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Eno Remnant
2015-11-18, 09:08 AM
The SCP Campaign

http://orig12.deviantart.net/dcd4/f/2013/252/3/4/sea_of_blood_by_neverdying-d6lkast.jpg

Welcome, to the SCP Campaign.

As you drift between the various planes of existence, you see an endless sea of blood, with a lone figure apparently wading through.

You can see clouds endlessly obscuring the sky, raining what appears to be human blood.

And in the distance, you can see a very large silhouette. It seems humanoid, but there are hints of construct nature in the shadows. Two luminous eyes gaze at the figure from the darkness.

Then they fix themselves upon the dreamers.

"I shall end death, end suffering, and end loneliness. Bring me back, and you shall live for eternity."

The voice appears to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. It echoes through your mind, almost strangling your consciousness.

"Begone."

You transition into consciousness, atop some sort of red platform. Your bowels feel as if they've been taken apart and rearranged several times.


And that’s the intro we players got to what has been, to this date, our most harrowing campaign.

Hi there, I’m Eno Remnant. You may know me from the half a dozen threads I’ve made comments in. Maybe that one handbook I wrote a while back. Possibly even that one homebrew class I did. I highly doubt it.

What you will know me for, however, is this campaign journal. You’re going to get a guided tour through the SCP campaign that I and two other players are presently experiencing, from my perspective. It’s difficult, merciless, and has claimed the lives of a lot of characters to date. One twice.

On the other hand, it’s also been incredibly fun, and at times—mostly OOC—very silly. If you’re into that sort of thing, you’re set.

If you’re not familiar with the SCP universe, I suggest you look it up. It can be a very interesting read. Those without the wherewithal to do so, SCPs are basically objects, or people, or monsters, that don’t follow the rules of nature, physics, or even reality. They do strange, possibly terrible things, and all too often kill people or otherwise mess them up. So you can only imagine what kind of people would willingly subject themselves to a campaign based around them.

I hope you enjoy this little walk through hell and back. I know I… either have or haven’t. Still up for debate.
Without further ado, let us begin.



The Players (in order of me first):

Eno – What can I say about me? I’m more at home playing goody-two-shoes Bards and Paladins (of Freedom. Chaotic > Lawful), with a flair for the dramatic and a heart of gold. I personally identify as Neutral Good with Chaotic leanings, and tend to play characters that way. The premise of the campaign, along with the DM’s request to not play Good characters, is quite a departure for me. It’s pushed me into my next most common alignment selection, Chaotic Neutral. Basically, I’m going to be the one who makes the stupid or reckless plays, either because I tend to act without thinking or because I think it’s in-character to do so (not because I think that’s how Chaotic should be played, it’s just me being me). My characters will also be horribly underoptimised in the main—to which I feebly defend that I am more of a roleplayer—and mostly just contribute extra actions and chump damage to the party.

Magery – The party rollplayer. Which isn’t to say that he isn’t also a skilled roleplayer, it’s just that he tends to optimise. Often without even doing it on purpose. Other than that, he’s got snark, arrogance, and the skill to back both of those up. A lot of his characters (read: all the ones in this campaign to date) tend to be short, dark-haired and hyperlethal women (we have an official term for any woman who fits those criteria, plus borderline psychopathy: Magedere).

Kyr – The party vampire. Kyr loves vampires, and will play them when given the opportunity. Obviously, not a reasonable option in D&D. The DM’s vampire variant with lower LA and no undead type was a godsend to him. Like me, he prefers to be a roleplayer more than a rollplayer. He tends to be much more cautious and prefers a darker kind of character than I do, as well.


The PCs (in order of appearance):

Marcus Dawne – A Half-Minotaur Strongheart Halfling (I pity his mother) sniper (Fighter/Rogue). Fears the defiling touch of the undead.

Cole Deis (pronounced dee-is; not that it stops us from calling him Cold Ice OOC) – A Lesser Chaond Vampire Trooper (self-made, firearm AoO-focused homebrew class). Cautious and serious, but with a fun side. Has some issues with his brother. Gets along well with Sinon. A little weirded out by Dorian.

Sinon – A Dark Strongheart Halfling Sniper (homebrew class). Hyper-observant. Has some issues with her sister. Gets along well with Cole. Ooulian OTP.

Dorian – A Winged Lesser Cansin Dragonfire Adept. Weird, to say the least. Has a weak psychic aura that allows him to see metaphysical ‘threads’ that define a person.

Aurelia– A Draconic Lesser Cansin Wizard/Cataclysm Mage. Sassy. Considers anyone who fights in melee to be useful mainly as a meatshield. Has a rat familiar called Arvendaele.

Raven – A Draconic Tibbit Warlock. Has a personality akin to Raven from Teen Titans, or Digo’s Ayagi (same monotone, too), but with a cheeky and feral side that is rarely seen. Party doesn’t know she’s a Tibbit.

Lucas Tere – An Unseelie Silverbrow Human Vampire (yes, really) Battle Sorcerer/Swiftblade. Serious and dedicated to his job. Doesn’t think much of his party (or anyone, honestly).

