with structures that resembled, if not outright mirrored, those of the ancient draconic structures found throughout known space on the other side of the Barrier.  Though Trailblazer One had already given a cursory examination of the sites, Ms. Veylani wants them given proper study, and even provided some of the notes and scans that have already been conducted.  I must admit, the similarities in the forms are startling, and, it seems, that there may be some kind of trail that her explorer has uncovered, given the fact that so many of these places have been found in such a short amount of time. 

This information has placed me in an awkward position.  There will be questions if I divert from the expected course, the least of which being how I knew to go to these systems.  I continued to press for more information, but all I could get out of either of my guests was that Trailblazer One’s identity was known to them, they were trusted, and there were opposing interests involved who would see harm done to Trailblazer One if they knew more.  As much as I didn’t want to be, I find myself mired in corporate intrigues.  Am I to suspect corporate assassins or sabotage on this expedition?  Perhaps my security chief’s concerns were not entirely unfounded, and not nearly as paranoid as they seem.  Though reluctant to do so, I have agreed to Ms. Veylani’s proposed plan of action, and will henceforth be receiving additional information as she receives it from Trailblazer One. 

At least I have some time to consider how exactly I will explain our diversions that lead to discoveries.  Perhaps I will begin opening conversations with some of our arcanists and the clergy aboard to see if any are feeling particularly drawn to any areas nearby the points of interest, or see if we can increase our long-range scanner efficiency the further we get away from the Barrier; some reports indicate this may be the case, but time will tell.  Perhaps I’ll simply have to explain them as hunches?  Supposedly we dwarves can sense treasure, after all, so some would believe it, though I am certain many more would not.  Give me harsh aetheric seas any day over this corporate conspiracy any day. 

Goodbye D&D 5e!  At Long Last!

Well, this certainly took a lot longer to happen than I’d hoped, but at last it seems that we’re starting to leave 5e behind at the local table.  I’m still playing in a 5e campaign, a conversion of the Reign of Winter AP, but I’m having my doubts that it’s going to last.  The DM honestly doesn’t seem to be that into it, and is easily distracted more often than not.  We had one recent session in which we gamed about two hours and spent the rest of the evening discussing tangential topics, not to mention that the guy running it seems to be getting later and later starting.  

The last 5e campaign I actually finished was the Savage Tide adventure, which, admittedly, was enjoyable, just not from a gameplay standpoint.  Interacting with the guys around the table and seeing what craziness our characters could pull off is always the meat of a campaign, and the story wasn’t bad at all, I just could not get into the mechanics.  I played a bugbear rune-knight fighter, and while it was rather amusing to grab targets from a distance and “tank from behind” for most of the campaign, I was soon feeling like I’d done it all before.  Because 5e just felt so very much the same in this campaign as the last few I’d been involved in.  The casters were flinging the same spells, the archer was using the same feats to deal massive damage, and we were speed-running dungeons like the superheroes we were (or villains in mine and another player’s case, lol), because we simply couldn’t be bothered to stop and smell the viscera.  After a fairly early point, I think we only had problems in one fight, and that was because we got ambushed by Demogorgon’s son.  During the rematch, we had time to prep and wiped the floor with him.  Even the final fight, while longer and admittedly more nail-biting than others, felt lacking in threat.  

And thanks to the great WotC OGL Fiasco of January 2023 (because honestly, I’m not convinced their done screwing themselves over just yet, and there’s plenty of time left for them to do it again this year), I got motivated to run another fantasy game in a different system.  I’d stopped GMing for a while last year when my 5e campaign ran out of steam.  I had intended to run the mind flayer trilogy of adventures from the 2e days, converted to 5e, but even my favorite D&D monster couldn’t keep my motivation up for running the game in 5e.  It just wasn’t fun to run the game.  So, I started looking around, and specifically focused on Castles & Crusades and Pathfinder 2e.  I picked PF2e to try out first mainly because half the players at the table were already familiar with it to some extent, having played a few games with another GM, but also because, after researching it more, it sounded really good.  The game balance and mechanics just sounded so much more exciting to play with than 5e ever had been (in all honesty, I was done with 5e a few months after it launched, and for a time, we did go back to Pathfinder 1e, but for whatever reason *cough Critical Role cough* the guys gravitated back to it).  

