Category: Campaign Logs

When we last left our players, they had just murdered a helpless gnome (who admittedly may not have been on the up-and-up after all), shifted alignment, nearly killed each other, and had stolen a private jet from their employer.

So y’know, the usual.

Currently en route to Sydney, Australia, the players are now trying to decide what exactly they’re going to do to destroy the Crown of the Savant, the artifact of Maanzecorian they retrieved from the temple in China. Just hitting it with a hammer probably won’t do the job, so they want something of Mount Doom levels of intensity to get the job done. With no volcanoes or nuclear reactors incredibly nearby they ultimately decide to fall back on the one thing they know they can access from Sydney: space.

Continue reading “We’re in it for the Money: Savant Syndrome: Pt. II”

GM Note: The thief is referred to as “Greg Francis Turner” in this adventure.

After the previous adventure, some of the players have a lot to think about. Greg sets about re-writing his will so that everything goes to his daughter. Additionally, he makes sure to write the will as a cipher, which when decrypted will provide the password to his computer, which stores all of his contacts and resources that he has accrued in his life as a thief, and as the force behind “Mr. Mannheim.” He hopes this information will do her some good if she ever needs it.

Strauss, having obtained no real information from his pursuit of Greg into the Feywild, finds himself with little to do to pursue his inroads into Greg’s past, and so instead passes the time by helping Norm develop a special leather scabbard rig to help him more efficiently hold his weapons. With nearly every surface covered in some kind of katana, rapier, or other miscellaneous blade, Norm is able to carry almost all of his arsenal on his person at all times, though the rig does hamper his natural movements somewhat, resulting in a -2 penalty to all dexterity-based checks.

Gorak, for his part, is re-acquainting himself with Sigil’s many breweries after his brief (but seemingly much longer) separation from alcohol.

Continue reading “We’re in it for the Money: Savant Syndrome Pt. I”

GM Note: The thief is referred to as “Mat King” in this adventure.

After nearly three straight sessions of off-the-books adventures, the players somehow still manage to have some time to themselves at the start of this one; even in mercenary work, slow weeks happen.

Strauss has invested in a reloading press and is experimenting with building specialty ammunition. The process is slow, intensive, and often explosive. Certain elements are gradually ruled out as poor choices in bullet construction. Gorak, still getting put to work on the Escalade, has the KPV machine gun they acquired in the City of Brass shipped back to Sigil and sets about mounting it on the vehicle, just forward of the sun roof.  Norm, meanwhile, realizes that he’s been in Sigil for months now and yet still hasn’t actually bothered to obtain a driver’s license. With the Escalade they acquired back in the second adventure finally out of the shop, it seems like it’s high time for Norm to get the legal OK to drive it.

Mat, however, decides that it would be funny to try and get Norm drunk before taking his test. Putting forth the idea that the Escalade’s finishing touches are cause for celebration, he takes Norm out to drinks and tries to get him as sloshed as possible. The players actually rolled opposed checks to see who succeeded, and while Norm ends up a bit buzzed, he still maintains control of the majority of his motor functions and succeeds at the following skill challenge to obtain a driver’s license. He then rolls a charisma check to see how good his license photo comes out, and gets exactly 10: it’s not a great photo, but it could be worse.

Continue reading “We’re in it for the Money: The Shawshank Damnation”

GM Note: The thief is referred to as “Christopher Hines” for this adventure.

This session began a little differently. Instead of getting a mission from Punwick or having some kind of trouble stumble across their path, the game instead started thanks to the input of the players themselves. You see, after the mission onboard the Akagiwhen I stated that the players would be getting some vacation time, they justifiably took that to mean that it would happen behind the scenes and not that I would take that opportunity to throw them into another adventure. As such, some of them planned out what they would be doing in their free time, and the player behind the character of Strauss even wrote out his entire vacation and delivered it to me at the start of the next session.

GM Note: If your players ever submit to you their own bits of backstory or lore, and as long as it doesn’t break the overarching lore, continuity, or rules of the gameworld you’re playing in, use it. This makes the players even more active participants in the world (albeit on something of a meta level) and can only serve to make them more involved. In games I’ve played in, player sculpting of the universe can come in virtually any form from using a bit of character backstory to establish game ideas to table chatter jokes being so damn funny that everyone unanimously decides that a false moustache stolen from a nobleman grants a +2 to diplomacy checks as long as it’s worn. This is a player-driven world, after all, and the GMs job is just to make sure they don’t break it.

Continue reading “We’re in it for the Money: Through the Fire and Flames”

GM Note: The thief is referred to as “Armando Bond” in this adventure.

Following the resolution of the terrorist takeover of SecureExpo ’75, our heroes were rewarded with an all-expenses paid vacation in the country of Faerun. “All expenses paid” does not, however, mean that the group gets to do whatever they want and expect to be reimbursed for it. They are instead provided with a comprehensive holiday package for the famous Hollow Mountain ski resort. The resort, nestled in the town of Skógar at the base of Hollow Mountain itself, is one of the country’s foremost luxury tourist locations, roughly akin to Aspen, Colorado on Earth. The vacation package provides lodging, meals, lift tickets, and gear rentals for the party over the course of a week; a rather generous offering considering the otherwise consistently on-call nature of the party’s employment contract.

After landing at the Duke Eltan Memorial Spaceport in Baldur’s Gate, the players rent a civilian vehicle and hit the road, heading north towards Skógar and a solid week of much deserved relaxation. The journey north begins in much the same way as any road trip; fights over occupancy of the front seat, approximately 500 ounces Big Gulp, and showtunes. As they approach  Skógar, however, anticipation is slowly replaced by apprehension.

Continue reading “We’re in it for the Money: Holiday of the Dead”