Tag: ghosts

Strange Travelers

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, ReveliaLeave a comment

The tickets were sent, the players called,
and I with my carriage went to fetch them all.

A hungover Duergar outside of a tavern.
A young monk praying outside of a cavern.
And an old janitor breaking his pattern.

A demon running from cops. An ogre from slavers.
And a strange running man without any manners.

Lastly, two finely dressed folks,
One with a sword, and one with jokes.

Off to the carnival, quick as a whip,
And gone again, into the ether I slip.


Oh good, they’re gone. You don’t care how they got there, do ya? You wanna know what they did inside, right?

That Kentaro fellow, he ate so many cupcakes, that Mina almost forgot to end the contest! 30 cupcakes in one minute! The nearest competitor didn’t even eat half that! You should have seen her face when he wandered back in to talk to Ellie, fortunately he was still full and she told him he wasn’t allowed to enter again today. Wait until he finds out there’s no tomorrow, just tonight! Hah! Elllywick better watch her mouth though, grumbling about all the changes around here. It’s a great place to be alive!

Better watch out for that red lady, though, Pretty sure I saw her snag some tickets right outa some rubes’ pocket. Nothing saying ya can’t do that, but if the Jawbreakers catch her, gonna be a bad day for somebody.

At least these new folks did some good. Scooter has stop wailing and pounding on the walls in the Hostile. Excuse me, Hostel, Ramona gets very picky when folks call it that. You ever been interviewed in there? I’ve been attacked by Schnoozlings! I think one of the new guys was, too, got those telltale scratches on his face.

Can’t wait to have them all join the clown brigade!

My Players: Stop Reading

I think it was a successful first game.

All the players met and got to know about each other. With such a large group, many were having side conversations at the table when others were acting elsewhere. While this made my job a little harder as my voice is soft and ears are old, I’m glad they’re getting to know each others’ characters. Something I’ll have to manage and balance with their help.

I used two of the music tracks, and they did alright at low volume, turning up or down as needed. Even hitting exactly the right beat when I turned it up for the oncoming parade. I think we’ll keep it for now.

We met two out of three NPC instigators and found the plot. The Heckna and Witchlight modules are very upfront about what is going on here. I gave some of the PCs invitations to actually join the carnival, but they quickly discovered that might not be a good idea. Maybe a little too quickly, really, but I wasn’t sure how else to handle it. Dr. Stella was a little vague, but clear enough about the dangers. Ellywick was very upfront about the danger and changes, but not as blatant as the book suggests. I think they’re meant to find her later in that first chapter, but it was only one chapter in Witchlight at the carnival. I think maybe Dr. Stella could have been waiting for them in a different place, or the parade could have interrupted her earlier, but some of the information is important up front.

Meeting Pinky was a bit of a scattered scene, but I think that’s alright. They really enjoyed Maphew, and have already cottoned on to keeping him put away for important conversations. I need to make sure I track that.

Kentaro had a good time at the eating contest, but they haven’t really dug into any of the regular foods yet, other than reading the menus. Looking forward to that, though he wants to stay in the Suite Sweet so he has constant food. Did mention he wants something other than sugar, big guys need protein. He’ll have to check out occasionally though, to let it refresh, I think.

Dispara is already picking tickets out of pockets. I think I’m going with nearest die, round up and roll to see the number of tickets gained. That’s a thing I think can be opposed by Observation maybe? I’ll check that out.

And they took my repeated bait to go do the first quest – find Scooter in the Hostile Hostel. They went at it a bit more skill focused than exploratory, so they didn’t ask Ramona questions or check for a guest book. They also didn’t check out any of the first floor rooms, nor the second floor – just did listen checks until they found the room it was coming from. It’s supposed to be echo-y all over, but I didn’t want to No their skill checks on their first challenge.

Dispara started checking rooms after they figured it out, and folks started finding cards. Which has Valara able to put her knowledge to bear. Though they haven’t let her check anything out, mostly just drawing the cards they find. We’ve found a Healer’s Kit, a Light Hammer, a +1 to attack/damage, and a quick heal if Dispara goes to zero HP – but that hasn’t happened, yet so.