And so, to give PF2e a good tryout, I decided to run with the Abomination Vaults AP, and start things off with the Beginner Box, sprinkling in some of the Troubles in Otari adventures as well.  If a megagungeon can’t find the cracks in the system, then what will, right?  As of the time of this writing, I’ve GM’ed two games so far, and the PCs have almost finished the beginner box adventure.

 

Diving In With the Starter Adventures

I began my ill-fated 5e mind flayer campaign with The Lost Mines of Phandelver (LMoP) adventure, which is the 5e starter adventure, so it makes a good comparison with PF2e’s beginner box adventure, Menace Under Otari (MUO).  LMoP is much larger in scale, a sandbox adventure taking the PCs to 5th level, while MUO only takes them to 2nd level and consists of a two-floor mini dungeon below the town of Otari.  In both cases, I modified the adventures to suit my tastes and those of the players, though with MUO, I used some guidelines I’d found online to merge it with the larger Abomination Vaults campaign and using the Troubles in Otari adventures as sidequests.  

LMoP, while a good enough starting point, seems a bit unfocused at times, with sidequests that seem wholly unrelated to the town ‘s plight (looking at you random green dragon quest that sends the party nearly all the way to Neverwinter).  Granted, this isn’t exactly a bad thing, as its the NPCs in the town that set the players on these quests, but I would prefer that the quests stick closer to the town and its big finale in the cavern dungeon, and tie into the main quest somehow.  Easily enough done, but it did take a little work on my part to shift things around and integrate events into a more cohesive feeling game. 

The other big complaint I had with this one is the lack of threat to the party.  Granted, I had a group of seasoned veteran players with 25+ years of gaming experience each, but still, the encounters felt weak, even when I tweaked them for a couple extra players and played the creatures smarter than they were presented.  The only times my players actually felt threatened was when they encountered “ramborcs”, which used intelligent tactics and traps to combat and funnel the players, and when I introduced other creatures of my own design that wound up killing the thief (he got better) because they wanted revenge for him having killed one of theirs.  The original encounters, even with me placing the dragon in the final dungeon and setting it up as a two-stage boss (the drow wizard was also the dragon, just shapechanged, so when the wizard “died”, the dragon popped out to play), barely slowed down the players.

Now, switching gears to MUO, this felt like a much more cohesive starting point.  We didn’t use the player aids (again, I’ve got a very experienced group at the table), and I did change things up some, but even as written, this was a much more challenging opening.  The adventure is laid out with the intent of teaching the players the various game mechanics and play modes, and while it did feel a little ‘basic’ to me, I don’t think my players felt the same.  They were engaged with what was happening, and seemed far more interested in their surroundings than they ever were during the LMoP run.  T

Perhaps the most striking moment occurred after the party cleared (most of) the first level.  They had faced several kobolds by this point, and were feeling pretty good about themselves, having taken some damage, used a few of the cleric’s spells, but overall were doing good.  I got the feeling they were thinking it would go about like a 5e dungeon.  Then, the very first room of the second floor, they failed to detect a pair of kobolds laying in wait for them, and were ambushed.  This immediately dropped the summoner, and the following round dropped the thaumaturge NPC (one of the players couldn’t make it, so I threw together an NPC to assist so that I wouldn’t have to rebalance the encounters just yet).  The kobolds then focused on the monk, and while landing a hit, didn’t immediately manage to drop him, giving the cleric a chance to heal the thaumaturge…only for the kobolds to strike them again and drop them.  Getting the summoner up used the last of the cleric’s spells, and suddenly the party was ready to retreat and wait for the other player to continue (he was the fighter).  From this point, they did retreat for a time, picking up next game in the Otari Fishery and getting the fighter, and buying a few potions. The cleric wanted to rest, but the party (wisely) decided to venture back down and set up a defensible position inside the dungeon so that the kobolds wouldn’t be able to lay traps for them during a full rest.  They only encountered a small patrol, and a second larger trap-making group just starting their mission, instead of facing all the traps I’d intended to have set for them had they rested the full 8 hours aboveground. 