Aki – An Incarnate Construct Warforged Magic-Blooded Unseelie Draconic Vampire (yes, really) Warlock. Into anything with a Charisma score of at least 18 – this includes her party (and someone else of note, to date).


The notable NPCs (in no notable order. Hierarchy, maybe?):

Nasir – The head of the Church of the Broken God. Probably a Wizard (pretty sure this is confirmed OOC). More than a bit of an ass. Presumably Lawful Evil.

Wayne – An Omnificer (or close enough. His every ability score is around 200) who serves as the party’s merchant. Presumably True Neutral (for OOC reasons. He existed before the campaign did as a theorycraft build).

CC (stands for Crusader-Cleric) – A Cleric responsible for post-mission healing in the first few sessions. Presumably Good (see Wayne’s description).

Belial – A pit fiend who provides victims for the party vampires to feed upon, and offers grafts in exchange for human sacrifices. Presumably Lawful Evil.

Gary Jr. – Random guard in the base the PCs work out of. Is forced to work opposite the hanging skeleton of his father, Gary Sr. Both named during an OOC silliness session.


The DMPCs (in order of appearance):

Ooulon – Human Spellsword (class unknown). Presumably Chaotic Neutral. Serious and goal-oriented.

Jason – Half-Dragon Paladin. Lawful Good. Head injury allows him to only ever see the good in people, to his own and the party’s detriment.


Current Completed Missions: 6



Things to remember:

The campaign takes place in the SCP universe. PCs are summoned to the world from their home plane to participate as “prophets”.

The party works for the Church of the Broken God (bad guys who steal SCPs in an attempt to revive their god), in a time before the SCP Foundation (“good” guys who want to hide, study and protect all the SCPs) has fully consolidated, and it still hunting down a lot of the older SCPs.

This campaign is played on Roll 20, using a hybrid of D&D 3.5 rules and homebrew rules devised by the DM. The most relevant variations from 3.5 rules will be covered here:

• Build rules are: 40 PB, 1 free LA, WBL equal to Pathfinder WBL +3 levels. Started at level 3, new characters scale to party level.
• A variant of the vampire template exists for players who want to do it, with reduced LA. Two versions exist, one LA +1, the other LA +2. Both remove the undead type, some special qualities/attacks and some immunities.
• There are guns/grenades/Kevlar/modern weapons and armour in the world, and most have absurdly high damage. Basically, it’s rocket tag in a mortal vs. mortal encounter, with sniper rifles and flamethrowers top of the heap (not that we’ve seen other heavy weapons used).
• SCPs are designed to the DM’s whims. Some are utterly undefeatable by means we possess. Such is the way of SCPs.
• Each character after a certain point in the campaign has a MARS, or Mind-Affecting Resistance Score. This is devised using a calculation of the DM’s design, and high scores help characters resist certain kinds of SCPs. I have not, to date, gotten better than 30. On a scale of 1-100.
• After a certain point, the DM implemented the wound and vitality point system from Unearthed Arcana.
• After a certain point, the DM implemented a homebrew from one of our older games called Styles. These basically grant some kind of passive ability, with effects varying widely. They are only available to characters that the DM considers underpowered (read: mine), and as such exist as a minor balancing mechanism.

The most important thing to remember about this campaign is that you can die. A lot. I presently hold the record. Things can literally just jump around a corner and stop you living, and have done so on occasion. We knew this would happen from the beginning, having been warned by the DM, and because SCPs. So if anyone considers anything that happens cruel or unfair, it is, but we came into this expecting it (doesn’t stop us complaining when things are horribly unfair, though).

Eno Remnant
2015-11-18, 09:09 AM
Mission One – Introduction:

The DM gives us his ominous intro. At the bit about blood, Cole’s player (Kyr) takes a short stab at roleplaying his desire to drink from the blood sea, and his restraint from doing so. At the bit about immortality, I make a joke about losing Magery, who is, in my own words “a sucker for cheating death”.

After the intro, we get into the game. We’re in a cave base belonging to the Church of the Broken God. Sinon (Magery’s character), not knowing where she is and aware that the surroundings are too confined for sniping, pulls an SMG; Marcus (my character) says “My god” in Italian, obviously surprised by the sudden transition and unfamiliar surroundings, but mostly just feeling that bowel pain from the intro. Cole makes no appreciable comment before the plot advances.

A man with a rifle walks up to us and asks if we have any questions. Marcus asks the man if he fears death, to which the response is basically that death won’t be a problem, if we’re there to fulfil his church’s prophecy. At this point, Cole looks from Marcus to the man, but continues to perform no appreciable action.

Magery rolls Spot for Sinon, citing sniper habits and the risks of not paying attention. Sinon notes that the man’s armour doesn’t fit properly, as though he’s missing something underneath. After that, I make perception checks so I’m not left out (competence envy). Marcus hears some whispers, which Sinon then out-hears, though neither really hears anything. Sinon also detects a constant rumbling underlying the normal noises.