We also had our first little fight, I got a Schnoozling onto Killjoy, but Kentaro cut it off before he made his first save. A simple and quick fight, but I wanted to practice the mechanics, and it was more of a trap than a real combat – they don’t even do damage. I figured out how to roll attacks by the end of it.

Looking forward to more exploring of the carnival next week – meeting Locke, checking out their shopping options, maybe getting to play a few games and some simple quests to get to know the area and people.

And find Water – Kentaro realized he needs to find easier and cheaper things to drink than Felix’s elixirs. Might have to make friends with Puddles or Capt’n Groggstache.

See you next week, Adventurers!

In Which Zero Sets Off in a New Land

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, ZeroLeave a comment

Description:

It appears the group had a nice breakfast, joined again by the well dressed man. This time he brought gifts. A map of the land in which they find themselves, a potion, food stuff and drink. He also brought them word of the happenings of the world. People sick with a shouting sickness. A newspaper. A king who fell from his horse. It looks like Zero may have gone out and gotten herself a compass and a new orange cloak – perhaps she was feeling the autumn of the land.

Next appears to be a family crest of a husband and wife who were involved in shipping and fighting, but may now be dead. It appears Zero then listened to a song with a crowd of people, perhaps about that flower under the eclipse from the night before. We then see a reference to, perhaps, a dark assassin guide.

The group then heads off from this town to find adventure in this new strange land with cart and horse. In the first town they came to, it appears they enjoyed some gambling with dice and the wheel. Zero also includes a small portrait of the starry night sky, moonless this night.

Kobolds and Consequences

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

The nice speaker lady wants the Best Friends Club to own the inn in Lonely Wood, so Saalym, Eggy, and Leshy hire some folk to fix it up and get it ready to open again. Why do we want a building? We have to get back to our ship. Maybe Eggy likes hunting here so much he wants to stay?

We have a couple days until the moon is the right shape for Twitch, so we go to a new town. They’ve got kobolds in their mine, I guess. So the people aren’t mining anymore. They lost one person in the mine and no one has gone back since. I really want to go meet the pirates, but this is between us and there, so we agree to go take a look.

There’s a sign outside the mine that says Kobold’s Only, so we shout down the hole. Nobody comes to talk though, so we creep in, all careful not to scare them. Doc’s already a goblin, so I make like a kobold to make them more friendly. First, we find a bunch of mining stuff and Eggy says there’s lots of tracks. Humans, kobolds, and big rats. We follow some of the rat steps and find a big sparkly room, but it’s hard to get the sparkles out of the walls. I get a nice rock though. Then we find a couple rats, they are kinda big, but they squish just like the little ones.

We explore some more and find more mine stuff. Until we finally find some kobolds. They’re trying to break things, but after Saalym scares one to death, the other one talks to us. We convince Scorp we’re here to help and he agrees to show us where the boss, Trex, is. So we can help them trade with the town.

Scorp says not to go down one of the tunnels cuz there’s a creepy thing, so Doc and I go look. It’s a beak monster with big long arm things, but it leaves us alone, so we leave it alone. The rest of the group thinks it’s dangerous, and we should kill it, but it’s gone when they go look. Doc and I go find some more kobolds cutting up a dead rat and give them some better food.

Next we go talk to Trex, he’s put wooden wings on his back. They’ve only been here a couple weeks, came from a cave that Yetis took. We tell them they can go back if they want, cuz we killed the Yetis, but maybe there were more somewhere else. They want to stay here. He’s using a big voice and strange big words. And he’s lying about why he wants to stay here. Why do people do that?

Everyone else gets there and Twitch asks to see Trex’s bag. When he lets him, Saalym says there’s a dead spirit near Twitch. That seems bad, but Twitch doesn’t mind. Trex is really confused now. We tell them we’ll clear out anything else dangerous and help them talk to the town so they can stay here and the miners can go back to mining. They agree.

So, we go looking around. We find a weird skull with holes in it in one of the walls. It has a magic crystal inside it that Twitch likes. Eggy really wants to find and kill the beak monster. Leshy says it’s called a Grell and eats people. We can’t find it though, so we head back to town to sleep. The speaker agrees to work with the kobolds. When we go back, Twitch goes wandering off alone to try and get the Grell to show up, and it works. So we run up and kill it and everyone is much happier. So we can finish getting the deal made.