Good on them.

 

How Does it Feel to Play?

After the second game, with the party having cleared most of the starter dungeon now (there is a puzzle that I added from the beforementioned supplement, the room beyond, and the crypt on level 1 they haven’t delved into yet), I have to say that from a GM’s perspective, I had a lot more fun.  The Three-Action system in PF2e felt very good in play, and the way the game was balanced really started to click as the party got further along and began using more thought out tactics (for the most part, anyway). I was actually enjoying playing the monsters, too, forcing them to behave intelligently as they tried to take out the party and not just soak up damage and respond in kind as they tended to do in 5e.

I had gotten a little worried as they did a ‘speedrun’ maneuver in the last four areas of the dungeon, though.  This started with the mermaid statue trap, which the fighter activated when trying to draw the kobolds out of their warren to ambush them.  This caused the group to start beating on the trap until it shut off; I was kind of merciful here and didn’t have the kobolds notice until the device screeched loudly when it was broken.  After the party dealt with the kobolds, they had enough XP to level, but due to the cleric having cast Magic Weapon on the fighter, and only have the one casting, they didn’t waste time, rushing through the warren to face the kobold boss, who smartly retreated when attacked and called for its dragon pet.  I had heard that this dragon could be a dangerous foe on its own, and could potentially wipe the party even if they were level 2, but going in at level 1, I was worried.  

Thankfully, the players pulled off some amazing rolls.  The dragon took a crit from the fighter, and with him dealing double damage, was brought down to below half its hit points almost immediately.  It was technically finished off by the summoner’s pet, but I cheated a bit and gave it a ‘mutation’, which healed it for 15 hp when it dropped to 0, because I wanted it to actually have a round.  Not that it mattered, because I rolled like crap on its turn, and then went down on the following round by a flurry of blows from the monk.  

All in all, I was very happy with how things played out.  

Player Response

More interesting perhaps was the response I got from the players.  They were excited after taking down the dragon (though I hope they don’t get in the habit of their speedrun antics going forward…), as they should have been, and were having a great time.  I was most pleased with the response from the guy who had made it his mission to do everything game breaking in 5e, bringing out the worst in the system over the last few years.  As would be revealed in a message I got later, he was looking forward to my next game, having seen how impactful his support had been (he was playing the cleric) and how much of a difference his Magic Weapon spell had been in the final fight.  

Now that we’re basically done with the starter adventure, I’m looking forward to delving into the true dungeon for this campaign.

Onto the Abomination Vaults

The adventure path proper should be kicking off next session, once the party finishes with their exploration of the starter dungeon and finishes off a few stragglers in the rooms they haven’t explored yet.  As long as the players are all there, the NPC thaumaturge will probably be relegated to hanging out in the town’s library, but that depends on the players; if they want to continue having her along, then it’s going to be easy enough to adjust the encounters.  From my position as GM, seeing that PF2e has an encounter building system that actually works, and works well, is a godsend.  Plus, being able to throw a simple template on monsters to beef them up on the fly is great, especially considering the party is now a level higher than required for the first floor of the dungeon, and likely may be higher than needed in general for the game as I’m adding additional side quests.

Or, I can leave things as is, and let them feel awesome for a while, perhaps even giving them a false sense of security until later dungeon levels.  Either way, just looking at how much easier its going to be on me to make the encounters as tough or as easy as I want is going to be great. 

I’m excited to be running this game, and my players are excited to be playing it.  I might even be getting an additional player joining in the next game in fact.  We’ll see if that comes to pass, but for now, things are definitely looking up.  

I’ll keep you updated on how things go from here, but the future is looking good!  

Till next time, out!