At this point, Marcus gets impatient and signals that they should all move on. The guard—as he so happens to be—leads the party to meet their new boss. We spot a Cleric off to the right of us as we go, apparently warding something in a side chamber, but exactly what it is happens to be obscured by fog (this, unlike every other little hint thus far, will actually come up again).

The guard stops eventually and points us the rest of the way, giving us a code to tell the leader’s guard on the way past. As we go, Sinon determines that the cave is man-made (Magery loves to make Knowledge checks). Cole gives the code to the guard, and we move past him to the leader’s office.

We meet the man, who introduces himself as Nasir and drops some exposition:

"Well, I'll give you the short version. Our god broke into pieces a very long time ago. Our objective is to collect these pieces and assemble the god so that it can be whole once more. Our god heard our prayers, and extended its influence across space and time to bring you here.

My name is Nasir Iyov. I'm the current leader of the efforts to assemble our god, and I'll be giving you assignments to reclaim our god's pieces. In return for our assistance...well you should already know that part according to prophecy."

To which Marcus responds “Life everlasting”, which Cole notes is “Ironically already possible… though not exactly the most desirable.” Because vampire.

Before we can go anywhere else with the conversation, however, Nasir somehow senses an attack (probably wards or divinations he’s cast being breached). Cole and Marcus immediately go for their weapons—Marcus an automatic pistol, Cole an assault rifle—before Nasir clarifies that they’re at the cave entrance.

He then tells us that our first job is to eliminate the attackers; on the way, we need to visit a man behind a runed door and tell him that Nasir has called in his favour (no clue what that is), and collect Ooulon, who is to assist the party in their missions.

Cole is rather serious and still until Marcus walks out, after whom he follows. Sinon gives Nasir an informal salute on the way out. Cole and Sinon head for the door, while Marcus heads for Ooulon.

Behind the door, Cole and Sinon meet Wayne, who upon hearing the message informs them that he will be acting as our item vendor, keeping track of us with divinations, and sending his apparently invisible bodyguard to save us if we get in over our heads (only once so far, due to my recklessness and stupidity; we’ll get to that later). Sinon tries to hear the bodyguard moving, and fails. They then head over to Ooulon, and the lot of us head for the cave entrance.

Marcus and Sinon do some looking around through their scopes before everyone heads out, into the midst of a smoke cloud we can see through due to darkvision, but the enemy can’t.

There’s not much to say about the fight itself. Early on in the session, I realised that being a Neutral Good character, as Marcus was, just wasn’t going to fit in this campaign – so I had him drop his rifle, and get into a natural weapon fight with an apparently tamed wolf the attackers were using. Sinon revealed to us how horrifying sniper rifles are in the DM's rules by turning enemies into smears of blood, as well as showing us her shot tricks – retrieving some of her spent ammo and ignoring anything short of total cover (Magery: “I don’t seem to get my critical hits back” Eno: “Probably because they splinter into every orifice of the target.”). Cole showed off his main class feature (anything in a certain area gets ripped apart by an assault rifle), and picks up an enemy’s flamethrower post-battle (comes up later). Marcus got shot by an enemy sniper and became a smear himself, which Cole and Sinon looted (with my blessing). Everyone levels.

When the fight was over, the two surviving party members are beset by a floating pebble, which they attempt to flee from, back into the cave. It follows them and Cole, in a display of his player’s propensity for bad puns, makes one of the best one-liners in the campaign: “My name’s Cole. Not Coal!” The pair slip into Wayne’s store, and hear guards screaming outside.

After explaining the situation to him, Wayne goes out to handle the situation, pulling out a wand. More screaming, and then Wayne returns, informing them that the problem is solved. He explains that it was an SCP, gives a little exposition on what SCPs are, and explains that he teleported the pebble away, as it was apparently indestructible.

The session wraps up there, with some jokes about Marcus’ attempts to gore a wolf, and Magery commenting on the value of animated shields to protect us from snipers (we never do get animated shields, but every character in future buys a Shadow Cloak).

Eno Remnant
2015-11-18, 09:11 AM
Reserved for Mission Two – The Soul Jar of Science (and Gods, Apparently).

Eno Remnant
2015-11-18, 09:13 AM
Reserved for Mission Three - Bringing a Whole New Meaning to Scrying Mirrors.

Eno Remnant
2015-11-18, 09:14 AM
Reserved for Mission Four - Luna's Lunacy.

Eno Remnant
2015-11-18, 09:15 AM
Reserved for Mission Five - Helicopters and Undead and Aberrations, Oh My!

Eno Remnant
2015-11-18, 09:16 AM
Reserved for Mission Six - Matches Don't Work In a Vacuum.

Eno Remnant
2015-11-18, 09:19 AM
You may now post.

I apologise if it seems a bit brief and unstimulating thus far, but I promise it gets better after the first two sessions (which comprise the first mission).

Enjoy, and please share your thoughts - I and the other players would love to hear them!