Then it’s time to go back to the moon place in the Woods. We put all the stuff on the pillars in the brazier, including the hand of the dead druid who attacked Doc and me. It lights up, and Twitch lights a torch and puts it on the rock coffin and then we can open it. How strange. The dead lady inside gets up and bows to Doc.

She says she’s in his service for freeing her from death or something. Her name’s Sahnor, I think. Doc says he doesn’t need anything, but she says she’ll stay until he does. We ask her if she can help us fight a goddess lady and fix our tree ship. She agrees to help, she wants to fight bad people. She’s not sure if she can go back to being dead or not.

So, we head north towards the pirates because that’s next until we figure out how to fight the winter goddess lady. I talk to her about the gods here, but her gods were a lot older. Someone says we should head for a talking whale to get to the pirates, He’s got a big name, since he’s a big whale, and I guess he has a boat on his back. That sounds painful. Does it go underwater with him? Isn’t there a lot of ice up here? How does that all work?

First, though, there’s a whole bunch of elks running at a small bunch of people. Leshy makes the ground grind up their legs to death. Elk are really tasty, probably even better after Leshy cooks it, but we’ve been walking a long while and Doc and me are hungry. The people say thanks, and they’re going to the whale too, only they say there’s a bell you have to ring to get the whale. Poor whale, having to show up when stupid humans ring a bell. She wants the whale to take her to camps where people kill whales and take their oil. Why would the big ship whale be okay with that? But she thinks it’s fine and rings the bell way out on a frozen dock.

Some vultures show up and we give them food to go away. Then some jerks who want to kill the whale show up and we have to talk them into going away. Really proud of Eggy for not shooting them or the birds. Then the whale shows up and he’s just SO BIG!

Dead Druids and Barry the Bush

On By ravonlockeIn Jin, JournalLeave a comment

With all the animals gone or dead, Doc and I take a look around. The front door’s all sealed tight on the inside just like the outside. Down another hall, there’s a door with a half moon on it, looks like a D to me. Inside is a big dome with sunlight coming from no place onto another big stone coffin. The group discusses breaking it open, but Doc and I keep looking. There’s a really big mirror in another hall, but it won’t come off the wall and doesn’t do anything fun. Saalym’s axe makes it glow a little, but that’s it.

There’s another path that goes up, the half moon goes the other way on this one, but it’s the same inside. Except someone’s been living here. There’s drying plants and blankets. Folks think this is where the bad druid is staying and start talking about tricking and attacking her here. Or maybe outside. Saalym’s really tired, so she, Doc and I take a nap in there while the others go look for the druid or something.

There’s a big loud noise from down the corridor after not that long and Saalym goes to look what happened. The big stone box breaks open and a dead druid pops out and attacks Doc and me. It turns me back to myself and burns a lot. We smash it back down into the box and Doc and I cut off the head just to make sure. There’s lots of shooting below so we go help. After I put my goblin mask back on.

There’s a ghost down there, telling everyone to be quiet. And a dead druid like on the floor, almost like the one we fought up above. The ghost gets really angry and screams at us, so we have to make her go away. After, just to make sure, we go to the unopened coffin in the first hall and open it up and stab the body. It doesn’t move. Doc’s mad at the dead for attacking us, so we take all their stuff.

When we catch up with the rest of the group, they’ve made friends with a bush and named him Barry for his berries. He says the angry ghost lady hangs out in the forest. I send Kit out to see if she can find any of the druid’s other talking animals while we go looking for the ghost lady. Saalym wants to give her a proper funeral so she can go away and not come back. Spirits here are so strange.

Kit comes back with some ice friends when we find the right spot. So, we make lots of snowmen to watch Saalym say goodbye to the ghost. After Doc helps dig up her bones, he helps me with snowmen. Saalym and Leshy say goodbye to the ghost for a really long time. But she doesn’t go away, she shows up instead. And then Saalym gets really mad and hits her really hard. That makes her burn all up. Saalym says she was horrible and hurt kids.

Barry doesn’t really know what to do without the druid lady, so he comes back to town with us. I teach him Hide and Seek with the Speaker’s kids. Then we go to bed in her nice little house. I think Saalym owns the town’s Inn now, how strange.